infonet-economy

Awareness of capital commitment in the context of supply management has increased tremendously in recent years. However, researchers often only consider the intra-organisational perspective of financing. Consequently, a great optimisation potential, especially in globally dispersed supply chains, remains unlocked. To address this research gap, this paper presents a conceptual research model with hypotheses derived from principal-agent theory to explain the role of collaboration in the context of financing a buyer-supplier dyad and its effect on the resulting financing performance. A cross-industry survey yielding 145 responses was used to empirically test the hypotheses. The results indicate that both strategy alignment between purchasing and finance departments (intra-firm financial collaboration) as well as in the buyer-supplier dyad (inter-organisational financial collaboration) have a significant positive effect on the overall financing performance. These findings provide researchers and practitioners with a clearer understanding of upstream-oriented supply chain finance and the possibilities and constraints in its implementation.