The Effect Of Environmental Uncertainty,Asset Specificity And Dependence On "Guanxi":Based On The Data From China's Third Party Logistics

With the increasing competition in the market,more and more enterprises have outsourced their logistics business in order to focus on their core competitiveness,so the third party logistics get rapid development.However,the third party logistics industry is still in the development stage in China,both the service capacity and operational efficiency have to be improved.In particular,the logistics costs in China remain high.Therefore,it is essential to improve efficiency and reduce costs for China's third party logistics industry to develop healthy.Third party logistics providers not only need to reduce operating costs,but also need to reduce the logistics transaction costs.Some research shows that effective transaction relationship management is an important way to reduce transaction costs,therefore,China's third party logistics providers need to manage the relationship with customers to reduce costs.Western countries rely on the systematic trust and commitment of the organization to manage the relationship,but in China the organization always rely on"Guanxi" to manage the relationship,"Guanxi" is a management strategy based on the characteristics of Chinese culture."Guanxi" emphasizes the use of private relations between corporate executives and border personnel.A large number of studies have shown that "Guanxi" plays a key role in China's commercial activities and is an important source of competitive advantage.However,the literature of third party logistics is rarely related to"Guanxi".Therefore,this paper studies the role of"Guanxi" in the relationship management of third party logistics.Specifically,this paper firstly study if high transaction costs(manifested as environmental uncertainty and investment in specific assets)is to drive third party logistics providers to develop and use"Guanxi" with their key customers to reduce costs,to examine the applicability of'Guanxi" in the third party logistics industry;Secondly,this paper studies the effect of "Guanxi" on the performance of third party logistics providers to test the validity of "Guanxi" in the third party logistics industry.In addition,this paper also studies the influence of the third party logistics providers and their major customers' unequal status(expressed as different degrees of dependence)on the applicability of"Guanxi"Based on the empirical analysis of the questionnaire survey data of 281 third party logistics providers(including the reliability and validity analysis of scale,and the hypothesis test by regression analysis),this paper finds two major factors that affect the transaction cost(environmental uncertainty and special asset investment)will drive third party logistics providers to develop and use "Guanxi"with their major customers,and"Guanxi"has a significant positive effect on the operational performance.In addition,the dependence of third party logistics providers on their major customers will drive the development of"Guanxi",and in particular,dependence will diminish the effect of special asset investment on "Guanxi" The findings of this paper verify the role of "Guanxi" in the relationship management of third party logistics,enrich the research of third party logistics;on the other hand,this paper verify three preconditions of "Guanxi",including of environmental uncertainty,special assets investment and dependence,enrich the relevant literature of "Guanxi".In addition,the findings of this paper also have important management implications,third party logistics providers can develop and use "Guanxi" with their main customers in some specific situations to deal with risks,reduce costs,and enhance operation performance.