Login or signup to connect with paper authors and to register for specific Author Connect sessions (if available).

Lower-Tier Suppliers and Buyer Performance in the ICT Industry: Network Analysis for Multi-tier Supply Chains
Kara Li Liu, Koray Ozpolat, Seung Kyoon Shin
This paper provides new evidence on the role of lower-tier suppliers from the information and communication technology (ICT) industry in predicting buyers’ performance in multi-tier supply chains. Lower-tier suppliers drive the information economy and emphasize the effects of supply-side economics by providing ICT products or services to buyers. Our study utilizes network centrality metrics to measure such effects in extended supply networks. We create a unique panel data set between 2011 and 2018. We find that buyers’ degree, betweenness, and closeness centralities are indeed associated with buyers’ financial performance. Our results also identify the role of lower-tier suppliers towards buyers’ performance by including tier-1 suppliers’ degree, betweenness, and closeness centrality with tier-2 suppliers. Given the nature of our data, we use the multiway cluster robust estimation with fixed effects for the network dimensions. Our research findings provide implications for buyers when collaborating with multi-tier suppliers from the ICT industry.

AuthorConnect Sessions

No sessions scheduled yet