Organisational learning, product quality and performance: the moderating effect of social ties in Chinese cross-border outsourcing

Abstract

This study focuses on how government ties and financial ties as two important social ties in emerging countries differently moderate the relationships between two types of organisational learning (i.e., explorative learning and exploitative learning) and product quality. By using Chinese vendor samples in cross-border outsourcing, our empirical results show that product quality mediates the positive relationships between explorative and exploitative learning and financial performance. Furthermore, the moderating effects of government ties on the relationships between both two types of organisational learning and product quality are significantly positive. While financial ties positively moderate the relationship between exploitative learning and product quality, they negatively moderate the relationship between explorative learning and product quality.

Keywords:

• cross-border outsourcing
• organisational learning
• product quality
• social ties

Acknowledgements

This research is supported by NSFC (70872090, 71002088) and KPEMC (09JZD0030).