The impact of buyer-supplier communication on performance: A contingency and configuration approach

Abstract

Although communication plays a fundamental role in the collaboration between buyers and suppliers, existing studies have not combined the communication media and content dimensions to analyze the complex communication phenomenon, therefore cannot answer “what to say” and “how to say” between buyers and suppliers to improve performance. This study combines these two dimensions to identify four communication activities between buyers and suppliers, lean media operational communication, lean media plan communication, rich media task communication, and rich media vision communication. We empirically examined the impacts of communication activities and communication patterns on operational and financial performance based on a sample comprising 200 Chinese manufacturers. Using the contingency approach, we found that lean media operational communication and rich media task communication enhance delivery performance, and rich media vision communication decreases delivery performance. Lean media plan communication and rich media task communication promote flexibility performance. Four types of communication indirectly increase financial performance via operational performance. Using the configuration method, we found that different communication patterns perform differently in terms of three types of firm performance. This research pioneers to combine the media and content perspectives to explore communication activities. The combination of contingency and configuration approaches provides a comprehensive angle in investigating communication-performance relationships.