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Taiwan's semiconductor industry continues moving out to China, therefore Taiwan's semiconductor distributors must cooperate with the local distributors in China in order to survive. The purpose of this paper is to discover the key factors considered by Taiwan's semiconductor distributors when selecting partners in China.

This study summarizes the factors from the literatures and the experts' discussion, then develops a hierarchical structure. Using DEMATEL and MMDE to construct the causality of the dimensions, which are then taken as the basis for the development of the analytic network process (ANP) framework. Finally, it gets the weight values of various factors through the results of ANP, which serves as a proposal to discuss how Taiwan's professional semiconductor distributors select partners in China.

According to the weight of the ANP, results show that trust and commitment, scale, market share and corporate culture are factors that increase the possibility of collaboration.

China has become a favorite for foreign investments. Taiwan's semiconductor distributors must actively expand the China market in order to maintain their survival. This study focuses on Taiwan semiconductor distributors who want to invest and establish factories in China, and investigates the key factors that are involved in the selection of partners for Taiwan semiconductor distributors. The results can increase the chances of success among cooperative members.

Management, over time, takes a series of specific strategic actions. As strategic actions we define actions aimed at influencing how the actor is related to other actors. We propose that when a strategic action is committed affects the outcome of the action. An important reason for this is that strategic actions over time can be regarded as interdependent sequences of actions. Timing and sequences may be more or less – or is not at all – preplanned by an actor. In a network perspective a focal actor is dependent on other actors that commit strategic actions. This creates interdependencies that vary over time, which a focal actor influences in a proactive, interactive and/or reactive way. The timing of strategic actions is a general, quite complex and elusive phenomenon to be handled in practice and theory. Despite its importance, very little research has been published.

This paper proposes a framework for evaluating the impact of e‐commerce on the roles of distributors in the semiconductor industry for four different types of products, namely differentiated products, architectural products, technological products, and complex products. Questionnaire and the purposive sampling method were used to collect data from respondents in the distribution industry. The results of the study show that the salience of the roles is increasing. In addition, there is strong likelihood of e‐commerce replacing the traditional distributors, more so for less standardized products such as complex, technological, and architectural products.

This study aims to differentiate two types of relationship exploration – substitute relationship exploration (SRE) and complementary relationship exploration (CRE) – and examine their effects on a distributor’s detection capability in relationship governance with upstream suppliers and innovation capability in services to downstream customers.

The authors obtained 176 responses from distributors in the semiconductor industry in China. Structural equation modeling and hierarchical moderated regressions are used to test the hypotheses.

CRE increases both detection and innovation capability, whereas SRE reduces detection capability and increases innovation capability. Market uncertainty weakens the effect of detection capability but strengthens that of innovation capability on distributor performance.

First, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first to differentiate SRE and CRE, thus enriching the relationship marketing literature. Second, drawing on information economics, the authors uncovered the differential effects of SRE and CRE on detection and innovation capabilities. Third, market uncertainty moderates the effects of the two capabilities on distributor performance.

Distributors should be aware that there are different types of relationship exploration and, for that reason, should explore potential suppliers based on their business needs and firm conditions. The results of this study show that both SRE and CRE are beneficial for distributors’ innovation capability, but SRE reduces their detection capability. Practically, firms need to be aware of the trade-offs associated with different types of relationship exploration. Moreover, when market uncertainty is high, distributors should pay more attention to innovation than to detection capability building.

This study conceptualizes and differentiates between two forms of relationship exploration. By linking them with distributors’ capability building and performance, the authors provide theoretical and practical implications.

Forming valuable alliances with suppliers, distributors, and competitors requires some daring counterintuitive tactics. The next bold step is to set up cooperative networks‐vertical integration systems, technology links, development cooperatives, and stakeholder alliances.

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