Customer involvement and performance outcomes in supply chain and customer management: direct and mediated effects through mass customization capability
Yen-Chun Chen, Ta-Kai YangPurpose
Customer involvement has extended well beyond new product development. However, relatively little is known about its performance implications for supply chain management (SCM) and customer management (CM). Integrating the resource-based view (RBV) and resource dependence theory (RDT), this study aims to examine whether customer involvement in information provision (CIP) and customer involvement in coproduction (CIC) influence SCM and CM performance directly, or indirectly through the development of mass customization capability (MCC).
Design/methodology/approach
A cross-sectional survey was conducted to collect data from 101 managerial key informants at Taiwanese electronics firms. The research model and hypotheses were assessed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).
Findings
MCC serves as a key mediating mechanism linking customer involvement to performance, and its mediating role differs across SCM and CM outcomes. Specifically, it fully mediates the relationship between both forms of customer involvement and SCM performance, while only partially mediating the relationship between CIP and CM performance. Furthermore, CIP exerts a stronger influence on CM performance than CIC, whereas CIC demonstrates a stronger association with SCM performance than CIP.
Research limitations/implications
The data for this study were collected at a single point in time from Taiwanese electronics manufacturers. Accordingly, the findings should be interpreted as evidence consistent with the proposed capability-building mechanism through which customer involvement may contribute to value creation in this context. Although these mechanisms are firm-level capabilities grounded in the RBV rather than time-specific relational states, the substantial shifts in the business environment may alter the nature of the focal phenomena. These changes, in turn, open promising avenues for future research.
Originality/value
Addressing the limited understanding of customer involvement’s performance implications for SCM and CM, this study identifies MCC as a key mediating mechanism and demonstrates that RBV capability-building pathways predominate over the direct effects posited by RDT in this context.