فاکتورهای رابطه ای و عملکرد زنجیره های کشاورزی
1- Introduction
2- Conceptual framework and hypotheses
3- An overview of the mango sector in Kenya
4- Methodology
5- Results
6- Discussions
References
Introduction
There is an increasing emphasis on the importance of relational factors such as fairness, trust, closeness, and communication quality for the performance of agrifood supply chains. This is the result of changes in agrifood supply chains associated with globalization, and demand for food quality and safety that require increased supply chain integration (Hartmann, Frohberg, & Fischer, 2010; Swinnen & Maertens, 2007). Supply chain integration ensures that whole chains are linked and coordinated to reduce chain inefficiencies, increase productivity, and profitability. Moreover, integration also contributes to business partners' mutual satisfaction and the competitiveness of the supply chain (Zailani & Rajagopal, 2005). As a consequence of these developments in global value chains, the concept of supply chain integration has become widely promoted in developing countries, both to reduce problems of chain inefficiencies and to promote suppliers' market access (Webber & Labaste, 2010). Supply chain integration also means that different partners in the supply chain become more reliant on each other. In this context, especially inter-personal trust is an important relational dimension. Trust is defined as the willingness to rely on an exchange partner (Moorman, Zaltman, & Deshpande, 1992). Trust between business partners contributes to the establishment of long-term relationships (Geyskens, Steenkamp, & Kumar, 1998) and is a prerequisite for achieving the benefits of such relationships (Villena, Revilla, & Choi, 2011). Moreover, trust is found to foster cooperation and, thereby, reduce transaction costs (Claro, Hagelaar, & Omta, 2003; Palmatier, Dant, Grewal, & Evans, 2006), thus improving business performance. Previous research shows that relationship factors such as trust are important in improving business performance (Ghosh & Fedorowicz, 2008; Zaefarian, Najafi-Tavani, Henneberg, & Naudé, 2016). Business performance refers to both the financial and non-financial performance and outcomes of a buyer-supplier relationship (O'Toole & Donaldson, 2000; O'Toole & Donaldson, 2002). However, a review of the literature shows mixed findings of the role of trust in improving business performance. Some studies have shown that trust can have a positive impact on financial performance (e.g., Gulati & Nickerson, 2008; Lobo, Leckie, & Li, 2013; Masuku & Kirsten, 2004; Mohr & Spekman, 1994). Whereas Lu, Feng, Trienekens, and Omta (2008) show that the level of trust has no direct impact on supplier profitability. Gundlach and Cannon (2010) find that the effect of trust on business performance depends on the level of trust in the relationship. Other studies indicate that trust alone may not lead to improved business performance (Kale & Singh, 2009; Palmatier et al., 2006; Smets, Oorschot, & Langerak, 2013). This implies that trust needs to be combined with other factors and that the role of trust in business relationships might be to moderate the effect of other factors. This proposition is supported by Dirks and Ferrin (2001) who argue that in addition to a direct effect of trust, trust may also facilitate (i.e., moderate) the effects of other organizational behaviour determinants on outcomes. Dirks and Ferrin (2001) suggest two distinct processes through which trust fosters or inhibits positive outcomes in relationships: “first trust affects how one assesses the future behaviour of another party with whom one is interdependent (or whom may take action that affects oneself). Second, trust also affects how one interprets the past (or present) actions of the other party and the motives underlying the actions.” (Dirks & Ferrin, 2001, p. 456). Thus, trust can be seen as an underlying psychological condition of the relationship between two parties (Rousseau, Sitkin, Burt, & Camerer, 1998) that moderates the effect of primary determinants on outcomes by influencing to what extent a party will accept vulnerability depending upon the positive expectations of the behaviour or intentions of the other party (Mayer, Davis, & Schoorman, 1995). The mixed evidence observed in the supply chain literature on the relationship between trust and performance suggests that there is a need for a better understanding of how both the direct role of trust as well as the interaction between trust and other relationship variables influence performance outcomes. This is what we set out to study in this paper.