The influence of trust and commitment on the choice of a medical devices supplier in South Africa

Abstract

Effective supplier relationship management and its impact on organizational performance is an increasingly important area of interest in the academic and the business world today. Most of the established and successful companies focus strongly on the development of closer ties with other organizations in search of competitive advantage and improved market positioning. The current literature reported trust and commitment as facilitators of long term supply chain partnerships in medical devices industry. South African healthcare has two major challenges; healthcare costs and the poor quality of the public healthcare. Both high cost and poor service can be linked to poor supply chain management. The main objective of this study was to establish whether trust and commitment influence the choice of the medical devices supplier in the South Africa. This study aims to gain insight into the factors that lead to the participants deciding to go with a specific supplier in the South African medical devices industry, paying special attention to trust and commitment. An empirical research using a questionnaire was conducted within hospitals procurement departments in Gauteng Province, South Africa. The questionnaire was developed from a literature review and contains questions and items relevant to the research problem. The finding showed that both trust and commitment have positive influence on the choice of a medical devices supplier by hospital procurement departments. However, commitment has the strongest influence of all the other constructs. The results also show that competence is vital in order to develop trust with hospitals procurement. Thus, it can be concluded that hospitals find it important to associate with suppliers that are competent and trustworthy. Further research into the operations of the South African healthcare sector is highly recommended. It is recommended that academics study vigorously the industry in order to come up with solutions to achieve envisioned better and efficient healthcare system for all South Africans.