Exploring the Importance of Business Clockspeed as a Moderator for Determinants of Supplier Network Performance*

Abstract

As the importance of supplier networks becomes increasingly recognized as a vital factor to company performance, researchers and practitioners alike are focusing their attention on this subject. The study's main objective is to test the specific hypotheses that effective use of Information Technology (IT) and the depth of company relationships with suppliers are directly related to Supplier Network (SN) performance, and that industry clockspeed moderates these relationships. A convenience sample of 135 manufacturing organizations was used to empirically test these hypotheses. Our results indicate that clockspeed does moderate the relationship between IT use effectiveness and supplier network performance. The same is true in the case of supplier relations depth, and hence, managers are encouraged to pay attention to the items comprising network performance as a determinant of supplier network performance.

The reinforcing effect of a firm's customer orientation and supply-base orientation on performance

“…It allows for changing the overall mix of available resources and skills (Geringer & Hebert, 1991) and detecting and addressing operational issues early in the production process (Ragatz, Handfield, & Scannell, 1997). Substantial cost savings can be achieved, such as fewer suppliers to contact and increased economies of scale (Chen et al, 2004;Guimaraes, Cook, & Natarajan, 2002).…”

Inter-organizational cooperation in buyer–supplier relationships: Both perspectives

“…In the telecommunication device market, predicting which technology standards or services will dominate in the future is not easy. Rapid change in technology requires companies to process more information, which increases uncertainty for a company (Guimaraes et al, 2002).…”

An investigation of moderators of the link between technology use in the supply chain and supply chain performance

“…The research strategies for examining the relationship between SCM and IT range from surveys [e.g., 10], to case studies [e.g., 4], and simulations [e.g., 16]. A comparison of research models shows that some [e.g., 25], have looked for direct links between IT use in the supply chain and performance gains, while others have modeled the presence of mediators [24] and moderators [3,23] as qualifiers of the relationship between the two constructs.…”