Supply chain quality management and firm performance in China's food industry—the moderating role of social co-regulation

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships between supply chain quality management (SCQM) and firm performance (including quality safety performance and sales performance) leveraging social co-regulation as a moderator.Design/methodology/approachUsing survey data collected from 203 food manufacturers in China, a series of hierarchical linear modeling analyses were conducted to test hypotheses on the relationships between SCQM and firm performance.FindingsThe findings are threefold. First, all three dimensions of food SCQM practices, i.e., supplier quality management, internal quality management, and customer quality management, have significant positive effects on an enterprise's quality safety performance and sales performance. Second, SCQM practices can also increase sales performance indirectly through quality safety performance as a mediator. Third, while social co-regulation has no significant effect on the relationship between supplier quality management and quality safety performance, it has a significant moderating effect on the relationship between internal quality management and quality safety performance, customer quality management and quality safety performance.Research limitations/implicationsThis study not only integrates SCQM with social co-regulation but also explores the regulating effect of social co-regulation through empirical analysis, thereby providing a theoretical base for future research. However, this research is confined to China and so the results are not necessarily generalizable to other countries.Practical implicationsThe findings inform managers of the importance in enhancing awareness of food quality and safety as well as in improving their sensitivity to salient quality demands of external stakeholders in order to achieve better SCQM practices. The findings can also inform policymakers of the significance in designing a systematic multi-agent cooperation mechanism for food SCQM as well as to build an effective information sharing mechanism for social co-regulation of food safety.Originality/valueThis study contributes to knowledge by empirically examining the relationships of SCQM practices with firm performance. It also expands the scope of SCQM research by incorporating social co-regulation in the study framework.

The effect of supply chain quality management on supply chain performance: the indirect roles of supply chain agility and innovation

“…This yielded an effective response rate of 89.5%, which is considered to be high compared with similar studies of quality and SCM (e.g. Kaynak and Hartley, 2008;Soares et al, 2017;Hong et al, 2019Hong et al, , 2020. The profiles of the respondents and participating companies are reported in Table 2.…”

“…They strive to improve their supply chains (SCs), achieve higher performance levels, and sustain their competitive positions. Moreover, the competition among individual companies has shifted to competition among SCs, which has led academics and practitioners to underline the need for quality implementation throughout the SC networks (Kaynak and Hartley, 2008;Hong et al, 2020). As such, the re-examination of the internal quality strategy, taking into account the evolving complexity of the external SC network, has proved to be central to the competitive position of the organization and to the achievement of the optimum quality and efficiency of the SC (Vanichchinchai and Igel, 2011).…”

Exploring the roles of lead organisations in spreading sustainability standards throughout food supply chains in an emerging economy

“…Such a perspective requires performance indicators and operational actions to be developed by companies and SCs (e.g. Hong et al , 2020; Ramirez et al , 2020). However, according to Touboulic and Walker (2015, p. 21), “future research efforts could seek to develop our understanding of the implementation process of [sustainable supply chain management] SSCM by framing it as transformation/change in organisational practice”.…”

Key determinants of quality in the pharmaceutical supply chain

“…Supplier relationships encourage suppliers to get involved in product or service design and process improvements leading to improved quality of products and services (Kaynak and Hartley, 2008;Kuei et al, 2011;Kaur et al, 2019). Supply-base rationalization processes can be improved by improving supply chain quality management, because when product quality is improved, variation between supplies is reduced and integration can be facilitated (Fish, 2011;Hong et al, 2020).…”