تاثیر فشارهای نهادی در یکپارچه سازی تأمین کننده و عملکرد مالی: شواهدی از چین

With the rapid development of Chinese manufacturing industry and economy, there is an increasing emphasis on the Chinese institutional environment. In this study, we examine the impact of the three aspects of institutional pressures – normative, mimetic, and coercive – on the two dimensions of supplier integration – system and process – and their impact in turn on financial performance. We test the relationships with data collected from 617 manufacturers in China. Our results show that normative and mimetic pressures are positively related to both system and process integration; while coercive pressures are only positively related to process integration and not significantly related to system integration. The results also indicate that both system and process integration have a positive impact on financial performance. By developing and testing a theoretical model about institutional pressures, supplier integration, and financial performance in the context of the Chinese manufacturing industry, this study contributes to both the institutional and supply chain management literature, as well as providing a better understanding of Chinese manufacturing practices.

Over the past few decades, the benefits of supply chain integration (SCI) such as reduced costs, short cycle time, quick responsiveness, and satisfied customers, have been validated by both academics and practitioners (Frohlich and Westbrook, 2001, Kauremaa et al., 2010, Narasimhan and Kim, 2002, Van der Vaart and Van Donk, 2004, Vickery et al., 2003 and Zhao et al., 2008). Recently, there has been increasing interest in supplier integration (Das et al., 2006, Li et al., 2007, Lockström et al., 2010 and Yeung et al., 2009), because nowadays manufacturers are becoming increasingly reliant on their suppliers to gain competitive advantage (Prajogo et al., 2011, Van Der Vaart and Van Donk, 2008 and Yeung et al., 2009). Supplier integration refers to the extent to which a manufacturer and its suppliers structure interorganizational strategies, systems, and procedures into collaborative, synchronized processes (Flynn et al., 2010 and Stank et al., 2001). Much research has confirmed that supplier integration is crucial to company performance (e.g., Prajogo et al., 2011 and Frohlich and Westbrook, 2001); however, few studies have examined the enablers of supplier integration (Zhao et al., 2008). Institutional pressures have been recognized as factors that influence the adoption of supply chain practices (Lai et al., 2006, Liu et al., 2010, Wong and Boon-itt, 2008, Zhang and Dhaliwal, 2009 and Zhu and Sarkis, 2007). Liu et al. (2010) suggested that “firms are not only economically rational, but also socially rational entities” (p. 381). This implies that when a firm is making a decision on an action, it may conform to institutional pressures from the business environment (e.g., customers, suppliers, industries) to maintain its social legitimacy, instead of only pursuing economic efficiency. From this perspective, transaction cost economics (TCE) fails to consider the significance of social factors, though it is widely used to explain SCI (Zipkin, 2012). Therefore, operations management (OM) and supply chain management scholars have embraced institutional theory, which focuses on social factors, to explain operations such as innovation adoption (Heugens and Lander, 2009, John et al., 2001, Ketokivi and Schroeder, 2004, Liu et al., 2010, Rogers et al., 2007, Teo et al., 2003 and Zsidisin et al., 2005). For example, Rogers et al. (2007) illustrated that “arguments from institutional theory can contribute to a better understanding of the social context of OM and supply chain management strategies” (p. 569). Similarly, Zhang and Dhaliwal (2009) argued that institutional pressures have the potential to shape the way in which companies adopt electronic linkages with their supply chain partners. Though more and more scholars are paying attention to institutional pressures and their social impacts, our literature review indicates that the application of institutional theory in supply chain management, especially in the SCI area, is still limited (John et al., 2001 and Liu et al., 2010). Although few studies investigate the direct relationship between institutional pressures and SCI, some research has examined the indirect impact of institutional pressures on some aspects of SCI (Cai et al., 2010). For example, Zhang and Dhaliwal (2009) examined the influence of institutional factors on firms’ adoption of IT-enabled supply chain operations. Similarly, Liu et al. (2010) investigated the role of institutional pressures in firms’ intention to adopt internet-enabled supply chain management systems. These studies have provided adequate evidence for the influence of institutional factors on firms’ adoption of technology-enabled SCI. However, SCI includes not only the “hard” side of integration, which mainly consists of infrastructures and physical assets (e.g., technology, systems), but also the “soft” side of integration that mainly consists of process and human resources (e.g., processes, relationships). This study intends to develop a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between institutional pressures and supplier integration by classifying supplier integration into system and process integration and investigating the impact of the three aspects of institutional pressures (normative, mimetic, and coercive) on the two dimensions of supplier integration (system and process). Institutional theory argues that firms embedded in social networks perceive strong pressure to conform to institutional expectations to acquire social legitimacy because violations may jeopardize organization performance and existence (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983 and Meyer and Rowan, 1977). From this perspective, scholars have concentrated mostly on social factors when adopting an innovation, while neglecting its economic efficiency. However, Rogers et al. (2007) demonstrated that it is more likely that an innovation adopted in response to institutional pressures also has the potential to generate economic benefits at least to some extent. But to the best of our knowledge, few studies have researched the influence of supplier integration that is driven by institutional pressures on performance. This study proposes and tests a comprehensive institutional pressures–supplier integration–financial performance model. Most previous institutional pressures and SCI studies were conducted in the West; we know little about how this relationship works in Chinese companies (Zhao et al., 2008). Companies in China have experienced rapid development since the economic reforms in the late 1970s, but they are still facing various problems such as poor product quality and high logistics costs, which may be resolved by effective use of supply chain management. However, research on the special role of supplier integration in Chinese companies is still limited. With the rapid development of the Chinese manufacturing industry and economy, there is an increasing focus on the Chinese institutional environment. Recently, many scholars have grounded their research in Chinese companies, such as Zhu and Sarkis (2007), Liang et al. (2007), Hu et al. (2007), Ke et al. (2009), Zhang and Dhaliwal (2009), and Liu et al. (2010). These studies provide a better understanding of how institutional pressures work in China. But the results are inconsistent and the unique Chinese cultural aspects are mainly ignored. China’s culture provides fertile ground for investigating institutional pressures, with its characteristics of collectivism, high power distance, and emphasis on “guanxi” (relationship) and “mianzi” (face). In the collective culture, group interests dominate ( Zhao et al., 2008). Members of the collective culture are more likely to subordinate their personal goals to those of the group ( Briley and Wyer, 2002, Hofstede, 1991, Hofstede, 1984 and Zhao et al., 2008) and place the interests of the collective above their own ( Chow et al., 2000), which lays the foundation for institutional pressures. In addition, the emphasis on guanxi and mianzi makes it much easier to observe the effect of institutional pressures on Chinese companies. For example, a firm may adopt an innovation due to its good guanxi with other members to avoid losing face. Some scholars even argue that despite economic advantages, a supply chain innovation will not be adopted unless the focal firm can access a guanxi ( Yaibuathet et al., 2008). From this perspective, the consideration of Chinese culture acts as a lens to more clearly delineate the role of institutional pressures in Chinese business practices. In conclusion, we need to investigate the impact of supplier integration on financial performance and factors that influence supplier integration, in order to seek ways of breaking the bottleneck in the development of Chinese companies and provide useful guidelines for Chinese manufacturers to succeed. This study addresses two major research questions: (1) How do institutional pressures influence supplier integration? And (2) how does supplier integration influence financial performance? This study contributes to the institutional theory and SCI literature and practices in China. The reminder of this paper is organized as follows: First, the theoretical background and research hypotheses are described. Next, the research methodology is presented, followed by presentation of the analyses and results. Subsequently, managerial implications are discussed. Finally, conclusions are drawn, together with limitations of this study and suggestions for future research.

Based on institutional theory and the extant literature on supply chain practices adoption and implementation, we developed and tested a model of the relationships among institutional pressures, supplier integration, and financial performance in the context of Chinese supply chain management. Our results indicate that institutional pressures are positively related to supplier integration, which is positively related to financial performance. This study contributes to the literature in three ways. First, we extend the previous studies on institutional pressures by limiting pressure sources from a broad population (including customers, suppliers, stakeholders, industries, etc.) to only suppliers. It is evident that when we study the impact of institutional pressures on supplier integration, pressures coming from suppliers are important enablers. Moreover, our study, conceptually and empirically, provides evidence that all three institutional pressures stemming from suppliers can be clearly distinguished. Thus, future research regarding supply chain management should consider institutional pressures coming from only one particular supply chain member. Second, previous studies on institutional theory focused only on its social effects, neglecting its potential to generate economic benefits. Our research adds financial performance to the normal linkage of institutional pressures to innovation adoption and suggests that practices that are enabled by institutional pressures could also have the ability to improve economic performance. Finally, we employ institutional theory in the Chinese context and explain its impacts on supplier integration using aspects unique to Chinese culture. This enriches institutional literature by involving culture in the explanation of institutional pressures. Our findings also contribute to practice. From the perspective of suppliers, Chinese companies are easily influenced by institutional pressures due to the special cultures; thus, suppliers that want to benefit from buyers’ implementation of supplier integration can continually exert institutional pressures on buyers and push them to improve supplier integration. From the perspective of buyers, the implementation of supplier integration indeed has a positive impact on financial performance; thus, although its implementation is pushed by institutional pressures, companies should also place emphasis on supplier integration and provide enough resources to guarantee its successful implementation. In addition, the two dimensions of supplier integration have not experienced equal development in China, although both of them are important for company performance. Thus, managers should pay attention to both system and process integration. From the institutional perspective, coercive pressures have no direct influence on system integration; but they influence system integration through the interactive effect with normative pressures. Thus, coercive and normative pressures should be exerted together when companies are aiming at improving system integration. Overall, our study highlights and validates the importance of supplier integration for Chinese manufacturers to succeed and demonstrates that SCI has become a new trend for Chinese manufacturers to enhance competitive advantages. More importantly, our study illustrates that the institutional environment could serve as a driver for manufacturers to adopt supplier integration, which improves the implementation of SCI in manufacturing industries. Although our study contributes to both theory and practice, it still has some limitations that suggest directions for future research. First, we examined the role of institutional pressures on the implementation of supplier integration and argued that there is a continual influence of institutional pressures on supplier integration using cross-sectional data in China, but we did not use longitudinal data to empirically confirm it. Future research can further examine the different impacts of institutional pressures on supplier integration at different development stages using longitudinal data collected from more regions. Second, a contingency approach may provide more interesting results. Future research could examine the different impacts of institutional pressures on supplier integration in different industries, ownerships, cultures, and regions. Third, this study only examines the impact of supplier pressures on supplier integration, future research can investigate the impact of customer and competitor pressures on supplier integration, and these pressures on other types of SCI, such as internal integration and customer integration. Finally, our study shows that institutional pressures indirectly and ultimately influence financial performance. Thus, we argue that the implementation of an innovation is, on one hand, to pursue social benefits and, on the other hand, to seek economic benefits. But our study did not include social benefits in the model. Future research could include both social and economic benefits to examine the overall influence of institutional pressures.