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The performance implications of strategic fit of relational norm governance strategies in global supply chain relationships

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Abstract

The search for strategic fit has become a core concept in normative models of strategy formation. The issue of strategic fit is becoming increasingly important in global supply chain relationships as managers and academics examine the effectiveness of culturally founded relational governance strategies across multiple supply chain relationships. This study empirically examines the performance implications of strategic fit of relational norm governance strategies in global supply chain relationships between US firms and their primary Japanese and US partners. The performance implications of fitting relational norm governance strategies (i.e., information exchange, flexibility and solidarity) across culturally diverse partners are tested. Results indicate that firm performance is enhanced when the relational norms of information exchange and solidarity are fit to culturally founded norm expectations across culturally diverse relationships simultaneously. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

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Notes

  1. Venkatraman (1989) suggests the use of Euclidean distance models (EDMs) for testing profile deviation as a type of fit. At the suggestion of an anonymous JIBS reviewer, we tested the hypotheses using EDMs in order to determine whether any significant differences in findings exist between testing methods, where EDMs is

    where X sj is the score for a firm in sample s on the jth dimension, X ij is the score for a firm in sample i on the jth dimension and j is the number of the profile dimension (1–3). This calculation offers a profile deviation score that represents the degree to which the profile of each set of sample firms (US and Japan) is similar across constructs. Each profile deviation was then regressed on performance. No differences in outcomes exist between this method and the polynomial regression method employed in our testing, except that the polynomial method allows us to test direction and establish surface maps, which provide easy interpretation of the results.

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Acknowledgements

We thank G Tomas M Hult, JIBS Departmental Editor, and Danielle Trojan, JIBS Managing Editor, for their thoughtful directions and assistant during the review processes, and the three anonymous JIBS reviewers for their detailed comments and suggestions for improving the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Marketing and Supply Chain Management, The Eli Broad Graduate School of Management, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA

    David A Griffith

  2. Department of Marketing and Logistics, College of Business Administration, 310 Stokely Management Center, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA

    Matthew B Myers

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Correspondence to David A Griffith.

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Accepted by J Myles Shaver, Departmental Editor, 8 September 2004. This paper has been with the author for two revisions.

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Griffith, D., Myers, M. The performance implications of strategic fit of relational norm governance strategies in global supply chain relationships. J Int Bus Stud 36, 254–269 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.jibs.8400131

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