An Empirical Study On The Influence Of Manufactory-Intermediary Relationship Quality On Export Performance Of Chinese Industrial Enterprises

In the tide of globalization and information technology, confronted with the dramatica changing outer environment, the enterprises are confronted with drastic challenges, and the marketing channel has become the key factor in the market. A single enterprise cannot rely solely on its internal competencies for achieving competitive advantages. The opportunities for the enterprises, nowadays and in the future, will probably be shift to the cooperation between enterprises. Therefore, many researchers began to study the relationship between channel relationship and performance. As for Chinese industrial enterprises that carry out exporting trade, the marketing channel is more important because of the deficiency in product development, funds and talents. This study is one part of a project named"Successful factors study of Chinese industrial enterprises which enter international market", and my supervisor is in charge of this project.This paper studies the relationship between channel relationship quality and export prformance. The relationship quality dimension consists of 6 factors, namely trust, cooperation, communication quality, information sharing, commitment and guanxi. This paper also explores the different influences, if any, of relationship quality on export performance because of different export ways and different cooperation period with export distributors. Such kind of study is somewhat novel and not very common in the present management field in China. We use structural equation modeling (SEM) and univariate analyse in this paper. The sample is Chinese industrial enterprises.After doing two-stage study, i.e. pilot study and large sample study, and testing the reliability and the validity of variables in this paper, a SEM about channel relationship quality and export performance is established and analyzed. We found that trust, communication quality, information sharing and commitment affect the export performance positively. Meanwhile we find the export way and cooperation period with distributor will affect the relationship between the relationship quality factors and export performance. That is, trust has greater influence on export performance in the enterprises that have overseas marketing branches, compared with enterprises that export through overseas agents; trust has greater influence on export performance if enterprises have a longer cooperation period with export distributors.As this is the first try of empirical study of channel relationship quality and...