Study On The Impact Of Relationship Capital On Supply Chain Quality Integration And Green Supply Chain Management

With the increasingly fierce market competition and generally enhanced environmental awareness of the whole society, consumer demands on quality and environment of products become more and more harsh. And therefore "Made in China" is controversial in the international market, many Chinese domestic manufacturing enterprise have been excluding from the list of suppliers of multinational corporations. Against this background, continously quality and environmental improvement from the whole supply chain has become an important weapon to successfully deal with challenges. However, how exactly does the firm to effectively implement quality and environmental improvement in supply chain is still lacking of systematic research, for which is necessary to nvestigate in order to guide firm pratice.Focusing on the basic question of "how to better improve quality and environment under the context of the supply chain", comprehensively utlizing social capital theory, resource-based view, relationship view and organizational capability view, following the logic of "resource-→capacity-→performance", from the ternary perspective of "supplier—focal firm—customer", we empirically analyzes the impact mechanism of relationship capital on supply chain quality integration, green supply chain management and firm performance with data of308manufacturing enterprise in eastern China, and includes the following three sub-studies:In sub-study1, we empirically explores the relationship path of "relationship capital→supply chain quality integration→operational performance" as well as the mediating role of supply chain quality integration and the moderating effect of quality orientation using partial least squares structural equation-modeling and hierarchical regression analysis. The results show that supplier relationship capital and customer relationship capital all have a significant positive impact on supply chain quality integration, and internal relationship capital also has a significant positive impact on supplier quality integration and internal quality integration; what is more, the stronger quality-oriented of the firm, the stronger the positive impact of supplier relationship capital and customer relationship capital on supplier quality integration and customer quality integration, and also internal relationship capital on internal quality integration. Supply chain quality integration all have a significant positive impact on cost performance and service performance. Meanwhile, the relationship between supplier relationship capital and cost performance is partially mediated by supply chain quality integration, the relationship between internal relationship capital and cost performance with service performancehas are fully mediated by supplier quality integration and internal quality integration, and the relationship between customer relationship capital and service performance are fully mediated by supply chain quality integration.In sub-study2, we empirically explores the relationship path of " relationship capital→green supply chain management→financial performance" as well as the mediating role of green supply chain management and the moderating effect of environmental orientation using partial least squares structural·equation·modeling and hierarchical regression analysis. The results show that supplier relationship capital has a significant positive effect on green procurement and internal green management, internal relationship capital also has a significant positive effect on internal green management, and customer relationship capital has a significant positive effect on green supply chain management; and that, the stronger environmental-oriented of the firm, the stronger the positive effect of supplier relationship capital and internal relationship capital on green procurement, internal relationship capital on internal green management, and customer relationship capital and internal relationship capital on customer green cooperation. Green procurement and internal green management all have a significant positive effect on financial performance, but customer green cooperation has no effect on financial performance. Meanwhile, green procurement and internal green management partially mediated the relationship between supplier relationship capital and financial performance, green procurement fully mediated the relationship between customer relationship capital and financial performance, and internal green management fully mediated the relationship between internal relationship capital, customer relationship capital and financial performance.In sub-study3, we explores the impact path of "supply chain quality integration→green supply chain management" using partial least squares structural equation-modeling. The results show that supplier quality integration has a significant positive influence on green supply chain management, and internal relationship capital has a significant positive influence on internal green manangement, customer relationship has a significant positive influence on internal green management and customer green cooperation.The paper builds the research framework of "relationship capital→(supply chain quality integration→green supply chain management)→firm performance", and its main theoretical contributions are as the following four points. Firstly, analysis of the structural dimension of relationship capital under the cirmustance of supply chain and establishment of the corresponding measurement scale, which helps to supplement and improve the theory of relationship capital, and to promote research on supply chain relationship capital in China. Secondly, based on social capital theory and resource-based theory, we analyze and test the relationship capital antecedents and firm performance mechanism of supply chain quality integration and green supply chain management, which answers the question about how does the firm implement quality and environmental improvement in supply chain to some extent. Thirdly, based on resource-based analytical framework of VRIO, we explore the moderating role of quality orientation and environment orientation in the relationship between relationship capital and supply chain quality integration with green supply chain management, which enrichs and expands the scenario effect of strategic orientation and the mechanism of relationship capital in existing research, and further answers the question of "how to better improve quality and environment in supply chain". Fourthly, based on organizational capability theory, we discuss the impact mechanism of supply chain quality integration on green supply chain management, which further answers the question of "how can quality and environmental improvement be collaboratively achieved", thus highlighting quality and environmental collaborative management thought in supply chain, and provide theoretical basis and empirical evidence for guiding the practice of supply chain quality integration and green supply chain management.