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

collectivist culture and a Confucian value system (Hofstede, 2003). These cultural
differences result in different risk preferences in individual members of society. For
instance, the Chinese have a greater risk preference than Americans, because their
collectivist culture cushions them from losses. Future researchers could investigate how
firms from societies with extremely different risk preferences react to supplier
responsiveness. This would also add a new dimension to the problem we studied as to
whether cultural risk preference is a moderating factor in the supplier responsiveness and
buyer performance relationship.
In some Eurasian and Asian economies, relational practices such as Blat and
Gaunxi are an integral part of the business culture. However, in western cultures such
practices may be viewed as unethical and detrimental to the corporate interests and
reputation. Specifically, when forming strategic supplier relationships with corporations
that find such cultural practices acceptable, buyers may fear a negative spillover on their
brand reputation. Such cultural effects have been overlooked in our current study. Further
examples include questions such as: Does IdRR vary because of national culture? Or
should culture specific practices such as Blat or Guanxi be considered a part of IdRR?
ix) Use of both subjective and objective metrics for international comparisons. Another
limitation of our current study is that we only considered perceptions. Indeed, do
perceptions reinforce objective measures across cultures? Are some cultures more prone
to be overly jubilant when it comes to redirecting earnings from investments? Are some
cultures overly pessimistic when predicting losses which may across from strategic
relationships? Do cultures influence the relative importance of firm perception of
marketing strategies such as market orientation?
x) Role of firm culture: One course for future researchers could be to examine the
role of firm culture in accepting subjective or objective measures as valid indicators of
performance. This is important because it could also explain why resources are
misdirected because of inaccurate perceptions and their reliability as valid measurement
tools.
xi) Using department-level specific metrics: In the current study, we used
corporate-level objective indicators. Using department-level specific metrics instead
could resonate better with managers' understanding of how much profit their departments
produce. Indeed, there may not be much difference between objective and subjective
measurement indicators at the same level throughout the organization.
Closing Word
This dissertation has examined the role of strategic supplier responsiveness in interorganizational
risk reduction, its influence on satisfaction, supplier brand value, buyer
firm value, cross-cultural comparisons, and the difference in evaluations based on
subjective and performance indicators. The true value of this research lies in its
fundamental challenging of the link between supplier responsiveness and organizational
risk. To a degree, we have provided evidence that this link is negative and not positive as
assumed by many prior studies. However, further research will confirm whether or not
our findings can be applied in a wide variety of contexts.
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