Supply Chain Relationships for Customer Satisfaction in China: Leadership, Interdependence, and Cooperative Goals

Organizations world-wide are experimenting with ways to develop partnerships with suppliers and distributors to meet the demands of the marketplace. However, developing effective relationships across organizations has proved difficult. This study develops a model based on the theory of cooperation and
competition to clarify the supply chain relationships and interactions that contribute to customer satisfaction. Results of structural equation analyses suggest that organizations and suppliers and organizations and distributors who recognize each other’s importance develop cooperative rather than competitive and independent goals. With cooperative goals, they come to trust each other and work for continuous improvement that in turn result in the products and service that satisfy customers. Results were interpreted as suggesting that Deutsch’s theory of cooperation and competition, although developed largely through North American research, is useful for analyzing supply chain partnerships in East Asia and that cooperative goals are an important way to develop effective supply chain partnerships.