Supplier relationship impacts on postponement strategies

The main purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of the supplier relationship on postponement implementation in the buying firm. The links between three supplier relationship constructs and three postponement constructs are hypothesised and tested through structural modelling. These hypotheses are then tested using empirical data of a sample of 219 manufacturing firms. The findings suggest that the ability of the buying firm to delay product design decisions (postponement in product design) is positively related to the level of supplier commitment, supplier expectation of a continuing relationship with the buyer, and level of joint buyer and supplier actions. However, the buying firm's ability to delay purchasing decisions about which items to order or how many to order (postponement in purchasing operations) was only positively related to the level of joint buyer and supplier actions. By contrast, the buying firm's ability to delay the final product configuration (postponement in production operations) was not directly affected by those aspects of the supplier relationship investigated. These findings give greater insight into how different aspects of supplier relationship impact different types of postponement than previous research and have significant implications for practice.