The antecedent role of quality, information sharing and supply chain proximity on strategic alliance formation and performance

In this paper, we present the notion of buyer-supplier "relationship architecture". The relationship architecture emphasizes the aspects of just-in-time that relates to linking with suppliers and customers. We conceptualize it to be composed of quality considerations from suppliers, information sharing and trust, and supply chain proximity. A model is proposed and tested to highlight the role of these operational issues associated with relationship architecture on strategic alliance formation and on supply chain performance. A structural equation modeling approach is used to investigate our hypotheses. (c) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.