| The management and operation of the traditional enterprise exhibited the defect of the slow response to the changes in the market environments, resulting from the increasing environment uncertainties such as technological innovation, the update of resource structure and acquisition mode, the vagaries of customer preference, etc. To improve the competitiveness and adaptability, the survival and development of enterprises show a regional centralization trend, especially the virtual integration of supply chain of local inter-enterprise which participate in the division of global industrial chain. Based on the induction and arrangement of previous research, it can be seen that many research focused on the value creation of virtual integration of supply chain and the relationship between the virtual integration of supply chain and the enterprise performance. However, few researches focuse on the driving factors of supply chain virtual integration. Furthermore, the study that environmental uncertainty and managerial cognition were used as the driving factors of supply chain virtual integration is much weaker. It has great significance in the stability of the inter-enterprise relationship and the improvement of enterprise flexible effectiveness to discuss the driving influence and mechanism of environmental uncertainty and managerial cognition on the supply chain virtual integration in theory.For making up the deficiency of previous researches, this study makes relevant theory and empirical exploration on the basis of some medium-sized and small enterprise in China according to the basic logical framework of "environmental uncertainty and managerial cognition-supply chain virtual integration-enterprise flexible effectiveness". After analysis of the driving influence and mechanism of environmental uncertainty and managerial cognition on the supply chain virtual integration as well as the buffering mechanism of supply chain virtual integration, this study proposes a conceptual model among several variables and the research hypotheses. On that basis, some main conclusions have been formed by the measurement and verification of the whole model obtained from the survey data processing with IBMSPSS20and VisualPLS1.04b1software:(1) The essence of supply chain virtual integration has been revealed through the exploration of the driving influence and mechanism of environmental uncertainty and managerial cognition on the supply chain virtual integration as well as the buffering mechanism of supply chain virtual integration. In fact, the research on the formation reason of supply chain virtual integration is relative lack. Furthermore, few investigations focused on the buffering mechanism of supply chain virtual integration. This study makes up these deficiencies to a certain degree.Concretely speaking, this study firstly analyzes the driving factors of supply chain virtual integration, which included the external driving factor (environmental uncertainty) and the internal driving factor (managerial cognition). The behavior of supply chain virtual integration can be achieved due to the combined action of the external and internal driving factors. Based on the perspective of the evolution of the organizational structure and morphology, the driving influence and mechanism of environmental uncertainty and managerial cognition on the behavior supply chain virtual integration have been discussed in this study. The dynamic matching process between different environmental uncertainty and managerial cognition and different organization structure forms in the different stages of economic development is discussed in detail. On that basis, this study further illustrates the buffering mechanism of supply chain virtual integration. That is to say, this study illustrates in depth that the behavior of supply chain virtual integration is how to respond to the impact of environmental uncertainty by improving Enterprise flexible effectiveness. In order to reveal the nature of buffer mechanism of supply chain virtual integration, the main content and relationship of isolated buffer> coordination buffer and innovation buffer which are formed by supply chain virtual integration are analyzed.(2) The effect of different driving factors (environmental uncertainty and managerial cognition) on the three dimensions (relationship integration, resources integration and knowledge/information integration) of supply chain virtual integration is different. Thus, according to the field research of medium-sized and small enterprises in China, this study examines the effect of environmental threats, environmental complexity, environmental dynamics and managerial cognition on the supply chain virtual integration.For the research hypothesis of the effect of environmental uncertainty on the supply chain virtual integration, the empirical results show that a significant positive correlation existed between two dimensions (environmental threats and environmental complexity) and relationship integration, resource integration and knowledge/information integration. Thus, it can be seen that the driving factors formed from the behavior of supply chain virtual integration include environmental threats and environmental complexity. In the actual operation process, one of the main way to respond to the difficulties in the acquisition of environmental resources (environmental threats) and the environmental complexity is the supply chain virtual integration with other enterprises to improve the enterprise flexible effectiveness and respond to the environmental uncertainty. However, it is important to note that a significant positive correlation just existed in the effect of environmental dynamism on the resource integration. The positive correlation between environmental dynamism and relationship integration, knowledge/information integration is not obvious. Therefore, environmental dynamism has an obvious driving effect on the resource integration. No obvious effect of environmental dynamism on the relationship integration, knowledge/information integration is observed.For the research hypothesis of the effect of managerial cognition on the supply chain virtual integration, the empirical results show that managerial cognition has an obvious positive effect on the relationship integration, resource integration and knowledge/information integration. Thus, the main driving factor of the supply chain virtual integration is the managerial cognition. The combined action of managerial cognition and environmental uncertainty affects the strategic behavior of supply chain virtual integration. Not only environmental uncertainty as external factor but also managerial cognition as internal factor has driving effect on the supply chain virtual integration and the strategic behavior of enterprises.(3) Different dimensions of supply chain virtual integration have different effects on the enterprise flexible effectiveness. For the research hypothesis of the effect of supply chain virtual integration on the enterprise flexible effectiveness, the empirical results show that a significant positive correlation existed in the effect of relationship integration, knowledge/information integration and resource integration on the enterprise flexible effectiveness. Therefore, the enterprise flexible effectiveness can be improved by the supply chain virtual integration to build the mutual beneficial partnership to achieve the exchange of resource and the communication and share of knowledge/information in the actual operation process.(4) The network level has a regulating action with different degrees and orientations in the influence relationship of supply chain virtual integration on the enterprise flexible effectiveness. For the regulating action mentioned above, the empirical results show that the network level has the negative regulating action in the influence relationship of relationship integration on the enterprise flexible effectiveness. However, the network level has the positive regulating action in the influence relationship of resource integration and knowledge/information integration on the enterprise flexible effectiveness. Thus, the higher resource integration and knowledge/information integration is, the larger the enterprise flexible effectiveness is improved. But the enterprise flexible effectiveness will decrease when the relationship with other enterprises is too close.’Based on the conclusions of the theory and empirical research, the motivation and efficient result of supply chain virtual integration are understood comprehensively and deeply. On the basis of previous studies, the main Innovations include some points as follows:(1) Based on the medium-sized and small enterprises in China, this study proposes the motivation of the supply chain virtual integration and the comprehensive conceptual model of efficient result systematically from the perspective of environmental uncertainty of supply chain virtual integration as external driving factor and managerial cognition as internal driving factor. According to previous researches, relatively few investigations that uncertainty and managerial cognition as the driving factor of supply chain virtual integration are found. On the basis of previous researches, this study uses the uncertainty and managerial cognition as the driving factor of supply chain virtual integration to research the formation of supply chain virtual integration drive by driving factors and the effect of supply chain virtual integration on the enterprise flexible effectiveness according to the research approach of "Driving factors of supply chain virtual integration (uncertainty and managerial cognition)-supply chain virtual integration-enterprise flexible effectiveness", which makes up the logic lack in relevant researches.This study uses the degree of supply chain virtual integration (network level) as the adjusting variable to investigate the effect of the degree of supply chain virtual integration on the relationship between the supply chain virtual integration and enterprise flexible effectiveness. Meanwhile, this study proposes that a positive correlation existed in the effect of network level on the supply chain virtual integration and enterprise flexible effectiveness.(2) This study proposes exploratoryly three dimensions of supply chain virtual integration (the relationship integration, resource integration and knowledge/information integration). According to the collection and induction of relevant literature, it finds that the dimension division has matured, which includes customer integration, supplier integration and internal integration. This study brokes the traditional dimension division of supply chain virtual integration and seriously discussed the dimension division of supply chain virtual integration as the supply chain external integration. Furthermore, the dimension of supply chain virtual integration is divided into relationship integration, resource integration and knowledge/information integration according to the relevant theory about social logic viewpoint, knowledge-based view and organizational learning.(3) Based on the perspective of the evolution of organization structure, the driving effect and mechanism of environmental uncertainty and managerial cognition on the supply chain virtual integration is discussed systematically. According to previous literature, most researches focused on the endogenous influence factor of the supply chain virtual integration. In fact, the supply chain virtual integration varied with the environments where organization is. The basis evaluation criterion of the effective organization is the matching with external environments. With the variation of the degree of environmental uncertainty, we deeply understand the formation process of supply chain virtual integration by focusing on the variation of organization structure and the evolution of the building of new relationship or the cancel of previous relationship. Based on the character of environmental uncertainty and the results of managerial cognition, it is necessary to explore the role of driving factor acted by environmental uncertainty and managerial cognition in the process of virtual integration. Thus, we broaden the research of evolution such as dual relation and node logic on the basis of the recognition of environmental uncertainty and managerial cognition. Based on previous research, the driving effect and mechanism of environmental uncertainty and managerial cognition on the supply chain virtual integration are discussed by seeking the influence of environmental uncertainty and managerial cognition on the supply chain virtual integration.(4) The buffering mechanism of supply chain virtual integration has been studied exploratoryly. Most previous researches focuse on the value creation of supply chain virtual integration. In fact, the supply chain virtual integration is also an efficient measure to buffer or adapt the uncertainty impact. The enterprises can provide the critical resource that the competition needs by building the relation with other organizations to respond to the increasing uncertainty in the increasing uncertainty environments. Thus, this study structures a relatively complete analytical framework that the supply chain virtual integration buffers the uncertainty. Furthermore, three buffering mechanism (isolation, coordination and innovation) induced by supply chain virtual integration have been discussed systematically. Concretely speaking, with three endogenous dimensions (inter-enterprise relationship integration, resource integration and knowledge/information integration) as the motivation and the organizational learning and interface rules as the way, this study builds three buffering mechanism (isolation mechanism, coordination mechanism and innovation mechanism) to improve the enterprise flexible effectiveness and buffer the impact to enterprises induced by environmental uncertainty. |
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