Relational integration between supply chain members: Proposal of a measurement scale applicable to Asian emerging countries

The organisation and functioning of supply chains constitutes a major issue in contemporary management research. It is true that the way in which various companies will coordinate to supply consumption markets in the best possible way constitutes a key question. Even though the sources of competitive advantage usually refer to successful industrial, commercial and financial strategies, the efforts made by a company to conquer a market can be ruined by recurrent logistical failures. This paper particularly focuses on the relational integration process between supply chain members, whose objective is to improve the level of service quality and reduce the costs. It wishes to propose a measurement scale of relational integration applicable to the specific context of emerging countries, and therefore avoid the rashly use of measurement scales created in the context of Western countries. A research lead with 139 Vietnamese companies in the food industry enables to test and confirm the robustness of the retained measurement scale. Its use may be considered in other emerging countries of South East Asia, for cross-cultural research.