| The purpose of this research is to enhance our understanding of the achievement of operations performance improvements and collective competitive advantage through supply chain management (SCM). Specifically, building upon a context-practices-performance framework, an integrative theoretical model that hypothesized environmental, strategic and social antecedents, components, and performance consequences of SCM implementation was developed.; The theoretical model was examined in the setting of industrial market of clothing in Hong Kong. Data on 123 pairs of buyer-supplier relationships were collected from 63 clothing manufacturers in Hong Kong through a mail survey. Zero-order correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis were undertaken to test the theoretical model.; Findings showed that SCM in the clothing industry encompassed a set of mutually supporting practices that involved (1) sharing of product, purchasing, and sales and inventory information, and (2) integration of business processes between product development and pre-production, purchasing and production, and delivery and distribution. The findings also demonstrated that clothing buyers and their suppliers were motivated to create idiosyncratic investments and implement SCM when (1) they were facing a high level of demand uncertainty; (2) they perceived that each party had complementary, tacit and complex competitive capabilities; and (3) they had developed inter-organizational goodwill trust and competence trust. The reputations of clothing buyers and their suppliers in the industry facilitated the establishment of a good track record of transactions, development of relational norms, and initiation of frequent formal and informal social interactions, which in turn promoted inter-organizational goodwill trust and competence trust. In addition, operations performance improvements and collective competitive advantage could be achieved through successful SCM implementation.; This research helps clothing buyers and their suppliers in Hong Kong to understand the need, incentive, and opportunity to collaborate and implement SCM by recognizing the importance of demand uncertainty, partner firms' complementary competitive capabilities, and social resources embedded in the dyad and the industrial network. Furthermore, this research supports a process-based view of SCM, and provides insights into the social embeddedness of inter-organization collaboration in a supply chain. It also highlights the importance and the need to apply a context-practices-performance framework to examine SCM from a multidisciplinary perspective. |
