Mediation Impact of Supplier Quality on Association between Top Management Commitment and Resource Utilization in Indian Automotive Sector

Abstract

The study intends to investigate mediating role of supplier quality improvement on relationship between top management commitment and resource utilization in Indian automotive sector. It is a given that the management of an organization plays a vital role in the success of an organization, which includes managing strategic resources and forming strategic alliances with key stakeholders. For manufacturing organizations where suppliers become an indispensable stakeholder in the organization’s value chain, maintaining supplier quality leads to sustainable profits for the organization. Hence, a conceptual framework based on extant literature review is proposed for extracted constructs, namely top management commitment, supplier quality improvement, and resource utilization to analyze a possible relationship between the three constructs. To validate the proposed hypothesized relationships, data were collected by sending research instrument to senior management executives of Indian automotive organizations. Results of data analysis suggest that supplier quality improvement mediates the impact of top management commitment on resource utilization. Study strongly recommends that for optimum utilization of resources, automotive organization(s) must develop long-term relationship with selected set of trusted supplier’s. Further, results suggest that as much as possible real-time voice of customer ought to be communicated to the selected set of suppliers.