Economic and Relational Factors, Supplier Adaptation, and Knowledge Transfer: An Empirical Study of Technology-based Firms in Taiwan

• Main Authors: Yio-Eih Shih, 施由宜
• Other Authors: Shih-Chieh Fang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2010
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/08990679321093028060

博士 === 義守大學 === 管理研究所博士班 === 98 === The main purpose of this dissertation is to explore the role played by inter-organizational adaptation in inter-organizational knowledge transfer. Because inter-organizational adaptation is a typical phenomenon between suppliers and buyers in supply-chain networks, the author sets the research context in supply-chain networks and aim our research to supplier adaptation as the learning mechanism and the reason why supplier adapt to learn from customer. To support the view that supplier adaptation as learning mechanism, the statement is based on knowledge embeddedness and is believe that supplier adaptation enhances knowledge transfer from customers to suppliers, on account of supplier adaptation increasing the simulation of knowledge context between suppliers and customers. As to the reason why suppliers adapt to learn from customers, the antecedents of supplier adaptation and their moderators are explored. Organizational economics is the theoretical foundation of the reasoning is which the demand of task coordination and environmental uncertainties are economic factors influencing supplier adaptation. Fostering the embeddedness theory and resource dependency theory, the author propose that relational embeddedness and dependency are two contextual factors that moderate the relation between task coordination and supplier adaptation. Analyzing the sample of 176 buyer-supplier relationships in Taiwan high-tech section, the result supports the views that supplier adaptation is one of mechanisms of transferring knowledge from customers to suppliers. The result also shows that task coordination is associated with supplier adaptation and relational embeddedness enhances the relationship between task interdependency and supplier adaptation. The relationship between environmental uncertainties and supplier adaptation is not significant, however, it is positively significant when relational dependency is high, and negatively significant when relational dependency is low.