Essays on supplier responsiveness and buyer firm value - Nyenrode ...

Summary in English
This dissertation focuses on market orientation in the strategic supplier and buyer
relationship context and further focuses on the concepts of idiosyncratic relation risk
(IdRR), buyer satisfaction and supplier brand value as mediators of that relationship.
Moreover, this dissertation adopts an inter-organizational perspective as opposed to intraorganizational
perspectives in previous studies (Kohli & Jaworski, 1990; Narver &
Slater, 1990; Slater & Narver, 1995). In the next sections we will cover the key
definitions, the literature gaps, the research questions, a synopsis of each chapter,
theoretical implications, practical implications, future research directions and a closing
word.
The key concepts in this study are supplier responsiveness, buyer satisfaction,
IdRR, supplier brand value, buyer firm value, and subjective and objective performance
measures. The term supplier responsiveness is defined as the accumulative supplier
response that is created by internal supplier firm intelligence generation and
dissemination processes to meet their buyer’s needs. The concept of buyer satisfaction is
defined as the buyer’s cumulative economic and non-economic satisfaction with its
strategic supplier firm. The term of IdRR is defined as the risk that exists because of
entering into a specific relationship with another company. The concept of supplier brand
value is defined from the perspective of a strategic buying center team, and is defined as
the shared collective memories about the supplier’s brand, which provides it with
leverage because of customer preference that it would otherwise not have without the
brand. The term buyer firm value is defined as growth and stability in buyer cash flows.
The concept of subjective performance measures is defined as heuristic individual
evaluations of a firm’s performance and the concept of objective performance measures
are defined as those measures which are calculated using standardized accounting and
financial procedures.
So far in the extant literature a general approach has been to focus on the intraorganizational
market orientation-mediators-performance relationship (Kohli & Jaworski,
1990; Narver & Slater, 1990; Slater & Narver, 1995). For example, Kohli and Jaworski
(1990) theorize about the impact of three components of market orientation on business
performance. Whereas, Jaworski and Kohli (1993) empirically examine the impact of a
market orientation on firm performance. Furthermore, Narver and Slater (1990)
investigate the influence of market orientation on business performance in both
commodity and non-commodity businesses. In addition, Grewal and Tansuhaj (2001)
examined the impact of market orientation and strategic flexibility on firm performance
after an economic crisis. Moreover, Slater and Narver (1995) propose that market
orientation combined with an entrepreneurial drive and the right organizational climate
produces the learning organization. Further, Voss and Voss (2000) examine the role of
market orientation and product orientation on firm performance. Alternatively,
Zhou et al. (2005) examine the impact of market orientation on firm performance via the
mediators of technological and market innovations. Whereas, Verhoef and Leeflang
(2009) examine whether marketing accountability increases the motivation for firms to be
market oriented. In summation, the above studies on market orientation examine the
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