The antecedents of dyadic quality performance and its effect on buyer-supplier relationship improvement

This study develops and empirically tests a conceptual framework to investigate the antecedents of dyadic quality performance and its connection with buyer-supplier relationship (BSR) improvement. Drawing on the knowledge-based theory, we argue that BSR improvement is a consequence of dyadic quality performance in terms of mutual conformance to the quality requirements of the involved parties in a BSR. We also posit that information technology (IT) capability of firms, effective communication with suppliers, and customer knowledge management (KM) capability are determinants of dyadic quality performance. Path analysis performed on data collected from 137 of the top 500 manufacturers in China indicates that customer KM capability positively affects dyadic quality performance, which in turn is positively associated with BSR improvement. Implications and future research directions on BSR are discussed.