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供應鏈關係不確定性對公司信用風險影響之研究
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Supply Chain Relationship Uncertainty and Corporate Credit Risk
1. Purpose/Objective
During the recent global financial crisis, companies encountered considerable rises in
default risks transferred from their business counterparties through their supply chain
networks, a phenomenon called the
contagion
effect
(Kali and Reyes, 2010). Supply chain
networks provide a channel for risk transfer between firms and their business
counterparties (i.e., suppliers and customers). The strength of the contagion effect depends
on the importance of the relationship between a firm and its business counterparties
(Chen, Liao, and Kuo, 2013); this relationship is called a
supply chain relationship
. Many
studies document the importance of supply chain relationships in a firm’s operating
performance and asset value (Reinartz, krafft, and Hoyer, 2004; Wahab, AI-Momani, and
Noor, 2010), especially firm-customer relationships (e.g., customer relationship
management; CRM). In addition, Dhar and Glazer (2003) demonstrate that a firm-
customer relationship uncertainty (hereafter denoted as FCRU) may increase the
variations of a firm’s cash flow. On the basis of the preceding literature, we can reasonably
conjecture that supply chain relationship uncertainty (hereafter denoted as SCRU) affects
a firm’s cash flow variations and asset value distributions, consequently affecting its credit
risk (Douglas, Huang, and Vetzal, 2016; Merton, 1974). However, this topic is rarely
addressed in the literature. Hence, the purpose of this study is to fill this gap by exploring
the SCRU effects on corporate credit risk.
In contrast to existing studies, the current study mainly explores the corporate credit
matter from the SCRU perspective. Regarding the FCRU effect on credit risk, this study
first introduces the studies of Reinartz et al. (2004) and Wahab et al. (2010) to demonstrate
the CRM effect on firm cash flow and asset value. Because CRM positively affects a
firm’s cash flow and asset value, we conjecture that FCRU positively affects a firm’s cash
flow variations (e.g., Dhar and Glazer, 2003) and asset value distribution. On the basis of
the preceding descriptions and structural form credit model frameworks (Merton, 1974;
Douglas et al., 2016), we hypothesize that FCRU is positively related to corporate credit
risk. We propose the first hypothesis as follows:
Hypothesis 1: A firm’s FCRU is positively related to its corporate credit risk.
Tsung-Kang Chen
, Professor, Department of Management Science, National Chiao Tung University
Hsien-Hsing Liao
, Professor, Department of Finance, National Taiwan University
Chung-Yu Liao
, Master, Department of Finance and International Business, Fu Jen Catholic University