An Empirical Study On The Relation Of Collaborative Relationship, Supply Chain Effect And Business Performance

Mass markets are continuing to fragments as customers become increasing demanding and their expectations rise. Neither price nor quality are the only standards that affects customers' choice, high quality and customized products and service, right and timely delivery and rapid new product introduction, are being emphasized as the main means to obtain customers and competitive capability. These developments have caused a major revision of business priorities and strategic vision. In the practice, companies have realized that the construction of supply chain is essential for their survival and competitiveness. What's more, the co-operation among partners is absolutely necessary. Some academic literatures indicated that good collaborative relationship among enterprises can improve business performance and supply chain effect, but there are not empirical researches to support its influencing effect and functionary path in the setting of supply chain. This paper will discuss them.Based on the data of pilot study and large-sample, this paper studied the structure of variable of collaborative relationship, supply chain effect and business performance. Finally, the variables of four-items collaborative relationship (trust, commitment, co-operation and adaptation ) and two-items business performance ( obvious performance and latent performance) and six-items supply chain effect are constructed. While estimating the measurement model, this paper confirms the structural validity of every variable by the confirmatory factor analysis. Through the methods of structural equation full model, nester-model and bivariate model, this paper studied the five hypothesis and draws conclusions that in the setting of supply chain, collaborative relationship has a significant and positive effect on supply chain effect and business performance, supply chain effect can not only lead to high level of the business performance, but also have a partial mediate effect between collaborative relationship and the business performance.Based on the bivariate model, we found that trust and co-operation factors belonged to collaborative relationship and the variable of supply chain effect had a significant and positive effect on obvious performance and latent performance, trust and adaptation factors had a same effect on supply chain effect. So we drawn a conclusion that trust between enterprises is one of the most important factors in maintaining their relationship. The conclusion of this study will be helpful for domestic companies to building and managing the supply chain and it suggests that when building supply chain, domestic companies must attach importance to the fostering of relationship, enhance the trust, co-operation and adaptation between enterprises, and carry out the commitment more effectively. Meanwhile being conformed in this study, the indicators of collaborative relationship, supply chain effect and business performance are helpful for future related research.