Abstract
3PP (Third party procurement) refers to the establishment of a systematic, economical, and efficient professional procurement model by enterprises breaking away from traditional self -procurement methods and collaborating with 3PP service providers. Since the 1920s, in order to focus on developing core businesses, enterprises have tended to not produce or provide services themselves after receiving sales orders, but directly outsource them to other enterprises, which has led to the emergence of third-party procurement. Meanwhile, with the intensification of industry competition among 3PL (third party logistics) companies, transportation services alone cannot bring significant revenue. In order to strengthen the core competitiveness of logistics enterprises, 3PP services have become one of the value-added services that 3PL seek to expand their business beyond traditional services. This is addressed the following questions in the context of 3PP: In the context of 3PP, what are the factors that affect customers’ acceptance and rejection of the development of 3PP business relationships? How will the combination of these factors affect the development of 3PP business relationships? What are the core conditions and marginal conditions that affect the development of business relationships? These are the questions that this research attempts to answer.
This thesis, through literature review and the characteristics of this research, has extracted 12 conditions such as communication, cognitive trust, benevolence trust, competence trust, affective trust, behavioral commitment, affective commitment, value-based commitment, lock in commitment, social bonds, cultural distance, and reputation, and the result of uncertainty as the research objects.
Based on previous research scales, a questionnaire was designed, and data were collected from the chemical industry respondents, which included logistics supervisors and managers, procurement supervisors and managers, supply chain management department supervisors and managers, general managers and deputy general managers, factory directors and deputy factory directors. More than 50% of these participants’ enterprises are from multinational companies. A total of 200 questionnaires were distributed in the research, 198 were retrieved, 29 invalid questionnaires were excluded, and finally 171 were retained. In this thesis , Fuzzy Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) is applied for data analysis, and 8 solutions about the configurations that affect the development of customers' acceptance and rejection of 3PP~business relationships are drawn, and the theoretical and practical significance of this research is also proposed.
This thesis draws the following conclusions through empirical analysis.
1. Necessary conditions. Research has found that communication, reputation, and social bonds are three necessary factors for the success and failure of 3PP business relationships.
2. Configuration analysis. Through the research, 8 paths leading to the success and failure of business relationship development have been obtained, which are respectively:
Commitment Solution (Configuration 1): It is composed of(* Communication * Trust * Commitment *~Social bonds -Reputation).
Trust - Reputation Solution (Configuration 2): It is composed of (‘Communication ‘Trust-Commitment* ~Social bonds * Reputation.)
Commitment - Cultural Distance (Short) Solution (Configuration 3) is composed of (* Communication * Commitment ~Social bond * Cultural distance * Reputation).
Social Bonds Solution (Configuration 4 and Configuration 5) consists of (* Communication -Commitment* Social Bonds * Cultural Distance * Reputation) and (* Communication * Trust * Commitment * Social Bonds * Reputation)
Negative Y Solution
Three paths leading to business relationship failure were identified in the analysis of negative Y. They are:
1. ~Communication~Commitment~Reputation Solution (Configuration 6)
2. ~Trust~Cultural Distance -Reputation Solution (Configuration 7)
3. ~Communication-Social Bonds -Reputation Solution (Configuration 8)
Configuration composition the configuration consists of (Configuration 6) consisting of (-Communication -Commitment ~Social Bond -Reputation). (Configuration 7) consisting of (-Communication -Commitment ~Social Bonds ~Cultural Distance -Reputation), and (Configuration 8) consisting of (-Communication * Trust ~Social Bonds * Cultural Distance -Reputation).
If these conditions are missing simultaneously, it will lead to the failure of the business relationship.
The contributions of this thesis:
Theoretical contributions:
1. Previous studies have also proved the importance of reputation, communication and social bonds to the development of relationships, and this research also proves from the perspective of the QCA analysis method that they are the necessary conditions for the development of relationships.
2. Previous studies all prove their influence on the development of relationships in a single dimension, while this research is conducted from the perspective of configuration.
3. This thesis not only enriches the literature related to 3PP, but also enriches the literature in the field of marketing.
Practical contributions:
1. This thesis provides practical guidance for 3PL companies to market 3PP services.
2. This thesis identifies the key conditions that affect success and failure in the development of relationships. In this way, managers can pay attention to the efforts of key conditions.
3. This thesis provides enterprise managers with successful paths for the development of different business relationships. In future management, managers can choose the path that suits them according to the actual situation of the enterprise to develop business relationships.