An Empirical Study On The Influence Of Supply Chain Power On Relationship

With the increasing economic activities globalization and informationtechnology, the market competition is already no longer a contest between individualenterprises, and replaced by the supply chain competition.It is impossible thatcompanies rely on theirselves to gain a firm foothold. Between enterprises, especiallythe relationship between companies in the same supply chain more and more closely,more and more people pay attention to the quality of the relationship between supplychains. However, enterprises are self-interested economic agents.In the process ofmutual cooperation enterprises inevitably exercise their power to influence andcontrol each other’s behavior, which in turn produce a negative or positive impact onthe quality of relationship.Exploring the impact of the power of the supply chain onrelationship quality will help the cooperation properly cultivate and use of power, soas to promote the relations and enhance the quality.Firstly, this article discriminates and defines the basic concepts of coercivepower,non-coercive power,the use of coercive power,the use of non-coercive powerand relationship quality(trust, satisfaction and commitment).The power of the supplychain is the ability of an enterprise in supply chain to influence other companies to goalong with their own decision-making and action. This article combs the study of thepower of the supply chain from resource dependence theory and transaction costtheory. According to Frazier&Summers (1986) classification method, the power ofthe supply chain into coercive power and non-coercive power power. On this basis,the use of supply chain power is divided into the use of coercive power and the use ofnon-coercive power.This paper argues that the quality of the relationship of supply chain is the overall evaluation between the two sides based on the long-terminteraction.The present study generally agree that trust, satisfaction and commitmentcan measure the quality of the relationship of supply chain(Crosby et al.，1990；Smith，1998；Garbarrino&Johnson，1999).Secondly, the theory combs the study of supply chain power,the use of supplychain power and the quality of relationships.Based on previous studies and logicaldeduction,this paper put forward that there is positive relationship betweenrelationship quality and non-coercive power,there is negative correlation betweenrelationship quality and coercive power,enterprises tend to use power when they havethe power,the use of coercive power has negative correlation with the relationshipquality, rather than the use of the non-coercive powers has positive correlationrelationship quality.Besides, this paper has an empirical test of the theoretical model andassumptions.This article is mainly used questionnaires to collect data and collectes atotal of229valid questionnaires. Analyzing the collected data is by means ofdescriptive statistical analysis, reliability analysis, validity analysis, correlationanalysis and regression analysis. This article shows that the results support all theassumptions of the theory.Finally, the results of hypothesis testing are discussed.This article also putsforward that enterprises limited resources should be used to cultivate non-coercivepowers and exercise maximum restraint to use the coercive powers.At last, this articlegives some management recommendations about the theory.The purpose of this research is to explore the coercive power of the supply chainthrough the use of it to influence the relationship quality and non-coercive power toaffect the relationship quality through the use of it. There is many studies about thepower of the supply chain, but relatively few studies on the use of power.Thus, thisstudy will help supplement and improve the theory of the power of supply chain on the relationship quality.This paper explores intermediary role of the use of the powerbetween relationship quality and the power of supply chain. This paper will enrich thestudy zbout the relationships quality and the power of supply chain.