The impact of technological capability on power, trust and inter-firm relationship performance

This study investigates the impact of technological capability on power, trust and inter-firm relationship performance between manufacturers and their suppliers within the supply chain context. This study also verifies the mediating effect of power and trust in the relationship between technological capability and inter-firm relationship performance. Building from the perspective of supply chain management, Resource Base View, power, and trust theories; a conceptual model is developed and the hypotheses are drawn to show the interrelationship between these constructs. This study adopts a mixed method approach where data is collected in two phases. Phase One consists of a quantitative based approach whereby data is obtained through paper-based postal survey questionnaires. Phase Two involves qualitative method and the data is acquired through a series of case study interviews. In phase one, the survey questionnaires were mailed to 800 Malaysian manufacturing companies listed in the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers Directory 2009. A total of 132 surveys were received of which 126 responses were usable, signifying a response rate of 15.75 per cent. The partial least square (PLS) statistical approach has been conducted to test the research hypotheses. Meanwhile in phase two, the data was collected from five manufacturing organisations. Case study approach was chosen and the data was analysed by identifying specific themes that emerged from the interviews, followed by cross case analysis. The quantitative results indicate that there is an association between technological capability and the inter-firm relationship performance. The PLS path coefficient shows positive direction (0.2782) which is significant at p