Authors: Lukasz Malys; Milena Ratajczak-Mrozek
Abstract
Contemporary marketing concepts underline the importance of developing
relationships with a variety of entities from the business environment for a company’s
effective market performance. The vast majority of research in this area concentrates on
cooperation within supply chains which could have the most significant impact on company
performance. The necessity of including informal contacts as well as formal contacts in the
analysis is underlined. Due to the varying nature of both cooperation forms, they can have
different effects on the way in which a firm functions.
The aim of the article is to analyse the performance of companies characterized by
varying approaches to formal and informal cooperation within the supply chain. Authors have
identified and compared the market performance of three groups of companies: cooperation
with external entities only formally, cooperating only informally and cooperating both
formally and informally.
The paper presents the results of an empirical study of 193 companies based in
Poland. Data was obtained from an internet survey. The survey time frame covered a period
from September to November 2010.
The two main contributions of the paper are as follows. The first is the inclusion of
informal cooperation into supply chain management analysis. The second is relating
cooperation within the supply chain, to a company’s performance. The conclusions may be of
practical importance. By presenting the positive relations between cooperation and
performance, companies may determine the sources which may increase their advantage over
competitors.
Keywords: cooperation, informal cooperation, supply chain management, company
performance, competitiveness, network relationships, Polish companies
Journal: ( – )
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Conference: Glasgow, Scotland (2011)