15 / 2024-04-09 09:30:31

Developing Social Capital in the Buyer-Supplier Relationship: What Benefits Hotels Observe?

Social capital,hotel,order fullfilment,buyer-supplier relationship

Service industries place great emphasis on the development of strong relationships with their suppliers in order to achieve superior customer satisfaction. In this buyer-supplier relationship, the parties cultivate and develop social resources that could be used by both suppliers and service industries, to achieve competitive advantage and mitigate risk in their supply chain. Studies in the operations management literature is limited with respect to what benefits service industries get when they develop social capital with their suppliers, and what factors that affect the relationship between social capital and benefits in the buyer-supplier relationship. In order to bridge these gaps, this study has the following two purposes: a) to investigate how social capital developed in the buyer-supplier relationship is used to improve environmental performance, and b) to investigate what factors that have potential to alter the relationship between social capital development and environmental performance. To achieve these purposes, data was collected from 116 top-level managers working in hotels located in New York City. Hierarchical regression analyses is used to test the proposed hypotheses. Results show that social resources developed in the buyer-supplier relationship is positively associated with the improved environmental performance. Further, strategies used to by hotels for order fulfillment have potential to affect the relationship between social capital and environmental performance. Further, strategies used by the hotels for order fulfillment will offer insights into how the parties cultivate and develop social resources to foster a competitive advantage and to mitigate risks associated with threats to supply chain management. This study also offers implications for both theory and practice.