Building synergies between operations culture, operational routines, and supplier monitoring: implications for buyer performance
International Journal of Operations & Production Management
ISSN: 0144-3577
Article publication date: 4 April 2022
Issue publication date: 6 April 2022
Abstract
Purpose
Pressured by various stakeholder groups to improve the sustainability performance of their emerging economy suppliers, multinational firms continue to expand their supplier monitoring. Leveraging the strategy literature on alliances and the buyer-supplier relationship management literature, the authors propose that a buyer firm's efforts to proactively develop cultural sensitivity and operations cognizance to understand the operational culture and routines of its suppliers can ameliorate some shortcomings of supplier monitoring, thereby improving the performance of the buyer firm.
Design/methodology/approach
Using primary survey data from a sample of US manufacturing firms, combined with secondary data of supplier monitoring and financial performance, this research examines the relationship between supplier monitoring, cultural sensitivity, operations cognizance, and buyer firm performance.
Findings
Supplier monitoring was associated with positive but diminishing returns for financial and sustainability performance for the buyer. Second, increasing cultural sensitivity and operations cognizance for suppliers in emerging economies were associated with improved buyer performance. Finally, the synergistic use of supplier monitoring and operations cognizance was associated with improved buyer firm financial performance.
Originality/value
While the buyer-supplier relationship literature has mainly treated organizational differences between dyadic supply chain partners as exogenous to the context in which their relationship evolves, the authors posit that buyer firms' efforts to understand such differences can affect the value of buyer-directed interactions, such as supplier monitoring. This research adds to the theoretical understanding of the process of developing relational mechanisms with emerging economy suppliers. In particular, efforts of buyer firms to better understand the operational culture and routines of their suppliers can complement monitoring and are associated with a positive impact on performance.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This research is supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
Citation
Shafiq, A., Johnson, P.F. and Klassen, R.D. (2022), "Building synergies between operations culture, operational routines, and supplier monitoring: implications for buyer performance", International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 42 No. 5, pp. 687-712. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOPM-03-2021-0149
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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