The roles of Subcontractors' Entrepreneurship on the Relationship Commitment towards the Parent Companies

수급사업자의 기업가정신이 관계몰입을 유도하는 경로

It seems essential to examine the factors that may affect relationship commitment of subcontractors to parent companies in the industrial market in Korea in an effort to construct a win-win-type cooperative network among them. Lots of studies have been focusing on the consumer goods market. Relatively few studies have been focused on industrial market. In the industrial goods market subcontractors used to sell their parts or services only to a small number of parent companies in a large quantity, resulting in decisive control of subcontractors over the quality of parent companies' finished goods. This is why relationship between subcontractors and parent companies is extremely important. From this viewpoint, this study aims to survey and analyze empirically the paths leading to relationship commitment of subcontractors toward the parent companies which are required to incite them to build up a collaborative network by means of subcontractors' entrepreneurship. For this aim, market orientation effects of entrepreneurship as well as factors of performance and trust are particularly set forth as the bases of developing hypotheses in this study in order to explore the paths from entrepreneurship to relationship commitment as follows. First, the path of entrepreneurship-market orientation-communication-trust- relationship commitment; second, the path of entrepreneurship-market orientation-performance-relationship commitment; third, the path of entrepreneurship-market orientation-transaction specific asset investment -trust-relationship commitment; and fourth, the path in which the entrepreneurship is expected to promote direct transaction specific asset investment by parent companies to induce their trust and, eventually, relationship commitment of subcontractors. The outcomes of the empirical analysis in this study may be summed up as follows: First, the conclusions of preceding studies are also supported here by the fact that the entrepreneurship of subcontractors promotes their market orientation (hypothesis 9), indicating that the entrepreneurship can facilitate collection, proliferation of and response to market informations. On the contrary, however, the assumption that the entrepreneurship of subcontractors might directly accelerate transaction specific asset investment by parent companies (hypothesis 8) is rejected. Second, although the influence of subcontractors' entrepreneurship on parent companies' investment of assets peculiar to their transactions is not affirmed, the assumption is found to be supported that subcontractors' market orientation would expedite the parent companies' investment of assets peculiar to their transactions. Moreover, it is also confirmed that parent companies' investment of assets peculiar to transactions would promote subcontractors' trust toward the parent companies (hypothesis 6), signifying that parent companies may level up their trust in subcontractors when they make great amount of efforts to invest in the assets peculiar to transactions, not behaving opportunistically, Third, the hypotheses 4 and 5 also turn out to be supported by the analysis as the former assumes that market orientation could promote communication and the latter relates that the communication between subcontractors and parent companies would prompt trust, both results in affirming that market orientation could introduce open communication to speed up sharing of information and that sharing of information by way of communication might give an impetus to trust. Fourth, the assumption that subcontractors' market orientation would expedite performance (hypothesis 3) is also proved favorably to the significant level equivalent to that of preceding studies. Fifth, same as preceding studies, it is also verified in this study that the benefit (outcomes) awarded by parent companies to subcontractors will be a direct cause exercising a positive impact upon relationship commitment(hypothesis 2) and that the trust of subcontractors toward parent companies may have affirmative influence on the relationship commitment(hypothesis 1). Overall, the first, second and third paths are identified as being supported by the hypotheses among constituent factors, while the fourth path is deemed meaningless since it is shown that the entrepreneurship exercises no effects on parent companies' investment in the assets peculiar to transactions.

이 연구는 기업가정신이 유발하는 시장지향성이 성과를 유도한다는 기존연구를 확장하여 시장지향성을 매개변수로 하고 성과와 신뢰 요인을 도입하여, 수급사업자의 기업가정신이 원사업자와의 관계를 견인하고 협업적 네트워크를 구축하는데 필요한 수급사업자의 관계몰입을 유도하는 경로를 탐색하고 실증 분석하였다. 시장지향성이 구조적 결합요인인 거래특유자산의 투자를 촉진할 수 있고, 또 사회적 결합요인인 커뮤니케이션에 긍정적 영향을 미칠 수 있음을 식별하고, 기업가정신-시장지향성-커뮤니케이션-신뢰-관계몰입의 경로, 기업가정신-시장지향성-성과-관계몰입의 경로, 기업가정신-시장지향성-거래특유자산투자-신뢰-관계몰입의 경로를 식별하였다. 그런데 기업가정신이 원사업자의 거래특유자산투자에 대한 효과가 없는 것으로 분석되었다. 즉 수급사업자의 기업가정신은 시장지향성을 통해 관계몰입에 영향을 미치는 것으로 탐색되었다. 따라서 원사업자는 수급사업자에게 거래특유자산을 투자하고 커뮤니케이션을 통하여 신뢰를 확보해야 한다. 그리고 수급사업자는 투철한 기업가정신으로 시장지향성을 실현하고 원사업자의 거래특유자산투자와 커뮤니케이션을 유도하고, 또 이익을 실현해야 한다. 이러한 수급사업자의 이익성과와 신뢰, 그리고 원사업자의 거래특유자산투자가 B2B시장에서 원사업자에 대한 수급사업자의 관계몰입을 유도하고 유기적인 기업계열화를 촉진하는 요인이기 때문에 정부도 원사업자의 거래특유자산투자를 유도하여 원사업자와 수급사업자의 신뢰를 촉진하는 정책이 필요하다.