ارتباطات درون سازمانی به عنوان صلاحیت رابطه ای: متقدمان و عملکرد در روابط مشارکتی خریدار تامین کننده

Inter-organizational communication has been documented as a critical factor in promoting strategic collaboration among firms. In this paper, we seek to extend the stream of research in supply chain management by systematically investigating the antecedents and performance outcomes of inter-organizational communication. Specifically, inter-organizational communication is proposed as a relational competency that may yield strategic advantages for supply chain partners. Using structural equation modeling, we empirically test a number of hypothesized relationships based on a sample of over 200 United States firms. Our results provide strong support for the notion of inter-organizational communication as a relational competency that enhances buyers’ and suppliers’ performance. Implications for future research and practice are offered.

That communication is the essence of organizational life has been well documented by communication and management scholars and practitioners (e.g., Fulk and Boyd, 1991, Reinsch, 2001 and Yates and Orlikowski, 1992). Similarly, literature in relationship marketing has recognized how collaborative communication is critical to fostering and maintaining value-enhancing inter-organizational relationships (e.g., Anderson et al., 1994, Mohr and Nevin, 1990, Mohr et al., 1996 and Schultz and Evans, 2002). Reflecting its centrality to business performance, one business executive asserted, “communication is as fundamental to business as carbon is to physical life” (Reinsch, 2001, p. 20). Operations management researchers have also documented how inter-organizational communication enhances buyer–supplier performance (e.g., Carr and Pearson, 1999, Carter and Miller, 1989, Claycomb and Frankwick, 2004, Newman and Rhee, 1990, Prahinksi and Benton, 2004 and Cousins and Menguc, 2006). However, such work has remained disjointed, largely anecdotal, and without a strong theoretical underpinning. In empirical studies, researchers have typically considered communication as a facet of a broader construct, such as supply management (e.g., Chen et al., 2004), or examined the extent to which the use of select communication strategies by buyer firms enhances supplier firm operational performance (e.g., Prahinksi and Benton, 2004). What has not been systematically investigated is the extent to which communication between buyer and supplier firms mediates the links among key antecedents and outcome variables within a coherent theoretical framework. Such an investigation is needed in order to advance theory building and empirical testing in supply chain management. With this goal in mind, we develop a conceptual model linking key antecedents and outcomes of inter-organizational communication within the context of collaborative buyer–supplier relationships. Drawing on the relational view of strategic management ( Dyer and Singh, 1998), we conceptualize inter-organizational communication as a relational competency, which mediates the links between several antecedent and outcome variables for buyer and supplier firms. Using structural equation modeling, we provide a holistic test of the hypothesized relationships ( Bagozzi et al., 1991), and document the extent to which the empirical evidence concerning the strategic role of inter-organizational communication is cumulative. We believe the relational view of strategic management provides the relevant theoretical framework for the present investigation for at least three reasons. First, the relational view takes the inter-organizational level of analysis and addresses the extent to which relational capabilities form the basis of durable strategic advantages ( Dyer and Singh, 1998, Kanter, 1994, Lado et al., 1997 and Madhok and Tallman, 1998). This theoretical perspective extends the “resource-based view” (RBV), a firm-level theory of sustained competitive advantage ( Barney, 1991 and Wernerfelt, 1984). Taken together these perspectives provide a robust theoretical framework for explaining how strategic advantage is gained or lost based largely on endogenous strategic factors. Second, users of the relational view examine how relational competencies, enable firms to gain and sustain collaborative advantage ( Kanter, 1994). In contrast, users of the RBV focus on explaining how firm-specific resources and capabilities characterized by value, rareness, imperfect imitability, and non-substitutability form the basis of sustained competitive advantage (e.g., Barney, 1991). Finally, the relational view places a premium on behavioral phenomena, such as inter-organizational communication as the drivers of firm performance. Thus, by viewing inter-organizational communication as a relational competency and empirically investigating its mediating role in the links between key antecedents and outcomes, we seek to gain a better understanding of the strategic importance of this construct within the context of buyer–supplier relationships. In the following section, we briefly review literature in the relational view to provide a theoretical backdrop to our proposed model of the antecedents and outcomes of inter-organizational communication. Then, we develop the theoretical rationale of our proposed model, drawing on related research in strategic management, operations management, and marketing, among others. In Section 3, we explain our research methodology, including data collection procedure, construct operationalization and measurement, hypothesis testing and results. Section 4 presents discussion and implications of the study findings. In Section 5, we highlight some limitations of the study and offer suggestions for future research.

In this study, we have sought to advance theory and research in supply chain management by developing a parsimonious model of antecedents and outcomes of inter-organizational communication. The empirical findings in support of the hypothesized relationships corroborate our main theoretical assertion that inter-organizational communication can be viewed as a relational competency that yields strategic advantage for the collaborating firms. From a practical viewpoint, this study shows that building collaborative communication skills or competencies can have direct, positive effects on the bottom lines of the supply chain partners. Additionally, interorganizational communication functions as an important mediating construct that has different effects on outcomes for supplier and buyer firms. For supplier firms, this finding suggests that merely adopting a long-term relationship orientation is necessary but not sufficient for achieving strategic advantage. Furthermore, managers of supplier firms would need to hone skills for effective communication in order to fully reap the benefits of long-term relationships with buyer firms. For the buyer firms, establishing a network form of governance may not be sufficient for achieving strategic advantage; such a governance form may only engender strategic advantage through providing an inter-organizational context that is conducive to collaborative communication. Thus, a nuanced understanding of the roles of these factors in shaping an inter-organizational exchange context that is conducive to collaborative communication is key to effectively managing buyer–supplier relationships for mutual benefits. At this juncture, we should acknowledge some limitations of our study that would provide opportunities for further research. Although our model of communication has the advantage of parsimony, it might also sacrifice breath and richness of explanation. Thus, in the future, researchers should include other factors such as geographic dispersion ( Jones et al., 1997), and cultural compatibility ( Teece et al., 1994) that could influence communication among supply chain partners. Also, the role of trust and commitment in directly facilitating inter-organizational communication and enhancing transaction value should be explicitly assessed. Furthermore, in testing the hypothesized relationships using covariance-based SEM we assumed, in line with prior research in operations management (e.g., Chen et al., 2004 and Prahinksi and Benton, 2004), that all the measures used to tap the selected variables were “reflective” rather than “formative.” In the future, researchers might consider testing the hypothesized relationships using other SEM approaches, such as partial least squares (PLS) that are better suited for investigating formative constructs ( Diamantopoulos and Winklhofer, 2001). Another limitation of this research relates to the sample population. Having drawn from a list of ISM members, the results of this research are generalizable only to the firms included in the ISM database. Although this study sample covered a wide range of firms in the ISM database in terms of industry membership and demographic variables, we suggest that future research include a mixed population of respondents from multiple sources, including service firms, as well as domestic and international companies in order to increase the scope of generalizability of the results. Finally, this study focused on the dyadic relationship as the unit of analysis, and assumed the buying firm's perspective. Since the supplier also plays a significant role in affecting the quality of the dyad, there is a need to examine the exchange relationship from the supplier's perspective as well. Therefore, we urge future researchers to adopt the “strategic network” (Gulati et al., 2000) as a unit of analysis and investigate the antecedents and outcomes of communication from multiple viewpoints. Despite these limitations, we believe that this study makes a compelling case for viewing inter-organizational communication as a critically important relational competency that can be leveraged for mutual gains within collaborative buyer–supplier relationships.