Content area
Abstract
Understanding and improving relationships between industrial buyers and suppliers have received growing attention in the current complex business environment. Cooperative long-term partnerships, rather than traditional adversarial or arm's-length relationships, have been an increasing trend toward gaining a competitive advantage in the marketplace.
This study examines one particular type of working partnership: Just-in-Time (JIT) manufacturers' working partnerships with suppliers. From the JIT firms' perspective, it assesses the effects of relational structure, communication behavior, and conflict resolution strategies on the success of JIT working partnerships.
A field investigation of 93 JIT firms indicates that supplier assistance, supplier flexibility, joint actions, solidarity, continuity expectation, and restraint in the use of power are important predictors of the success of the JIT manufacturer-supplier relationships. Interestingly, the results revealed that monitoring suppliers, information sharing, and five types of conflict resolution strategies have no significant effects on the success of the relationships. The results are compared with 65 non-JIT firm sample and 158 combined JIT and non-JIT firm sample.
