貿易商在持續不斷透明化、全球化的成熟市場之中，外部環境競爭加劇，中介角色嚴重被侵蝕，本研究嘗試有別於過去文獻以資訊和信任為基礎的中介研究，而以資產專屬觀點，詮釋並歸納在交易事件中，貿易商以發掘交易缺口為起點，善用買賣雙方怕被對方專屬的疑慮，進行專屬資產承擔(Specific Assets Undertaking, SAU)，來銜接交易缺口、增加及深化價值活動的種類、發揮新交易的方向。貿易商運用這些專屬資產持續不斷的進行交易缺口銜接、深化價值活動、發揮新交易的方向，分攤先前投入的專屬資產，促使中介成本不斷降低。

換言之，過去交易成本理論以買賣雙方為基礎，以專屬資產去影響選擇市場或組織層級的模式轉換，本研究進一步提出買賣雙方之外的專業第三方(貿易商)，透過策略專屬資產承擔，接著採取上述三類作法的三造討論情境，在買賣雙方契約成本為常數的假設前提下，若貿易商作為第三方替買賣雙方投入專屬資產以提升交易效率，又能不斷分攤專屬資產的成本，則中介成本持續低於買賣雙方的契約成本，以利貿易商提升中介地位。

Amid of increasingly market transparency, market maturity, and accelerating of globalization, intermediary status of a trading firm is relentlessly and severely deteriorated. Comparing to extant research of information asymmetry economics and/or trust, my study adopts theoretical lens of asset specificity to corroborate how a large-scale trading firm enhances its intermediary status. To initiate the transaction by discovery of transaction gaps, a trading firm takes the chance of buyer-seller‘s worries of being held-up if unilateral transaction-specific assets investment is required. Undertaking specific assets, trading firm secures its status by three strategic actions: Bridging Transactional Gaps, Deepening Value Activities and Developing New Transaction Directions. When trading firm continuously utilizes the invested specific assets in performing the previous stated three actions, the costs of invested transaction-specific assets would be amortized, which further lowers intermediary costs.

In a sense, the view of typical transaction cost theory is based on a dyad composed of buyer-seller to discuss how asset specificity influences market-hierarchy mode transformation. This study extends the dyad to a triad context, by adding a third-party, namely, a trading firm, which proposes strategic specific assets undertaking (SAU) to improve the transaction efficiency. Moreover, if a third-party trading firm could reimburse its specific assets investment to lower its intermediary costs, assuming buyer-seller transaction costs remain constant, and keep the former always under the latter (i.e. contractual costs), this eventually helps a third party trading firm enhances its intermediary status.

中文部分
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