Supplier Concentration,commercial Credit Financing And Firm Growth

China is a large manufacturing country and the Chinese manufacturing industry is in the transition stage of high growth.Maintaining high growth of enterprises is an inevitable requirement to improve their competitiveness,while high growth of enterprises is inseparable from enterprise growth.Enterprise growth is the ability of an enterprise to bring about growth in enterprise value through the optimisation of changes in production factors in its development.High growth will not only improve the country’s ability to develop its economy in the future,but also maintain the stability of enterprise development,so how to maintain high growth in manufacturing enterprises is an issue that needs to be addressed urgently at this stage.However,influenced by some uncertainties,the growth rate of enterprises is decreasing instead of rising,which is not only detrimental to the stability of the competitive position of enterprises,but also to their long-term development.As a more direct external stakeholder,suppliers have an impact on the stability and profitability of a company’s production and operation.However,few studies have examined the role of supplier concentration on firm growth from a supply chain perspective.In addition,the growth of a company cannot be achieved without financial support,and commercial credit financing,as an alternative financing method for companies,can facilitate the filling of funds needed for the development of a company.Existing scholars have found that increased supplier concentration reduces the bargaining power of firms and may affect the size of credit financing obtained from suppliers,which in turn affects firm growth.However,the impact of commercial credit financing in the relationship between supplier concentration and firm growth remains to be investigated.Based on this,this paper investigates the impact of supplier concentration on firm growth and the mechanism of commercial credit financing in the relationship between supplier concentration and firm growth based on resource dependence theory,transaction cost theory,bargaining power theory and stakeholder.The study shows that:(1)supplier concentration significantly inhibits firm growth.(2)Supplier concentration significantly inhibits commercial credit financing.(3)Commercial credit financing plays a part in mediating the relationship between supplier concentration and firm growth.(4)By differentiating the nature of ownership,the inhibitory effect of supplier concentration on firm growth was found to be more significant in non-SOEs than in SOEs.(5)Distinguishing between different levels of product market competition,we find that supplier concentration has a significant inhibitory effect on firm growth at different levels of product market competition,and the inhibitory effect of supplier concentration on firm growth is stronger for firms with low product market competition.(6)Distinguishing between different financing constraints,it is found that supplier concentration has a stronger inhibitory effect on firm growth in firms with high financing constraints than in firms with low financing constraints.Finally,based on the above findings,suggestions are made on how to improve supplier relationship management and promote business growth from the government and business management levels,and research outlook is presented.