Creating supply chain relational capital: The impact of formal and informal socialization processes

Abstract

Establishing closer social ties between buying and supplying organizations is increasingly cited as a critical differentiator of high and low performers in global supply chains. While the creation of relational capital within an organization is a relatively well identified concept in organizational research, comparatively little research exists on the inter-organizational socialization processes that create relational value in supply chains. In our research, we extend theoretical models of group social conduits into this context, and develop a model that posits the impact of formal and informal socialization processes on the creation of relational capital between buyers and suppliers. Results from our study of 111 manufacturing organizations in the United Kingdom suggest that informal socialization processes are important in the creation of relational capital, which in turn can lead to improved supplier relationship outcomes. Formal bridging socialization conduits appear to play a lesser role in deriving these benefits. #

Institutional distance and knowledge acquisition in international buyer-supplier relationships: The moderating role of trust

“…Based on Nielsen and Nielsen's (2009) notion that both partners' perceptions are symmetrically important in reflecting facets of relational exchanges in crossborder collaborations, we applied mutual-dimensional items to assess mutual trust as the extent to which partners interact and communicate with each other in a respectful manner (Cousins, Handfield, Lawson, & Petersen, 2006;Liu et al, 2010).…”

Cruise ship suppliers: A field study of the supplier relationship characteristics in a service supply chain

“…We conducted our field study through the lens of organizational socialization theory (J. E. Van Maanen & Schein, 1977), building on previous research on the impact of socialization on supply chain management from Cousins and Menguc (2006) as well as its impact on supplier relations from Cousins, Handfield, Lawson, and Petersen (2006) and service quality from the work of Cronin and Taylor (1992); Parasunaman, Zeithaml, and Berry (1985); Parasunaman, Zeithaml, and Berry (1988), and on SERVQUAL and its implications. The nature of these relationships and their attributes are however perceived with some variance.…”

A knowledge-based view of the extending enterprise for enhancing a collaborative innovation advantage

“…In fact, the conceptualisation of the EE has not been followed by a framework identifying critical collaboration factors, their interactions, and how they contribute to the EE success. All of these factors can be explored through the social capital theory, which has been applied in operations literature to explain buyer performance in terms of operational performance outcomes such as cost, quality, lead time, flexibility, and delivery (Cousins et al, 2006;Krause et al, 2007;Squire et al, 2009;Lawson et al, 2008). The adoption of social capital theory could help scholars to explain how the extending enterprise manages its network of relationships from a structural, relational and cognitive perspective in order to enhance knowledge flows and foster higher performance in the NPD process.…”