“What you measure is not necessarily what you get!” The mediating role of socialization within strategic buyer-supplier relationships

This paper conceptualises and empirically examines the varying roles of performance measures and socialization mechanisms on shared performance within strategic buyer-supplier relationships. Previous research has pointed to the importance of using performance measures to manage supplier relationships. However, we argue that socialization mechanisms may play an important role in mediating the correlation between performance measures and shared performance outcomes. A structural equation model, using a sample of 142 manufacturing firms based in the United Kingdom, indicates that socialization fully mediates the effects of operational performance measures on relationship outcomes. Socialization was not, however, found to be a mediating variable for knowledge-based performance measures. Managerial implications and future research directions are discussed.