企业间关系嵌入对供应链合作绩效的影响机制

An Empirical Study on the Mechanism of Corporate Relational Embeddedness Impacts on the Supply Chain Cooperative Performance

地理临近既不是产业集群优势的必要条件,也不是充分条件,而关系临近对于集群企业获得产业集聚所带来的优势具有更重要的意义。在现实中,集群企业之间以及与跨区域伙伴之间稳定的合作关系是集群企业获得企业特有知识的重要方式。地理临近仅仅是增加了企业之间接触的机会,而关系临近则使得集群企业有效地利用本地低成本的供应商,获得本地知识溢出和集体学习所带来的优势。所以,集群企业成长应该更加关注集群企业所处的关系空间,而不仅仅是地理空间。产业集群内的企业关系嵌入为企业个体间的联系提供了关键的桥梁,为企业间发展合作关系,形成稳定的供应链利益共同体提供了平台条件。本文为了验证企业关系嵌入与供应链合作绩效之间的影响机制,通过对珠三角地区产业集群内161家制造企业的样本数据进行了实证。研究发现,关系嵌入对关系学习和知识创新能力有显著的直接正向影响,而关系嵌入对供应链合作绩效的直接作用不显著,而是通过关系学习和知识创新产生作用。即本文的研究表明,产业集群内的企业关系嵌入确实会对供应链合作绩效产生影响,但是,这种影响是间接的。具体表现在:企业在产业集群中利用伙伴公司的知识,能够获得本地知识溢出和集体学习所带来的优势,就可加速提升组织知识创新能力,降低技术风险及不确定性。但关系嵌入仅为企业提供了知识和资源交换平台,由于企业在处理与外部网络关系的技巧及效果、处理网络关系的能力有很大的差异,企业需要在关系嵌入中注重关系学习和高层次互动的作用,才能实现供应链合作绩效的提升。

The geographical proximity is neither a necessary condition nor sufficient condition to realize advan-tages of industrial clusters. On the contrary, relationship closeness is much more important for enterprises within in-dustrial clusters to obtain the benefits of industrial clusters. In practice, enterprises＇ stable cooperation relationship among the inter-regional cluster enterprises as well as cross-regional partners is an important way for cluster enter-prises to obtain firm-specific knowledge. Geographical proximity only increases the chance of contact between the enterprises, while relationship closeness enable cluster enterprises to take good advantage of low-cost suppliers, ob- tain benefits of local knowledge spillovers and collective learning effect in spite of geographical distances. As a re- suit, for business growth of industrial cluster enterprises, relationship space should be more concerned about, not just geographic space. Every relationship or link in the network of industrial clusters represents exchange of re-sources or knowledge between both sides, and therefore, how to use this network interaction to obtain the necessary resources and knowledge becomes a vital source of innovation performance. Enterprises embeddedness in industrial clusters provides a critical bridge for individual relationship building, also provides a platform for cooperative rela-tionship development between enterprises, as well as forming a stable supply chain community of interests. In this paper, relational embeddedness refers to an informal organization networks in which enterprises within industrial clusters interact with local suppliers, customers and partners, focusing on social relations link. The rela- tional embeddedness stressed on the cohesion link utility in continuing cooperation activities between members, and the strength of the relationship will affect the level of knowledge sharing. The previously cohesive link between two organizations may offer a pipeline for both of them to learn from each other and make sure if the partner is trustwor-thy. At the interpersonal level, in the face of challenge and support, the active participation of others is an impor-tant factor to motivate a team, called action learning （McGill ＆ Warner, 1989）. Bessant ＆ Tsekouras （2001） be-lieve that there is a similar phenomenon between enterprises, and commercial relationship is an important source of corporate learning （ Hult and Ferrel, 1997 ）. The specific relationship between organizations is a premise condition for organization parties learn from each other, by strengthening cooperation of the partner companies, it can accelerate upgrading of the organizational , and taking advantage of the knowledge capacity, reduce technology risk of R ＆ D and better respond to environmental uncertainty. And the concept of the formation of relationship between the or-ganizations through close partnership is relationship learning. Recently research shows that commercial relationship will provide a platform for relational learning, stimulate the knowledge sharing and enhance problem-solving ability, enable the partnership interaction continue, finally improve the organization＇s relationship learning ability signifi-cantly. In order to examine the relationship between enterprises＇ relational embeddedness and supply chain coopera-tive performance, the sample data of manufacturing enterprises in the industrial clusters within the Pearl River Delta region was collected. The result shows that relational embeddedness has a significant positive direct influence on re-lationship learning and knowledge innovation ability, while relational embeddedness has no significant direct effect on supply chain cooperative performance but via an indirect mediation effect of relationship learning and knowledge innovation ability. In other words, corporate relational embeddedness within industrial clusters do strongly impacts on supply chain cooperative performance, but this effect is indirect. Specifically, enterprises can take advantage of knowledge of the industrial cluster partners, and obtain local knowledge spillovers and the benefits of collective learning, thus enhance organizational knowledge innovation capability, as well as reduce the technical risk and un-certainty. However, relational embeddedness only provides a platform for exchanging of knowledge and resources between enterprises, their effect should not be exaggerated. Due to big difference in their skills and abilities to deal with external network relationship, companies need to focus on the effect of relationship learning and high-level re-lationship interaction in relational embeddedness, so as to improve supply chain cooperative performance.