Effects of Partner Characteristic, Partnership Quality, and Partnership Closeness on Cooperative Performance: A Study of Supply Chains in High-tech Industry

Owing to the rapid development of information technology, change of supply chain structures, trend of globalization, and intense competition in the business environment, almost all enterprises have been confronted with unprecedented challenges in recent years. As a coping strategy, many of them have gradually viewed suppliers as “cooperative partners”. They drop the conventional strategy of cooperating with numerous suppliers and build close partnerships with only a small number of selected suppliers. This paper aims to explore partnerships between manufacturers and suppliers in Taiwan’s high tech industry. Through a review of literature, four constructs, including partner characteristic, partnership quality, partnership closeness, and cooperative performance are extracted to be the basis of the research framework, hypotheses, and questionnaire. The questionnaire is administered to staff of the purchasing and quality control departments in some high-tech companies in Taiwan. The proposed hypotheses are later empirically validated using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM). This paper expects to provide substantial suggestions to enterprises in the high-tech industry and help them develop mutually beneficial partnerships.