渠道建言:多层面驱动因素及其对渠道绩效的影响

Channel Voice:Multi-level Determinants and Effects on Channel Performance

渠道建言作为重要的渠道角色外行为,能够帮助渠道成员准确理解快速变化的市场环境,及时对渠道政策的执行效果进行校正,对提升企业市场绩效有着重要的现实意义。现有组织建言理论主要围绕组织内员工建言行为展开,渠道行为理论也多将角色外行为视为整体概念,忽视了组织间渠道建言行为的特殊性。本文将组织建言理论与渠道行为理论相结合,提出并实证检验了一个渠道建言多层面驱动因素及其对渠道绩效影响的概念模型。结果表明,分销商所具有的外向性、责任感和关系营销导向对其建言行为有显著的促进作用;分销商与制造商相互依赖的强度及分销商面临的市场竞争程度也会正向影响分销商建言行为。而且分销商的建言行为能够显著提升渠道的经济绩效及关系绩效,但其对关系绩效的积极作用受到亲密程度的负向调节。文章最后讨论了研究的理论意义及其对渠道管理实践的现实意义。

The Channel voice behavior as an important extra-role behavior can facilitate channel members to understand the changing market environment and correct the implementation of channel policies timely,which is important for improving the performance.We proposed that channel voice behavior refers to discretionary communication of ideas,suggestions,concerns,or opinions about channel-related issues with the intent to improve marketing channel performance.The extant literature mainly focuses on the employee voice behavior in the context of intra-organization,and the channel behavior theory mostly regards the extra-role behavior as the general concept which neglects the inter-organizational channel voice behavior.This paper combines the theory of organizational voice with the channel behavior theory,proposes and tests a conceptual model of multi-level drivers of channel voice and its impact on channel performance.Drawing on data collected from 193 distributors of furniture industry in Dalian,we examine how factors in the firm level,relationship level and environment level impact distributors’voice behavior and how the voice behavior affects the economic and relationship performance.The results of empirical research show that the distributors’extraversion,conscientiousness and relationship marketing orientation have played significant roles in promoting distributors’voice.The magnitude of the interdependence between distributors and manufacturers and the degree of market competition positively influence distributor’s voice.Distributors’voice behavior significantly improves the economic and relationship performance of the supplier,but its positive effect on relationship performance is negatively adjusted by the degree of intimacy.Our findings address the limited research on extra-role behavior in marketing channel by focusing on distributor’s voice behavior and empirically test of multi-level driven factors of channel voice behavior.We also illuminated the consequences of channel voice behavior which provide a more integrated theory framework.These findings affect how the distributors and manufactures come to understand voice behavior and have practical value on developing beneficial channel relationships.