WILL STRONG RETAILERS ACQUIRE BETTER PROCUMENT PERFORMANCE?: ANALYSIS BASED ON THE MEDIATING EFFECT OF THE QUALITY OF RETAILER-SUPPLIER RELATIONSHIP

서지정보

ㆍ발행기관 : 글로벌지식마케팅경영학회(GFMC) ㆍ수록지정보 : Global Marketing Conference
ㆍ저자명 : Wenchao Liu, Rupan Sun, Xin Xin, Lihui Sun

영어 초록

Due to the continuous development of international retailers in the Chinese market, and the merger and reorganization among Chinese retailers in recent years, the degree of concentration of the Chinese retail industry has been increasing, and the scale of retailers has been expanding. It is suggested by the report China Powers of Retailing 2014 that an increasing number of large-scale retail groups have been formed in the Chinese retail industry. In large and medium-sized cities in China, such large-scale supermarkets as Wal-Mart, Carrefour and RT-Mart have controlled most market shares of food and daily necessities. And large-scale household appliance chains, such as Gome and Suning, have controlled most market shares of home appliance. Due to the advantage of scale and brand of large-scale retailers, these retailers have gradually occupied a leading role in the supply chain, and formed buyer monopoly power and countervailing power. Intuitively speaking, retailers can acquire obvious advantages in procurement activities, no matter it is the buyer monopoly power or countervailing power that is being utilized. And the advantages are beneficial to the improvement of retailers’ procurement performance. However, it is pointed out by a number of scholars’ research that buyer power’s influence on retail enterprises’ performance is quite complicated. Whether buyer power can improve economic efficiency depends on the quality of retailer-supplier relationship. The quality of the relationships between retailers and suppliers exerts direct influence on the stability, durability and equity of the trade. In the long term, the reinforcement of buyer power will probably exert adverse influence on the suppliers and retailers. By imposing influence on suppliers with buyer power, retailers will cause twisted competition and prifit shrinkage to suppliers in the upstream market. As a result, the quantity of suppliers will be decreased, which will be disadvantageous to the selection of retailers and affect retailers’ utilization of their negotiating advantage. In the meanwhile, by imposing special prices and discounts, collecting extra charges and signing exclusive agreement with suppliers, retailers will lead to suppliers’ impaired benefit. It will further affect the quality of the retailer-supplierrelationship and ultimately exert adverse influence on both parties’ long-term earnings. In the existing research, few scholars have thoroughly discussed the influence of retailers’ buyer power on the quality of retailer-supplier relationship and retail enterprises’ procurement performance. In addition, different conclusions exist in the analysis of the relationships among the three factors, or between two of them. In order to empirically test the influence of retailers’ buyer power on the quality of retailer-supplier relationship and retail enterprises’ procurement performance, we established the theoretical model of this study in figure 1. The research will help us to cognize the influence of retailers’ buyer power more reasonably, and guide retailers better utilize buyer power, an attempt is made to explore the following questions in this research: 1. Does direct positive influence exist between large-scale retailers’ buyer power and retailers’ procurement performance? 2. Are there any differences in the influence of different types of retailers’ buyer power on retailers’ procurement performance? 3. What influence will large-scale retailers’ buyer power exert on the quality of retailer-supplier relationship? 4. When the quality of retailer-supplier relationship is brought in as a mediating variable, what influence will large-scale retailers’ buyer power exert on retailers’ procurement performance? From the perspective of the relationships among channel members, large-scale retailers in the Chinese market, such as Wal-Mart, Carrefour, RT-Mart, OUYA Supermarket and Vanguard, as well as suppliers of their products are taken as the object of the research. Methods like interview, pre-survey and official survery with questionnaire are adopted to verify different hypotheses in the research. During the indepth interview, twelve respondents are invited respectively to the interview. Seven of them are in charge of large-scale retailers’ procurement, and five of them are salespersons of manufacturers, who supply products to retailers. It can be seen from the result of the interview that the twelve respondents hold different opinions towards the relationships among large-scale retailers’ buyer power, the quality of retailer-supplier relationship and retailers’ procurement performance. In terms of the influence of large-scale retailers’ buyer power on retailers’ procurement performance, some believe that there’s positive influence, some believe there’s negative influence, and some believe the influence should be respectively analyzed according to the degree of buyer power. In terms of the influence of large-scale retailers’ buyer power on the quality of retailer-supplier relationship, some believe large-scale retailers’ buyer power exerts positive influence on the quality of retailer-supplier relationship, some believe it exerts negative influence, and some believe the influence depends on specific circumstances. During the pre-survey with questionnaire, scales of retailers’ buyer power, the quality of retailer-supplier relationship and retailers’ procurement performance are developed on the basis of theoretical overview and interview research. Specifically speaking, the scale of retailers’ buyer power is constituted of two level-1 dimensions (buyer’s monopoly power and countervailing power) and seven level-2 dimensions; the scalerelationship and ultimately exert adverse influence on both parties’ long-term earnings. In the existing research, few scholars have thoroughly discussed the influence of retailers’ buyer power on the quality of retailer-supplier relationship and retail enterprises’ procurement performance. In addition, different conclusions exist in the analysis of the relationships among the three factors, or between two of them. In order to empirically test the influence of retailers’ buyer power on the quality of retailer-supplier relationship and retail enterprises’ procurement performance, we established the theoretical model of this study in figure 1. The research will help us to cognize the influence of retailers’ buyer power more reasonably, and guide retailers better utilize buyer power, an attempt is made to explore the following questions in this research: 1. Does direct positive influence exist between large-scale retailers’ buyer power and retailers’ procurement performance? 2. Are there any differences in the influence of different types of retailers’ buyer power on retailers’ procurement performance? 3. What influence will large-scale retailers’ buyer power exert on the quality of retailer-supplier relationship? 4. When the quality of retailer-supplier relationship is brought in as a mediating variable, what influence will large-scale retailers’ buyer power exert on retailers’ procurement performance? From the perspective of the relationships among channel members, large-scale retailers in the Chinese market, such as Wal-Mart, Carrefour, RT-Mart, OUYA Supermarket and Vanguard, as well as suppliers of their products are taken as the object of the research. Methods like interview, pre-survey and official survery with questionnaire are adopted to verify different hypotheses in the research. During the indepth interview, twelve respondents are invited respectively to the interview. Seven of them are in charge of large-scale retailers’ procurement, and five of them are salespersons of manufacturers, who supply products to retailers. It can be seen from the result of the interview that the twelve respondents hold different opinions towards the relationships among large-scale retailers’ buyer power, the quality of retailer-supplier relationship and retailers’ procurement performance. In terms of the influence of large-scale retailers’ buyer power on retailers’ procurement performance, some believe that there’s positive influence, some believe there’s negative influence, and some believe the influence should be respectively analyzed according to the degree of buyer power. In terms of the influence of large-scale retailers’ buyer power on the quality of retailer-supplier relationship, some believe large-scale retailers’ buyer power exerts positive influence on the quality of retailer-supplier relationship, some believe it exerts negative influence, and some believe the influence depends on specific circumstances. During the pre-survey with questionnaire, scales of retailers’ buyer power, the quality of retailer-supplier relationship and retailers’ procurement performance are developed on the basis of theoretical overview and interview research. Specifically speaking, the scale of retailers’ buyer power is constituted of two level-1 dimensions (buyer’s monopoly power and countervailing power) and seven level-2 dimensions; the scaleof the quality of retailer-supplier relationship is constituted of three level-1 dimensions (cooperation, adaption and relationship atmosphere); the scale of retailers’ procurement performance is constituted of three level-1 dimensions (cost performance, time performance and quality performance of procurement). The questionnaire pre-survey is specific to retailers’ procurement staff and suppliers’ sales personnel respectively. A total of valid 179 questionnaires are collected, among which, 86 are from retailers’ procurement staff and 93 are from suppliers’ sales personnel. Based on the survey data, SPSS and AMOS software are utilized in the analysis of items, reliability and validity of the different scales. Finally, the factor structure of the scale regarding retailers’ buyer power is adjusted, and the scale regarding retailers’ buyer monolopy power is re-designed specially. During the official survey with questionnaire, questionnaires are handed out to retailers’ procurement staff and suppliers’ sales personnel respectively. A total of 340 valid questionnaires are collected, among which, 178 are from retailers’ procurement staff and 162 are from suppliers’ sales personnel. The samples, which are quite representative, are evenly distributed. Based on the survey data, SPSS and AMOS software are utilized to further analyze the reliability and validity of the different appraisal scales. Finally, the various hypotheses in the research are tested by causual steps of regression analysis with SPSS. After relatively complicated and elaborate statistical analysis, most of the hypotheses are supported, some are partially supported, and only one is not supported. One of the mediating effect analysis results is show in table 1 and figure 2. Based on direct regression analysis, we can get some important results: First of all, the hypothesis that retailers’ buyer power will overally exert positive influence on retailer enterprises’ procurement performance is supported, but the hypothesis that retailers’ buyer monopoly power and countervailing power will exert positive influence on retailer enterprises’ procurement performance is partially supported. Secondly, the hypothesis that retailers’ buyer power will overally exert negative influence on the quality of retailer-supplier relationship is not supported, and the hypothesis that retailers’ buyer monopoly power will exert negative influence on the quality of retailer-supplier relationship and the dimension is partially supported, and the hypothesis that retailers’ buyer countervailing power will exert positive influence on the quality of retailer-supplier relationship and the dimension is supported. Thirdly, the hypothesis that the quality of retailer-supplier relationship, as well as the dimensions (cooperation and relationship atmosphere) will overally exert positive influence on retailer enterprises’ procurement performance is supported, and the hypothesis that the dimension---the adaptation of the quality of retailer-supplier relationship will exert positive influence on retail enterprises’ procurement performance is only partially supported. Based on causual steps of regression analysis for the mediating effect, we can also get some important results: First of all, the relationship quality plays a complete intermediary role between the retailer’s buyer power and the procurement performance. Secondly, the relationship quality plays a complete intermediary role between the r retailers’ buyer monopoly power and the procurement performance. Thirdly, the relationship quality plays a complete intermediary role between the r retailers’ buyer countervailing power and the procurement performance.Some inspirations are achieved from the research. First of all, basically speaking, the direct influence of retailers’ buyer power on retail enterprises’ procurement performance is significantly positive. Secondly, the influence of retailers’ buyer power on the quality of retailer-supplier relationship is relatively complicated. Thirdly, basically speaking, the influence of the quality of retailer-supplier relationship on retail enterprises’ procurement performance is significantly positive. Fourthly, after the quality of retailer-supplier relationship is brought in as a mediating variable, the influence of retailers’ buyer power on retail enterprises’ procurement performance depends on the specific condition of the retailer-supplier relationship.

참고 자료

없음