SUPPLY CHAIN COLLABORATION ALIGNS ORDER-WINNING STRATEGY WITH BUSINESS OUTCOME

Manufacturer-supplier dyadic collaboration has advanced over past years but there are more granular factors within strategy-structure-performance paradigm that influence the business performance. It is likely that the right choice of collaboration will deliver critical order-winners, and improve business performance when manufacturer is strategically coupled with suppliers. While literature offers significant relationship of order-winners with business performance, to the best of our knowledge, no study so far has undertaken a holistic model where dyadic collaboration pursues order-winners with business outcomes. Drawing on strategy-structure-performance (SSP), strategic choice theories and Fisher model on the choice of supply approach, the paper aims to find out whether appropriate choice of collaboration will enable the required order-winners to improve business outcomes. The challenge is how to organise all three theories into an over-archial model, which is novel in this study. Data were collected from managers, executives and supervisors using a cross-sectional survey of 184 manufacturing firms in Thailand. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed to test the hypothesised relationships among order-winners, modes of collaboration, and business outcomes. Results indicate that firms that focus on flexibility, quality, and delivery should develop strategic collaboration with suppliers to achieve market and innovation improvement. Cost- and quality-focussed firms should develop operational collaboration to achieve resource efficiency. The model allows managers to understand the right choice of collaboration with external suppliers while working on their own order-winners being pursued to win business performance.