Performance Control in Buyer-Supplier Relationships

A companys ability to best exploit performance potentials within buyer-supplier relationships has become a critical success factor in securing competition and improving a company's overall performance. One powerful attempt to meet this challenge can be found in the application of cross-company management accounting approaches in order to execute performance control. However, implementation of suitable mechanisms and execution of control activities across company boundaries commonly executed by both partners is often insufficient because actual improvement potentials are not identified correctly. Embedded in a contingency-based research framework, the author combines several statistical methods to empirically analyze causal relationships between performance and contingent performance-determinants. Resulting in a control process-oriented guideline, findings support companies in the design and use of performance control systems in buyer-supplier relationships and open the field for further research.