The study of distributor's relationship bond on manufacturer's involvement in new product development:An empirical study on Taiwan's soft drink industry

• Main Authors: WANG CHENG NAN, 王政楠
• Other Authors: XIE MING HONG
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2005
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/08660874278151463866

碩士 === 實踐大學 === 企業管理研究所 === 93 === Following up the changes of consumers’ buying habit, consumers tend to try new things, thus diminish the brand loyalty. As the product life cycle shortens, whether the new product development succeeds has been the key for the enterprise to win the market. The one who leads to offer new product is the winner in the market. To increase the speed and lower the cost of new product development, plus to learn the skills and ability from the manufacturer, the distributor is starting to build up a closer relationship with the manufacturer to accelerate the new product development. Thus the relationship between the manufacturer and the distributor is regarded as a relationship bond. Judging from the previous researches, it is important to successfully integrate the resources from the manufacturer and the distributor on the new product development, while resulting in a positive influence. The objective of this research is to study how the relationship between the manufacturer and the distributor of beverage can be more efficient, verify if the relationship bond can directly or indirectly influence, through the intermediary variables like manufacturer’s trust and commitment, the involvement of the manufacturer with the distributor’s new product development as a reference for the cooperation model of new product development between the distributor and the beverage manufacturer in the future. This research, based on the relationship model (Walter, 2003) that the manufacturer involves in new product development, took Taiwanese beverage manufacturers’ perspective as the point for study and analysis to explore, with the manufacturer’s commitment and trust as the intermediary variables, how relationship bond influences the manufacturer’s involvement with the distributor’s new product development. To break through Walter’s (2003) research limit, large-scaled beverage manufacturers in Taiwan were taken as the samples. A total of 201 copies of structural questionnaire were issued, and 165 were collected, of which 135 copies were valid. After data collection, the questionnaire was analyzed with the statistics software LISREL and concluded as follows. Using verifying factor analysis and LISREL, the influences among the construct were analyzed and results were reached: (1) the manufacturer’s commitment will cause a positive and significant influence toward the manufacturer’s involvement with the distributor’s new product development; (2) relationship bond between the distributor and the manufacturer will cause a positive and significant influence toward the manufacturer’s involvement with the distributor’s new product development; (3) relationship bond between the distributor and the manufacturer will cause a positive and significant influence toward the manufacturer’s commitment; (4) relationship bond between the distributor and the manufacturer will cause a positive and significant influence toward the manufacturer’s trust; (5) the manufacturer’s trust will cause a positive and significant influence toward the manufacturer’s commitment; (6) the manufacturer’s trust will cause no significant influence toward the manufacturer’s involvement with the distributor’s new product development. According to the above results, this study presented a theory and suggestions to the firms, and suggestions on the research limits and follow-up researches.