• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
• /
• v.17 no.2
• /
• pp.31-54
• /
• 2007

The exchange between buyers and sellers in the industrial market is changing from short-term to long-term relationships. Long-term relationships are governed mainly by formal contracts or informal agreements, but many scholars are now asserting that controlling relationship by using formal contracts under environmental dynamism is inappropriate. In this case, partners will depend on each other's flexibility or interdependence. The former, flexibility, provides a general frame of reference, order, and standards against which to guide and assess appropriate behavior in dynamic and ambiguous situations, thus motivating the value-oriented performance goals shared between partners. It is based on social sacrifices, which can potentially minimize any opportunistic behaviors. The later, interdependence, means that each firm possesses a high level of dependence in an dynamic channel relationship. When interdependence is high in magnitude and symmetric, each firm enjoys a high level of power and the bonds between the firms should be reasonably strong. Strong shared power is likely to promote commitment because of the common interests, attention, and support found in such channel relationships. This study deals with environmental dynamism in high-tech industry. Firms in the high-tech industry regard it as a key success factor to successfully cope with environmental changes. However, due to the lack of studies dealing with environmental dynamism and supply chain commitment in the high-tech industry, it is very difficult to find effective strategies to cope with them. This paper presents the results of an empirical study on the relationship between environmental dynamism and supply chain commitment in the high-tech industry. We examined the effects of consumer, competitor, and technological dynamism on supply chain commitment. Additionally, we examined the moderating effects of flexibility and dependence of supply chains. This study was confined to the type of high-tech industry which has the characteristics of rapid technology change and short product lifecycle. Flexibility among the firms of this industry, having the characteristic of hard and fast growth, is more important here than among any other industry. Thus, a variety of environmental dynamism can affect a supply chain relationship. The industries targeted industries were electronic parts, metal product, computer, electric machine, automobile, and medical precision manufacturing industries. Data was collected as follows. During the survey, the researchers managed to obtain the list of parts suppliers of 2 companies, N and L, with an international competitiveness in the mobile phone manufacturing industry; and of the suppliers in a business relationship with S company, a semiconductor manufacturing company. They were asked to respond to the survey via telephone and e-mail. During the two month period of February-April 2006, we were able to collect data from 44 companies. The respondents were restricted to direct dealing authorities and subcontractor company (the supplier) staff with at least three months of dealing experience with a manufacture (an industrial material buyer). The measurement validation procedures included scale reliability; discriminant and convergent validity were used to validate measures. Also, the reliability measurements traditionally employed, such as the Cronbach's alpha, were used. All the reliabilities were greater than.70. A series of exploratory factor analyses was conducted. We conducted confirmatory factor analyses to assess the validity of our measurements. A series of chi-square difference tests were conducted so that the discriminant validity could be ensured. For each pair, we estimated two models-an unconstrained model and a constrained model-and compared the two model fits. All these tests supported discriminant validity. Also, all items loaded significantly on their respective constructs, providing support for convergent validity. We then examined composite reliability and average variance extracted (AVE). The composite reliability of each construct was greater than.70. The AVE of each construct was greater than.50. According to the multiple regression analysis, customer dynamism had a negative effect and competitor dynamism had a positive effect on a supplier's commitment. In addition, flexibility and dependence had significant moderating effects on customer and competitor dynamism. On the other hand, all hypotheses about technological dynamism had no significant effects on commitment. In other words, technological dynamism had no direct effect on supplier's commitment and was not moderated by the flexibility and dependence of the supply chain. This study makes its contribution in the point of view that this is a rare study on environmental dynamism and supply chain commitment in the field of high-tech industry. Especially, this study verified the effects of three sectors of environmental dynamism on supplier's commitment. Also, it empirically tested how the effects were moderated by flexibility and dependence. The results showed that flexibility and interdependence had a role to strengthen supplier's commitment under environmental dynamism in high-tech industry. Thus relationship managers in high-tech industry should make supply chain relationship flexible and interdependent. The limitations of the study are as follows; First, about the research setting, the study was conducted with high-tech industry, in which the direction of the change in the power balance of supply chain dyads is usually determined by manufacturers. So we have a difficulty with generalization. We need to control the power structure between partners in a future study. Secondly, about flexibility, we treated it throughout the paper as positive, but it can also be negative, i.e. violating an agreement or moving, but in the wrong direction, etc. Therefore we need to investigate the multi-dimensionality of flexibility in future research.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
• /
• v.42 no.1
• /
• pp.1-38
• /
• 1979

The woody species of Genus Ilex which are endemic to Korea are distributed on limited area due to solely temperature factor. There is some differences according to species, however in general, the evergreen Ilex are found along southern coastal area of Korean Peninsula and near islands where the cold index does not exceed $-5^{\circ}C$. But Ilex macropoda and the variety, only deciduous ones, are grown in temperate zone of the peninsula and some islands. The list of Ilex species of Korea are as follows. Ilex cornuta Lindley et Pax., I. crenata Thunb. var. microphylla Max., I. crenata Thunb., I. rotunda Thunb., I. macropoda Miq., I. macropoda Miq. var. pseudo-macropoda Loensner, I. integra Thunb. The author surveyed the populations of Ilex species as many as possible and data of some characters such as leaf shape, spine, fruit shape, stomata density, sex ratio in natural communities, etc. are collected. Almost all the Ilex species in Korea show sporadic distribution. This means quite small sized populations isolate distantly each other eliminating the change of gene exchange in between. Particularly Ilex conuta and I. crenata show the morphological differentiation among populations as well as significant individual variation within a population. These were true with such characteristics, leaf shape, leaf dimension, leaf margin, fruit shape, spine, and stomata density. The founded are that the fruit length and the stomata density counted on the beneath surface of leaves of Ilex cornuta increased with the decrease of latitude. These are naturally closely related with the cold index values. The table shown below indicates the correlation between mean stomata density per $0.3642mm^2$ and cold index values. These relation however were not observed on Ilex crenata. The most dominated natured in relation to individual variation were outline of leaf, the number of marginal spine, the shape of leaf cross section and the degree of luster of the upper leaf surface. As shown in photos 5~7, these variations are agreed at a glance. There are reports that the development of marginal spines in some Ilex species is associated with the juvenility and topophysis. In present study, these two factors were neglected because of the intended sampling procedure. Of Ilex rotunda, population difference with the characteristics of leaf length is recognized but not for leaf width, petiole length, and fruit size. However, individual variations within a population were significantly large. In case of Ilex integra, only individual differences within population were calculated statistically for such characteristics as leaf length, leaf width, and petiole length. As to natural population, the sex ratio was 1:2 (female to male) for Ilex cornuta, and 1:1 for Ilex crenata. The tendency of more male than female in I. cornuta was agreed to other observations. Preparing the tip cutting of length 10cm, and treating with IBA, then attaching earth ball to the cut end, very successful rooting percentages were obtained. Asexual propagation has the advantages of maintaining the heterozygosity of existing varieties and overcoming the difficulties of delayed seed germination frequently encountered with Ilex species. Considering a great deal of variation in morphological traits, a good possibility of selection breeding for decorative and ornamental purposes exists. At present, these evergreen Ilex are ignored by local people as nuisance weedy shrubs. So the proper protection measures should promptly be taken.