Collaborative relationships and competitive performance of Brazilian companies

Abstract

Interorganizational collaborative relationships represent potential sources of competitive advantage, especially in the context of critical processes management in supply chains. Collaboration between companies can be critical to minimize the risk of opportunistic behavior between partners and to influence the optimal use of complementary resources between economic agents. The purpose of this paper is to describe the nature of the relationship between supply chain collaboration and competitive performance, evaluating the effect of information systems and technology as moderators of the relationship between collaboration and performance. Using structural equation modeling to analyze data from a sample of 368 Brazilian companies, it was found that collaboration positively influences the company’s competitive performance and information systems and technologies act as moderators in the relationship between collaboration and performance.