تاثیر ادغام تأمین کننده بر یکپارچه سازی مشتری و عملکرد محصول جدید: نقش واسطه تولید انعطاف پذیری بر اساس نظریه اعتماد

The impact of supply chain integration on new product development has been very well studied in literature. However, little literature examines the relationship between supplier integration and customer integration when they influence new product performance. This study aims to explore the complicated relationships among supplier integration, customer integration and new product performance via the mediating roles of manufacturing flexibility and service capability under the trust theory. The research is based on the data from International Manufacturing Strategy Survey (IMSS). It is found that both supplier integration and customer integration had positive direct effects on new product performance. It is also found that supplier integration has a positive impact on customer integration through the mediating role of manufacturing flexibility. The study contributes to supply chain integration by exploring the complicated relationship between supplier integration and customer integration based on the trust theory. It bears implications for both practice and future research.

New product development (NPD) is one of the critical processes by which companies sustain or even increase their competitive advantage (Tessarolo, 2007). Research in NPD field has shown that a number of factors are important to the creation of successful new products, and integration is recognized as one of critical enablers. Integration in NPD takes complex and mixed forms, such as cross-functional team integration, intra-process or concurrent integration, resource integration, supply chain or external integration (Hong et al., 2004). As the benefits of internal integration become more widely acknowledged, the literature is increasingly focusing on the relationship between external supply chain integration and new product development. Previous literature suggested that a company’s ability to integrate its supplier and customer can improve new product performance and business performance (43, 60, 59 and 23). However, the following questions are still needed to be answered in this field. First, recent literature has addressed the importance of customer integration in product development (e.g. 6, 20, 21 and 44). However, it was observed that many companies did not integrate customers successfully in their product development process (78 and 20). One of the important reasons is that customers will consider the inherent risks in integration with manufacturers, such as the loss of know-how to the outsiders, dependence on manufacturers, increased costs of coordination and inflexibility (14 and 20). The existing literature suggested the design of technological tools (such as information system, Internet based communication) and internal integration (such as cross-functional integration) to decrease the risks perceived by customers so as to improve customer integration (28, 61, 17, 78, 26 and 82). Nevertheless, the nature of customer integration is fundamentally a social process so that technological tools cannot solve all of the problems in customer integration (Ragatz et al., 2002). Therefore, it needs to consider other factors besides technologies to improve customer integration in further research. Second, a great deal of effort have been spent on showing how companies that incorporate a customer’s perspective in new product technology decisions developed more successful products (e.g. 6, 21 and 44). Supplier integration is the most common form of supply chain integration, while it is until the past years when supplier integration has received significant attention in new product development efforts (59, 48 and 64). Evidence supporting supplier integration is less clear than evidence on the positive contribution of customer integration, and the influential mechanism of supplier integration in new product development is still largely a “black box” (65 and 64). Therefore, future research will identify and examine how supplier integration affect new product performance (22, 73, 59 and 38). Third, researchers considered supplier integration and customer integration as two distinct concepts and have limited their analyses to integration with customers (6, 21 and 44) or suppliers (14, 33, 38 and 80) in order to ascertain their distinct contribution to performance. A few recent studies have begun to take a broader perspective and consider both the supplier integration and customer integration simultaneously (79, 74, 46, 23 and 13). In fact, customer integration was significantly correlated with supplier integration and the interaction of them had positive impact on firm performance (Lau et al., 2010; 25 and 17). For instance, it is well known that the benefits due to bullwhip-effect reduction are maximized when a high level of customer integration is accompanied by a high level of supplier integration. However, the report on the connection between supplier integration and customer integration in new product development is still very limited. Therefore, an interesting opportunity to improve our understanding of the mechanism of supply chain integration lies in the empirical exploration of relationship between supplier integration and customer integration. To address these gaps, this study explores the relationship between supplier integration and customer integration and their effects on new product performance from the theoretical perspective of trust theory. The nature of customer integration is fundamentally a social process so that technological tools cannot solve all of the problems in customer integration (Ragatz et al., 2002). A partnership in essence is characterized by a long-term commitment and mutual trust between the collaborators (Morgan and Hunt, 1994). Trust is defined as “the belief that one’s partner will act in a predictable manner, will keep his word, and will behave in a way that will not negatively affect the other” (Spekman et al., 2002). When a firm believes the other party is reliable, it is willing to cooperate with them (Morgan and Hunt, 1994). The absence of trust among supply chain members might hinder the activities related to it, and cause problems of free riding, hold-ups, and leakages, which lead to less satisfactory supply chain performance or even supply chain defection (McCarter and Northcraft, 2007). Competence trust and goodwill trust were regarded as two types in buyer–supplier relationships (Sako, 1992). Competence trust reflects confidence in a partner’s ability to fulfill an agreed upon obligation and goodwill trust refers to the expectation that a partner intends to fulfill their role and responsibilities (Das and Teng, 2001). We argue that manufacturing flexibility is one effective way of enhancing competence trust since it is a core competence against uncertain environment for a manufacturer (Narasimhan et al., 2004), and service capability is one effective way of improving goodwill trust because of the social and interaction nature of service (Vargo and Lusch, 2008). Therefore, there may be two potential contributions to the literature on supply chain integration and new product development. First, we combine supplier integration and customer integration in one study and examine their impacts on new product performance. Second, we explore the relationship between supplier integration and customer integration through the mediating roles of manufacturing flexibility and service capability from the theoretical perspective of trust. The rest of the paper is structured as follows. The next section develops the hypotheses. Thereafter the method and the results of the study are presented. The paper ends with a discussion of its theoretical contribution, limitations and future directions, the managerial implications, and a conclusion.

This article has explored the relationships between supplier integration and customer integration and their impacts on new product performance in global manufacturing industries. With reliable and robust IMSS-V data, we find that supplier integration and customer integration have positive effects on new product performance. And supplier integration has positive impact on customer integration through the mediating role of manufacturing flexibility. From an academic perspective, this paper is an important empirical step in research of supply chain integration and new product performance in global manufacturing industries. Furthermore, the method of structural equation modeling is introduced, which may examine the dynamic and complicated relationship between supplier integration, customer integration and new product performance. From a practitioner perspective, our findings suggest supplier integration and customer integration should be emphasized simultaneously in new product development. Managers may also adopt practices of supplier integration first because these practices will enhance customer integration so as to improve new product performance.