Dealer Performance Research Articles

Developing resilience strategies amid supply chain risks in the automotive industry: A stakeholder theory perspective

AbstractManaging automotive supply chain risks contributes to achieving sustainability goals, including ensuring business continuity, maintaining production and delivery schedules, and reducing environmental impact. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the risks confronting the supply chain in the automotive industry through the moderating effect of reactive and proactive resilience strategies. The stakeholder theory perspective was used in this study to examine supply chain risk in the automotive industry. A quantitative method was employed, resulting in 157 valid responses. The results reveal that demand risk had the most significant effect on auto dealer performance, followed by logistics/transportation, production, and supply risk. Notably, proactive resilience strategies were found to significantly impact the relationship between risk and performance. The findings underscore the importance of proactive measures in mitigating the performance impacts of supply chain risk. This study contributes a theoretical framework by identifying four major supply chain risks and seven proactive and 12 reactive strategies. In addition, the study was conducted through the lens of stakeholder theory, emphasizing the importance of suppliers, manufacturers, and dealers cooperating to establish a reliable supply chain.

How local dealers benefit from their international participation: evidence from Africa

PurposeAlthough the prior literature has identified the relevance of dealer participation for multinational enterprises (MNEs), it is unclear whether such participation could also be an important means for local dealers to learn from MNEs. By adopting local firms’ viewpoint, our study draws on organizational learning theory to examine how local dealers benefit from their participation with foreign suppliers in Africa.Design/methodology/approachThe empirical setting is a combinative dataset of secondary data and primary survey of 164 small- and medium-sized local dealers with nine subsidiaries of a Chinese motorcycle company in six countries of Sub-Saharan Africa.FindingsThis research shows that dealer participation is positively associated with dealer performance, and this positive effect is stronger when local dealers operate in regions with low government corruption and high government support. However, the positive relationship is weaker when local dealers use the local tongue extensively but becomes stronger when their foreign suppliers have a high dealer coverage.Originality/valueBy taking a local-participant perspective, our study extends the participation literature to show how firms from a resource-constrained region may benefit from their proactive participation with foreign counterparts. Additionally, we identify the boundary conditions of institutional factors and strategic choices of local dealers and foreign suppliers, providing a nuanced understanding of firm behaviors in complex and uncertain markets.

Tedarikçi-Bayi İlişkisinin Bayi Performansına Etkisi: Türkiye'de İnşaat Malzemeleri Sektöründe Lider Firma Örneği

One way to create cost leadership and customer value in businesses is with the effective management of the supply chain. Supply chain management, which creates sustainable competitive advantage for all partners in business processes, is an essential activity for each member for long-term goals and cooperation in the business environment. As one of these members and an important industrial agent, dealers have a significant impact on supplier performance. Studies have revealed the positive effect of supplier-dealer relations in buyer-supplier relationships. The aim of this study is to reveal how and to what extent the relationship between the company and the dealer is effective on dealer performance. In this study, the effect of relationship dimensions of a foreign-owned company operating in the construction sector in Turkey on both dealer and supplier performance was examined through the dimensions of power, loyalty, trust and legal agreements. Dealer performance is measured with market share, profitability, sales growth and customer satisfaction dimensions and supplier performance with success of business processes, lean manufacturing, quality and satisfaction through primary data collected with the questionnaires from 106 different size dealers operating in major industrial cities in Turkey.

Linking internal service quality and casino dealer performance

ABSTRACTThe job responsibilities of a casino card dealer can encompass everything from dealing cards to entertaining customers. Whilst technical cards dealing is a fundamental part of their job requirement, the nontechnical service performance of engaging with gaming customers plays a significant role in customer-related outcomes. This study examines the factors that drive dealer service performance. Data were collected at six major casinos in Macau to investigate casino internal service quality, job security, and dealer occupational commitment. Job tenure is included in the investigation as a moderating variable. The study finds that casino internal service quality has a significant influence on both job security and occupational commitment which subsequently affect dealer service performance. Occupational commitment and job security fully mediate the relationship between internal service quality and service performance. Job length also exerts a significant moderating effect on the proposed relationships. Discussion and implications are provided to conclude this paper.

Benchmarking sales staffing efficiency in dealerships using extended data envelopment analysis

This study presents an approach to benchmark dealer performance in a business-to-business setting through a rigorous efficiency analysis of sales staff allocation. Using a series of basic and extended data envelopment analysis (DEA) models on data collected from a survey of self-reported financial and statistical information, this research assesses dealer efficiency and compares the efficiency scores to traditional financial benchmarking. Findings support the minimization of outsourcing services that are customer interactive and highly specific to a transaction to differentiate the dealer from its competition. Integrating the results from DEA models, manufacturers obtain a comprehensive view of allocating sales staff to increase dealer efficiency and generating a complementary approach to traditional financial ratio benchmarking in determining best practices to other dealers.

An Experimental Investigation of Conflict Response Behaviors and Performance Consequences in Manufacturer-Dealer Relationships: Do Issue Situations and Resolution Strategies Matter?

This study focuses on the independent and interactive effects of problem issue situations and resolution strategies on performance in manufacturer–dealer channel relationships. Conflict issue situation and resolution strategy were a priori matched for a 2 × 2 factorial quasi-experiment. The theoretical framework of (inter)organizational conflict reaction theory was used to extend existing empirical findings about the influence of two factors that foster constructive or destructive consequences experienced from the prospective of dealers. Data were obtained from a sample of 243 dealers and 9 trade administrative experts. The results indicate significant main effects of issue situation and resolution strategy on dealer performance. A significant interaction effect also was found. Managerial implications for dealing with ongoing problem issues with different resolution strategies are discussed.

An integrated marketing capability benchmarking approach to dealer performance through parametric and nonparametric analyses

The role of marketing capabilities as a source of sustainable competitive advantage has been discussed previously in the marketing strategy field. Benchmarking, a well-known learning mechanism, is suggested as a tool to identify and improve the marketing capabilities of a firm. Despite its popularity as a theoretical concept, there is not much empirical evidence to support the view of benchmarking marketing capabilities as a route to guide managers' efforts in this direction. This paper contributes to the three perspectives in the literature that support the view that benchmarking marketing capabilities can offer a basis for sustainable competitive advantage of the firm through both a conceptual and integrated benchmarking model. They are empirically analyzed using stochastic frontier and data envelopment analysis methods based on four-year data set of forty-five dealers of a leading business-to-business supplier. The results indicate the importance of competent salespeople and building a long-term relationship in enhancing dealer performance. In addition, they reinforce a recipe of how marketing capabilities can be benchmarked to achieve sustainable competitive advantage. Discussions and implications for managers are also presented.

Effects of customer services efficiency and market effectiveness on dealer performance

Market orientation is positively associated with the performance of dealers in terms of customer service quality, sales growth and market share increase. This paper aims to analyse the impact of market orientation strategies and the performance of customer services on customer acquisition, retention and sales of automobiles, which reveals the overall performance of the automobile dealers in Mexico. The discussion in the paper also comprehends the customer-dealer relationship in the automobile market segment referring to the key factors which establish services quality encompassing tangibility, responsiveness, trust, accuracy and empathy. The results of the study reveal that customers perceive quality relationship in a given frame of functions that are performed effectively by the dealer, lowering the extent of conflicts thereof. The high-conformance quality services of dealers and value-added customer relationships offering high customer satisfaction develop lifetime customer value and strengthen the customer-dealer relationship.

Examining the Impact of Destructive Acts in Marketing Channel Relationships

In virtually all marketing channel relationships, one of the parties eventually will engage in an action that another channel member considers potentially destructive for the relationship. How a particular channel member reacts to such an act has implications for the long-term viability and success of the relationship. On the basis of a large data set collected from both a focal supplier and its independent dealers, the authors classify dealers' responses to a supplier's destructive acts by extending the response typology of exit, voice, and loyalty, which is based on Hirschman's seminal writings on responses to decline in organizations and states. This study finds that dealers' reactions are influenced by several antecedent factors: perceived intensity of the supplier's destructive act, the attributions relative to the act, relationship quality before the act, and the level of interdependence between dealer and supplier. The results suggest that these more proximal dealer responses affect subsequent dealer performance and overall perceptions of relationship quality after an act. The authors draw several implications for both dealers and suppliers.

Distribution Restrictions Operate by Creating Dealer Profits: Explaining the Use of Maximum Resale Price Maintenance in State Oil v. Khan

The Supreme Court in State Oil Company v. Khan focused on the control of successive monopoly problems as the sole pro-competitive rationale for maximum vertical resale price maintenance. This article shows that the circumstances that lead a manufacturer to use maximum resale price maintenance are much more complex than the presence of a negatively sloped dealer demand curve and that these more complex conditions must be considered in order to explain Khan. The analysis first demonstrates that there are important reasons other than the classic dealer free riding emphasized in economics and case law for why an incentive incompatibility may exist between a manufacturer and its dealers. Therefore, to enforce dealer performance distribution arrangements must create and preserve a dealer profit premium. This explains why maximum resale price maintenance is not ubiquitous and suggests that to understand Khan we must examine other pro-competitive reasons for maximum resale price maintenance. Maximum resale pr...