Research On Impact Of Social Cultural Difference On Supply Chain Management Performance In Overseas EPC Projects

With the promotion of "One Belt,One Road" and "Going Global",Chinese enterprises have opened up the overseas contracting project market.EPC which contracting model integrating design,procurement and construction has gradually become the preferred model for complex projects through efficiently optimizing resource allocation.However,some overseas EPC projects represented by Poland A2 highway and Saudi Arabia Mecca light rail project have brought huge losses to China.Practically,procurement contracts in EPC projects account for about 40%-60% of the total cost,which is the core link of EPC projects,is imperative to apply supply chain management;theoretically,there have been some research results in supply chain management in EPC projects,but overseas EPC projects are temporary organizations,and few researches is conducted at an enterprise level on supply chain management,and most of them focus on the stakeholder relationship management in a single project.In addition,there is still no consensus on the impact of sociocultural differences in overseas EPC projects.Based on the Constraints Theory,Supply Chain Integration Theory,Partnership Theory,Performance Theory and Social Exchange Theory,this paper explores the connotation and constituent elements of supply chain management performance,social cultural differences and relationship management in overseas EPC projects in a practical way.In addition,exploring the interaction between the three,to achieve the purpose that to improve supply chain management performance in overseas EPC projects.The research results serve the Chinese enterprises management situation of contracting overseas EPC projects to improve the loss of Chinese economy.This paper conducts research by questionnaires,interviews and case studies from both qualitative and quantitative aspects.Firstly,the paper conducts 13 deep interviews and discusses the connotation and constituent elements of supply chain management performance,relationship management and social cultural differences by coding and analyzing them.Secondly,this paper combines the results of grounded theory with existing research results,the thesis proposes 4 groups of 14 hypotheses.Taking China EPC general contractors as the main research object,this paper collected 283 valid questionnaires and used structural equation model to analyze hypotheses.The research results show that:(1)Relationship management has a positive effect on the supply chain management performance of overseas EPC projects;(2)Social and cultural differences have a negative effect on the supply chain management performance of overseas EPC projects;(3)The relationship management plays the Mediating role between sociocultural differences and supply chain management performance of overseas EPC projects.The contributions of this paper are as follows: Firstly,to conduct research on stakeholders such as design,consulting,and procurement suppliers as an overall supply chain enterprise to provide reference for related research.Secondly,to explore supply chain management performance and relationship management from a practical perspective The connotation and constituent elements of social and cultural differences enrich the research results in related fields.Thirdly,explore the direct connection between relationship management and supply chain management,so as to give full play to the advantages of relationship capital and provide a new theoretical perspective for future research.