Research On The Relationship Between Enterprise’s Key Supplier Network Embeddedness And Purchasing Performance

Core resources and capabilities are enterprises’ foundations of long-term competitionadvantage. In the condition of network economy, core resources may exist in the outside ofthe enterprise. Getting outside core resources and improving transferring efficiency becomefocus of managers. In new competition environment, enterprises’ key supplier networks arethe important suppliers of core resources and the most important suppliers are the first-orderkey supply networks. Effective management of the key supply networks is the basic guaranteeto improve competition advantage.To aim at Chinese manufacturing enterprise actual condition of acquiring outside coreresources, the study integrates resource-based theory, interorganizational relational theory andnetwork embeddedness theory to develop research. The dissertation studies purchasingproblem from the view of key supplier network embeddedness. The study aims to study therelations between trust, information sharing, link strength of purchasing enterprises and theirkey suppliers, network centrality of purchasing enterprise and enterprises’ purchasingperformance and effect process.On the basis of sorting out related papers, the study extracts dimensions of the studyingvariables, which include: key supply network embeddedness (trust, information sharing, linkstrength, supplier network centrality), supply chain response (key supplier response,consumer response from purchasing enterprise to key supplier), enterprise’s purchasingperformance (purchasing cost performance, purchasing time performance, purchasing qualityperformance) and environment uncertainty. Trust and information between purchasingenterprise and key suppliers express social relationship. Link strength between purchasingenterprise and key suppliers expresses social contact. Enterprise’s supplier network centralityexpresses economic relationship more. According to the discussion of relations between keysupply network embeddedness, supply chain response, purchasing performance andenvironment uncertainty, considering interview results, the study build research conceptualmodel and proposes28hypotheses. According to results of theoretical research and depthview, the study investigated embeddedness of manufacturing enterprise and their one-tiersuppliers. The author made an investigation in the Pearl River Delta region and acquired206manufacturing enterprise samples. The study tested the hypotheses using the Amos17.0andSPSS17.0analysis software.Through the empirical study, the study found following results:(1) Trust, informationbetween purchasing enterprise and key suppliers, supply network centrality of purchasing enterprise are all have positive effect on purchasing performance. Link strength betweenpurchasing enterprise and key suppliers has indirect positive effect on purchasingperformance.(2) Trust, information between purchasing enterprise and key suppliers, suppliernetwork centrality of purchasing enterprise are all have positive effect on key supplierresponse. Link strength between purchasing enterprise and key suppliers has indirect positiveeffect on key supplier response. Trust, information between purchasing enterprise and keysuppliers are both have positive effect on purchasing enterprise’s consumer response to keysuppliers. Link strength between purchasing enterprise and key suppliers has indirect positiveeffect on purchasing enterprise’s consumer response to key suppliers.(3) Key supplierresponse mediates the relationship between trust, information, supplier network centrality ofpurchasing enterprise and purchasing performance. Purchasing enterprise’s consumerresponse to key suppliers mediates the relationship between trust, information and purchasingperformance.(4) Environment uncertainty has a positive mediating role in the relationshipbetween trust, information, link strength and key suppliers’ response. Environmentuncertainty has a positive mediating role in the relationship between information, linkstrength and purchasing enterprise’s consumer response to key suppliers.The innovation of this research lies in the following parts:First, the study verified that the social relationship and economic relationship betweenpurchasing enterprise and the first-order key suppliers are coexisted. Social relationship andeconomic relationship are both effecting purchasing process and purchasing performance, andthe effect of social relationship is more than economic relationship.Secondly, the dissertation explores the affecting process of supplier networkembeddedness. The study firstly puts forward the mediating affects of supply chain responseon the relationships between supplier network embeddedness and purchasing performance,which deepens the knowledge of supplier network affecting purchase mechanism.Thirdly, the dissertation proposes that supply chain response include supplier responseand purchasing enterprise’s consumer response to supplier. The study has proposed and testedthe mediating role of key supplier response and purchasing enterprise’s consumer respone tokey supplier in the relationship between supply network embeddedness and purchasingperformance.Fourthly, based on consumer response scale, the study develops enterprise consumerresponse scale, which lays the foundation of future research on enterprise consumer response.Fifthly, in the cooperation between purchasing enterprise and key suppliers, environmentuncertainty has been proposed and tested firstly as moderate in the relationship between key supplier network embeddedness and supply chain response.