An Empirical Study Of The Relationship Between Social Network、Flexible Supply Chain And Enterprise Performance

The application of social capital and social networks in businessorganizations has become a hot topic in oversea scholarly circles since late1990s. And in the year of2002, the study of social networks in the corporatelevel had been picked up by more and more domestic scholars, whileresearches into flexible supply chain had just started. It explains the specialattention for social networks and flexible supply chain that it has becomeincreasingly vital for corporates to accommodate themselves to the changes inmarket by virtue of social networks and flexible supply chain and to buildcompetitive advantage with limited resources and abilities in a dynamicbusiness environment and intense competition. Based on the study of socialand flexible supply chain, this paper first summarizes the findings of previousstudies into the relations among social network, flexible supply chain and firmperformance， and then made an empirical research before adoptingexploratory factor analysis and structural equation modeling to explore thedynamics among social network, flexible supply chain and firm performance.After scale purification and reliability analysis with small sample test,measurement items that do not comply with the research are deleted. Then alarge sample statistics analysis is carried out by giving out questionnaire with224available collected and conducting abrivariate path analyses withstructural equation model established with SPSS and AMOS. And as a finalstep, mediating effect is tested. The major findings of this research are: thereis a significant positive effect of social networks and flexible supply chain onfirm performance; flexible supply chain plays the rule of partial mediationbetween social networks and firm performance; there are two factors in theeffects of flexible supply chain, namely resources flexibility and capabilityflexibility. Varied flexibilities have different effects on firm performance.And also varied dimensionalities have different effects on firm performance,among them Social network relationships passes a highest path coefficient, indicating a necessity to cultivate networks perceptive, build open andflexible corporate culture, reduce networks rigidity and avoid felicity traps,promote the mutual cooperation and merge and establish flexible networks aswell as networked flexibility while companies effort to enhance the flexibilityof its supply chain.