How do knowledge spillover and access in supply chain network enhance SMEs’ credit quality?

Published date11 March 2019
Date11 March 2019
Pages274-291
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/IMDS-01-2018-0049
AuthorHua Song,Qiang Lu,Kangkang Yu,Cheng Qian
Subject MatterInformation & knowledge management,Information systems,Data management systems,Knowledge management,Knowledge sharing,Management science & operations,Supply chain management,Supply chain information systems,Logistics,Quality management/systems
How do knowledge spillover and
access in supply chain network
enhance SMEscredit quality?
Hua Song
Business School, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China
Qiang Lu
Business School, Beijing Technology and Business University, Beijing, China
Kangkang Yu
School of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development,
Renmin University of China, Beijing, China, and
Cheng Qian
School of Business, Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing, China
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to understand how knowledge spillover and access in a supply chain
network enhance the credit quality in supply chain finance (SCF) of small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
Design/methodology/approach Drawing on network theory and a knowledge-based view (KBV) of SCF,
this paper proposes a theoretical model and tests it using survey data from a sample of 248 SMEs in China.
Findings The main finding is that both strong ties and dense ties within a supply chain network have
positive effects on SMEscredit quality, and these effects are mediated by knowledge spillover and
knowledge access. Interestingly, knowledge spillover is found to have a positive effect on knowledge access.
Originality/value This paper is the first to investigate the relationship between supply chain network and
supply chain financing from a KBV. The proposed model captures the complexity in the interaction among
different attributes of supply chain networks (i.e. strong ties and dense ties), different aspects of knowledge
transfer (i.e. knowledge spillover and knowledge access) and SMEscredit quality in SCF. The results not only
show the importance of SMEssupply chain networks to SMEscredit quality but also contribute to the
understanding of the KBV in SCF.
Keywords Knowledge spillover, Supply chain finance, Knowledge access, SMEs credit quality,
Supply chain network
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Previous studies have shown that information asymmetry is the biggest barrier hindering
the effective financing of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) (Stiglitz and Weiss, 1981;
Jiang et al., 2014). In order to resolve the financing difficulties of SMEs, at least two
approaches have been proposed in the literature. One way is to adopt information systems
(ISs) such as interorganizational information systems (IOSs) and knowledge management
systems (KMSs), which are considered as both weapons for competition and enablers of
cooperation (Hong, 2002). Another way is to use supply chain finance (SCF), which in
addition to financing costs has been shown to be effective in reducing information
asymmetry, moral hazard and improving financing availability.
In the past few decades, there has been growing interest in research on ISs development
within the supply chain, especially the development of IOSs, i.e., the information and
Industrial Management & Data
Systems
Vol. 119 No. 2, 2019
pp. 274-291
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0263-5577
DOI 10.1108/IMDS-01-2018-0049
Received 28 January 2018
Revised 1 May 2018
11 June 2018
Accepted 21 June 2018
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0263-5577.htm
The research underlying this paper was presented at the 11th International Conference of Operations
and Supply Chain Management (ICOSCM 2017), Kaifeng, China, July 1719, 2015, and was also
supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71672189, 71272155).
274
IMDS
119,2
communications technology that transcends organizational boundaries (Shore, 2001;
Williamson et al., 2004; Akyuz and Rehan, 2009; Ranganathan et al., 2011; Zhang and
Cao, 2018). This line of literature highlights the importance of information resources, value
chains and networks in a supply chain (Kumar and van Dissel, 1996; Williamson et al., 2004).
It is argued that information and communication technologies have positive effects on firm
performance, particularly in the case of SMEs (Bayo-Moriones et al., 2013).
From the perspective of knowledge management, ISs researchers have promotedKMSs, a
class of ISs applied to support and enhance the organizational processes of knowledge
creation, storage/retrieval, transfer and application (Alavi and Leidner, 2001; Chua, 2004). It
has been shown that these information technology (IT) based systems enable rapid search,
access and retrieval of information; support collaboration and communication among
organizationalmembers; and reduce the weight of the humanand financial barriers hindering
the spread of knowledgemanagement, particularly for SMEs,because they need to overcome
the constraints from their limited size by exploiting external sources of knowledge
(Desouza and Awazu, 2006; Fink and Ploder, 2009; Migdadi, 2009; Milosz and Milosz, 2010;
Cerchione and Esposito, 2016a, b). For example, Blackman et al. (2013) adopt Motorola as a
case of guaranteeing its best suppliers obtain lower financing by using IT-based systems to
share information on financial flows and vendor ratings with financial institutions.
In addition to ISs such as IOS and KMS, another approach that has been proposed for
SMEs to overcomefinancial barriers isto take advantage of SCF, whichis defined as a method
of optimizingthe financial structureand the cash-flow within thesupply chain(Gomm, 2010,
p. 135), or providingvisibility and controlling over allcash-related processes within a supply
chain(Grosse-Ruyken et al., 2011, p. 15). Different from traditional bank lending and
relationship lending, which focus on the enterprisesown credit and debt paying ability, SCF
emphasizes the business credibility of borrowing enterprises based on the supply chain
network in which they are embedded. This is because the flow of transactions, logistics
and capital among organizations can better reflect the actual operation of enterprises
(Wandfluh et al., 2016). Researchers have shown that SCF can effectively reduce the
information asymmetry between lenders and borrowers as well as the moral hazard in
financing SMEs, which, in turn, reduces their financing cost and improves financing
availability (Lekkakos and Serrano, 2016; Yan and Sun, 2015; Hofmann and Kotzab, 2010).
Despite the substantial amount of research on supply chain ISs (including KMSs) and
SCF, there is a scarcity of research investigating the link between them, particularly the role
of supply chain knowledge management in SMEsSCF. As pointed out by Hilmola et al.
(2015), SMEs are not only critical sources of raw materials, components or semi-finished
items but also important sources of new ideas and other knowledge for their supply chain
partners. As an operations strategy, knowledge management has been shown to help SMEs
gain a sustained competitive advantage in the business environment and improve their
performance (Hilmola et al., 2015; Sansone et al., 2017). Thus, a natural question arises: can
supply chain knowledge management contribute to SMEsSCF? If the answer is yes, then
another question comes up: How?
The knowledge-based view (KBV) of sustained superior firm performance has
established that one of the most important resources that can be controlled by a firm is
knowledge, which accumulates, spills over, and can be accessed and used in many ways,
creating value through supply chain networks (Grant, 1996; Gulati, 1998; Barney et al.,
2001). Although previous studies on SMEsSCF have shown that SCF based on supply
chain network can effectively reduce the information asymmetry and improve the capital
raising performance of SMEs (Hofmann and Kotzab, 2010; Pfohl and Gomm, 2009), few
studies have empirically examined the attributes of supply chain networks and how these
attributes influence SMEsSCF (Gelsomino et al., 2016). An exception is Song et al. (2016),
which investigates how supply chain networks influence SMEscredit quality in SCF.
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SMEscredit
quality

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