STRENGHTENING BUSINESS PARTNERSHIPS OF SMEs EMERGED FROM PUBLIC PROGRAMS THROUGH RELATIONAL COORDINATION MECHANISMS Vasilica Maria Margalina Universidad Técnica de Ambato, Ecuador
[email protected] Carmen de Pablos Heredero Rey Juan Carlos University, Spain
[email protected] Edisson Marcelo Coba Molina Universidad Técnica de Ambato, Ecuador
[email protected] ABSTRACT In Latin America the low number of formal SMEs causes reduced rates of economic growth. In order to fight unemployment and social exclusion, Latin American countries have introduced public policies and programs focused on the Social and Solidarity Economy. One of this programs is “Spinning the Development” implemented by the National Institute of the Popular and Solidarity Economy from Ecuador. The objective of this program is to eliminate barriers to early childhood and basic level education by giving free uniforms to pupils. Additionally, the program aims to improve live conditions of micro and small size companies from the textile and clothing manufacturing sector by offering them the possibility to access public contracts for the production of scholar uniforms. The first years’ results of the implementation of this program show that the contracts closed with sole proprietorship have not contributed to strengthening these businesses. In the last cycle 2015-2016, the program has given priority in the award of contracts to formal business partnerships. This practically presses these businesses to work on partnerships, which is contrary to the concept of a partnership based on the voluntary union of people for reaching a goal. Therefore, for a long term survival of these partnerships, their goal must go beyond of achieving public contracts for the production of uniforms. In this research the relational coordination model has been applied to evaluate the quality of relationships among the partners belonging to business partnerships from the program “Spinning the Development” in Tungurahua, Ecuador, and its impact on perceived advantages and satisfaction with the partnership results. By using a Structural Equations Model analysis it is shown that trough relational coordination mechanisms business partnerships can improve the quality of relationships among their partners, the perceived advantages of the partnership and the satisfaction with its results. . Keywords: Latin America, public programs, SMEs, Social and Solidarity Economy, relational coordination 1 INTRODUCTION Small and Medium Sizes Enterprises (SMEs) play an important role in the economic growth of both developed and developing countries. According to ILO (2015), there are between 420 and 510 million SMEs worldwide, from which 9% are formal SMEs. The highest number of SMEs, 80%-95%, is located in low- and middle- income countries.
In Latin American countries, a large number of micro-businesses exists and some large businesses, but few formal SMEs (ILO, 2015). The problem of developing countries is that these informal micro-businesses are not growing. The missing of medium-size enterprises causes low productivity and reduced rates of economic growth. In the last years, the interest of Governments for the incorporation of Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) in the public policies design has grown worldwide, but especially in Latin American countries as a solution for poverty and social exclusion. Some countries, such as Ecuador and Venezuela, have decided to adopt SSE as a whole, meaning that they gave it constitutional and legal recognition, created specific national public organisms and developed public policies. The Ecuadorian economy is dominated by micro-businesses, who represent 90.6% of the total number of businesses (Statistics and Census National Institute of Ecuador, 2015). This aspect, together with the fact that its economy is based on the production and exports of primary goods, has placed the country in an inferior position compared with its competitors from South America, which has prevent its entry in international markets. Despite of important progresses in social and economic indicators, Ecuador still suffers of high poverty rates and social exclusion (National Institute of Popular and Social Economy-IEPS, 2014a). Therefore, the Government has developed programs focused on SSE aimed to increase the access to jobs for people with high risk of poverty and social exclusion and improve their living standards. One of these programs is “Hilando el Desarrollo” (Spinning the Development), which is implemented by the IEPS and it aims to improve the living standards of micro and small artisans from the textile manufacturing sector (IEPS, 2013). Additionally, the program aims to remove barriers for the access to education. For this purpose, students of early childhood education and of basic education receive free uniforms produced by these artisans (IEPS, 2014b). The Government has also contributed to the creation of new businesses with sole proprietorship in this sector by offering a granted in value of $1.200 for the acquisition of serving machines and all the necessary inputs for the production of uniforms (Andes, 2013). The Ministry of Finance of Ecuador (Ministerio de Finanzas, 2015) informed that, by the end of 2015, the amount accumulated in the “Spinning the Development” program was of $223.251.101,71 for the production of 8.021.043 school uniforms kits. Within the program, they have closed a total of 13.628 contracts with artisans, micro and small producers, which have generated an average of 56.378 jobs. The region of the country with the larger number of beneficiaries of the program “Spinning the Development” was Zone 3, comprising the provinces Cotopaxi, Chimborazo, Pastaza and Tungurahua. In this region, 737.169 school uniforms have been produced with a total investment of $17.582.305,76. Four years later since these businesses have had access to public contracts for the production of school uniforms, IEPS has got to the conclusion that the small contracts closed up with artisans have not contributed to the strengthening of this sole proprietorship businesses, because they generate only minimal profits. Since 2015-2016 cycle, the program “Spinning the Development” id giving priority to business partnerships belonging to IEPS in the allocation of contracts (IEPS, 2015) to help these artisans to have higher earnings in order to strengthen their businesses. The problem is that this decision is forcing the artisans to organize themselves in partnerships in order to remain eligible for public contracts, which is contrary to the concepts of Solidarity Economy and business partnerships, which are based on the voluntary union of persons for the achievement of a common goal. As literature shows, the success of cooperation between firms depends on the definition of objectives, communication and trust. Therefore, for a long term survival of the businesses partnerships emerged from the program “Spinning the Development”, their goal must go beyond of the achievement of public contracts for the production of uniforms and must be
sustained by relationships of quality. Hence, apart from the economic aid and the legal advices for the creation of SSE association, IEPS must help them to create partnerships with strong ties that will enable these micro and small entrepreneurs to extend cooperation beyond the access to contracts for the production of school uniforms. In this research, the relational coordination model has been applied to evaluate the quality of relationships among the artisans belonging to these business partnerships in the province of Tungurahua, Ecuador. The objective is to analyze if relational coordination mechanisms have a positive impact on perceived advantages and the satisfaction with the partnership results. 2 BUSINESS PARTNERSHIPS AND RELATIONAL COORDINATION Scholars, such as Borzaga & Tortia (2007) and Moraes Soares et al. (2016) have shown that the organization of the businesses belonging to SSE in networks that complement the individual action is important for their future success. Experiences of Latin American countries, such as Mexico and Chile, have demonstrated that the associative forms of production, with the direct participation of micro, small and medium enterprises have generated an increase in their production and competitiveness, enabling their insertion in the international market (MIPRO, 2014). Mora, Montoro & Guerras (2004) performed a literature review to identify the main factors that can determine the success of cooperation agreements amongst organizations of different nature. They identified two types of factors: contextual factors and organizational factors. Contextual factors include: previous experience, reputation, definition of objectives, institutionalization and geographical approach. On the other hand, organizational factors are represented by: determination, communication, trust, conflict and dependence. Therefore, the intangible aspects in cooperation agreements should be also considered important for the final outcome. Sharing objectives amongst the partners, practicing mutual respect and establishing appropriate mechanisms for knowledge sharing and having a communication of quality are key elements to orient efforts of the different agents to reach the project (De Pablos, Soret, & Montes, 2014). The relational coordination model offered by Gittell (2002) and derived from the relational coordination (RC) concept can become a helpful tool to measure and encourage effective coordination amongst different partners. It is based on the relationships of people - who are emotional beings. For this reason, it attempts to group together all the connections between them, not merely as a task, tool or technical need, but rather in real ways to enable people to work efficiently. Relational coordination is formed side by side with work coordination, in all aspects of the relationship. It recognizes, therefore, the need for the relational side of coordination to achieve organizational effectiveness. The model is structured around two types of dimensions: communication and relationships. Within the dimension of communication, it is included: -Frequent Communication: Frequent communication helps to establish relationships via roles through the closeness generated as a result of repeated interaction. -Timely Communication: Delays in communication may have negative implications for organizational performance; hence the importance of communication occurring at the right time, for the successful development of organizational tasks (Waller, 1999). -Accurate Communication: In the context of relevant information, this plays a critical role in the effectiveness of a group’s task performance (O’Reilly & Roberts, 1977). -Problem-Solving Communication: Effective coordination requires those involved in the task to engage in communication to solve the problems that appear in a group’s performance with a high level of interdependence, rather than blaming the others involved or evading
responsibilities. This can lead to negative consequences that particularly affect performance (Deming, 1986). On the other hand, in the relational dimensions in Gittell’s model we can find: -Shared Goals: They play a key role in the coordination of highly interdependent tasks (Wagemann, 1995). Using a set of shared goals in the work process, the individuals involved create ties that allow them to reach conclusions that are compatible with the different ways of thinking and acting when new information is made available. -Shared Knowledge: While Dougherty (1992) points out that communication among those involved in the various tasks that constitute a process is not always effective because of different social backgrounds, training and experience, Gittell (2009) states that when members know how their tasks are related to those of the other members in the same process, it creates a dynamic in which everyone knows the impact that each change will make on each task and each role. -Mutual Respect: Respect for the competence of others involved in the process provides a powerful tie that will be implemented in a comprehensive way across the whole process, generating, as a result, effective coordination (Gittell, 2009). Through this design, the RC model becomes a model of intensive coordination in communication and relationships, which is particularly useful to achieve higher levels of performance with high levels of interdependence when faced with tasks, uncertainty and time constraints. It is therefore an example of process improvement, which allows a working group, department or organization to raise their potential production to higher levels. Relational coordination works on the concept of a team. Normally, people are too individualistic and pay insufficient attention to their interdependence and thus to the need to work together. Organizational learning is interpersonal and relational, and often involves learning to coordinate work in a new way. For a system to work well, people have to recognize that they are interdependent (Gittell, Edmonson & Schein, 2011). The relational coordination model can be of interest to achieve excellent results in organizations or organizational processes where high levels of task interdependence (Thompson, 1967), uncertainty (Argote, 1982), time restrictions (Adler, 1999) and tacit knowledge (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995) are required. These are also characteristics of business partnerships. The RC model has been applied to different organization from several sector, such as, airlines (Gittell, 2003), healthcare (Gittell, 2009; Gittell, Seidner, & Wimbush, 2010), cloud computing (De Pablos Heredero et al., 2014) and education (Margalina, De Pablos Heredero, & Montes Botella, 2015) proving to be a source of performance. 3 METHODOLOGY AND HYPOTHESES As it has been previously described in the introduction, the main objective of this research is to evaluate the relationship between relational coordination on the quality of relationships among the partners of business associations that belong to the program “Spinning the Development” in the region Tungurahua of Ecuador and its impact on perceived advantages of the partnership and satisfaction with the results. For the collection of data, a survey adapted from the questionnaire proposed by Gittell (2012) for the measuring of relational coordination has been used. Additionally, the questionnaire includes items regarding perceived business partnership advantages and the satisfaction with the partnership’ results. All the items were measured using a five point Likert scale. The answer choices ranged from 1, as the lowest value, and 5, as the highest. Business partners from 10 partnerships belonging to the program “Spinning the Development” were asked to complete the questionnaire. These
business partnerships sump up, together, 170 small entrepreneurs. We received 102 answers, from which 89 were taken in consideration for the empirical study, as the rest of the questionnaires were incomplete. The sample error is about ± 7%, with a level of trust of 95.5% (2 sigma) and P = Q = 0.50. The answers were collected between January and March 2016. For the empirical analysis, a Structural Equation Model (SEM) with latent variables has been created. The model has been used for the validation of the following hypotheses: H1: Relational coordination improves the quality of relationships between the partners of business associations from the program “Spinning the Development”. Based on Aldakhil & Nataraja (2014) definition, coordination related to business partnerships is the extent to which two or more firms are integrated within a relationship. Coordination has been identified as a key success factor in strategic alliances between companies in the studies performed by Mohr & Puck (2013) and Aldakhil & Nataraja (2014). Businesses are equally supposed to contribute to a cooperative agreement, but firm’s partially conflicting of interest may lead to tensions, that can escalate in uncertainty and distrust (Hsu & Chang, 2014). Gittel’s relational coordination model is a model of intensive coordination in communication and relationships, which is particularly useful to achieve higher levels of performance with high levels of interdependence when faced with tasks, uncertainty and time restrictions. Quality is considered a key factor for successful long-term business relationships (Athanasopoulou, 2009) and it can be defined as the degree of convenience that has a relationship for the stakeholders, when meeting their needs (Moliner, Sánchez, Callarisa & Rodríguez, 2008). In this research, satisfaction has been used as a measure for the quality of relationships. The partners of the studied business associations have been asked to evaluate their level of satisfaction with the work and contribution of the president, the administrator and the other partners. Mallada González & Collom Gorgues (2010) define satisfaction from the stakeholders’ point of view as: the balance of the comparison between the results and expectations, which is based on the perceptions that the different stakeholders have regarding the contribution of others in final results. H2: Business partners from associations where high quality of relationships are met, perceive more advantages of the business partnerships and are more satisfied with partnership’s results. Mallada González & Collom Gorgues (2010) have proved in a study performed on three clusters from Spain that relationships of quality improve the cooperation between groups of interests. Firms establish relationships with other firms because they need each other for the achievement of common goals (Andandaleeb, 1996). Most of the partners of the studied business associated decided to involve in an inter-organizational relationships in order to remain eligible for public contracts. If the requirement disappears or the “Spinning the Development” program ends, many of these micro and small businesses may not find any other reasons to continue the partnership. Therefore, the aim of this program to contribute to the growth and strengthening of this business is under treat. For this reason, in this hypothesis it is tested if the quality of relationships improves partner’s satisfaction with the partnership’s results and increases the perceived advantages of being involved in this type of business relationships.
4 RESULTS In this research, a structural equation model (SEM) has been created for the validation of the hypotheses with the help of SmartPLS 3 (Ringle, Wende, & Becker, 2015). The model was estimated applying the partial least square (PLS) procedure. PLS Algorithm was chosen because it converges in most of the cases achieving high statistical power even with reduced samples and it is robust against missing data (Henseler, Ringle, & Sinkovics, 2009). Also, minimal recommendations exist concerning sample size and it presents accuracy and non-data multinormality requirements. As the distribution of PLS is unknown, significance testing must be done with resampling methods. SmartPLS 3 offers the Bootstrapping procedure for the estimation of model parameters and of the standard error of regression paths (Garson, 2016). Discriminant validity of the model was assessed according with the Fornell and Larcker Criterion. In accordance with this criterion, the correlations between latent variables must be lower than the square root of the corresponding AVE (Fornell & Larcker, 1981). Table 1 shows the square root of AVE inserted in the diagonal cells and the correlations appear below it. As it can be seen, the top number of all factor columns (the square root of AVE) is higher than the correlations below it, therefore discriminant validity is met. Table 1. The Fornell and Larcker Criterion Advantages
FC
MR
PSC
QWR
SG
SK
Advantages
0.84
FC
0.80
0.91
MR
0.80
0.77
0.88
PSC
0.70
0.71
0.85
0.80
QWR
0.77
0.68
0.82
0.79
0.89
SG
0.79
0.72
0.84
0.79
0.87
0.95
SK
0.40
0.32
0.43
0.41
0.44
0.55
1.00
SPR
0.82
0.71
0.77
0.68
0.81
0.84
0.34
SPR
1.00
Internal consistency of the variables was measured by Cronbach’s Alpha and by Composite Reliability (Table 2). All Cronbach Alpha and Composite Reliability take values over 0.70, the minimum value recommended (Henseler et al., 2009), therefore all the eight variables present internal reliability. Table 2. Construct Reliability, Validity and R Square Cronbach's Alpha
Composite Reliability
Average Variance Extracted (AVE)
R Square
Advantages
0.93
0.94
0.71
0.59
FC
0.89
0.93
0.82
0.59
MR
0.86
0.91
0.78
PSC
0.80
0.87
0.63
0.49
QWR
0.88
0.92
0.80
0.79
SG
0.90
0.95
0.91
0.30
SK
1.00
1.00
1.00
SPR
1.00
1.00
1.00
0.66
The Average Variance Extracted (AVE) has been used as a measure for divergent validity. All the AVE values exceed the threshold recommended by Fornell and Larcker (1981), which means variables explain more than half of the variance of their respective indicators.
Statistical significance was sized up by means of 5.000 resampling bootstrap in order to minimize the estimator of standard errors (Hair, Hult, Ringle & Sarstedt, 2014). Table 3 shows the results of the Bootstrapping for all the path coefficients. Table 3. Mean, STDEV, T-Values, P-Values Original Sample (O)
Sample Mean (M)
Standard Deviation (STDEV)
T Statistics (|O/STDEV|)
P Values
FC -> PSC
0.71
0.71
0.05
13.86
0.00
MR -> FC
0.77
0.77
0.04
21.33
0.00
PSC -> QWR
0.28
0.28
0.08
3.27
0.00
QWR -> Advantages
0.77
0.77
0.05
16.06
0.00
QWR -> SPR
0.81
0.81
0.04
19.98
0.00
SG -> QWR
0.66
0.65
0.07
9.22
0.00
SK -> SG
0.55
0.55
0.07
8.03
0.00
As it can be observed in Table 8, all the relations between the latent variables composing the model are statistically significant with t-values higher than the 1.96 limit (5% confidence interval) and all p values < 0.05. This means that all the hypotheses are validated, but, the overall effect size measure for the structural model is given by the R Square values (Table 2). In the case of the first hypothesis (H1), the results show that 79% (R2 = 0.79) of the variance of the quality of work relationships (QWR) is explained by the dimensions of the relational coordination model. Problem solving communication (PSC) and shared goals (SG) have a direct impact on the variable QWR, while the other dimensions are indirectly related with its variance. 50% (R2 = 0.50) of the variance of the variable PSC is explained directly by the variance of the variable frequent communication (FC), and indirectly by the variable mutual respect (MR), which correlation with the FC is of 60% (R2 = 0.60). Shared knowledge (SK) has also an indirect effect on QWR, as 31% of the variance of shared goals is explained by SK. The results detailed above confirm the definition of relational coordination given by Gittell (2002: 301) “as a reinforcing process of interaction between relationships and communication carried out for the purpose of task integration”. It also confirms that mutual respect has a positive effect on the quality of communication, as it increases its frequency. It also proves that through relational coordination high satisfactory relationships can be achieved among business partners. The results for the second hypothesis indicate that 59% of the variance of the variable Advantages is explained by the variable QWR. The relationship is even higher in the case of the satisfaction with partnership’s results (SPR), as 66% of the variance of this variable is explained by QWR. 5 CONSLUSION The problem of developing countries, such as those form Latin America, is their large micro businesses that do not grow. Some of these countries have decided to support the creation of new micro-businesses and give access to these type of businesses to public contracts through programs based on the SSE. The problem is that the sole propiertoship businesses that participate in these program are not growing and are not creating more jobs. This is also the case of the program “Spinning the Development” from Ecuador. Additionally, this program tries to promote the partnership among the micro businesses, by giving priority to SSE business partnerships in the assignment of public contracts. But, with no other goal for these businesses, these partnerships could disappear if the program ends.
This new objective of the program it can only be achieved through a long term relationship between the artisans and IEPS and taking also into account intangible factors. In this research, the relational coordination model has been applied to evaluate the quality of relationships among business partners from the associations belonging to the program “Spinning the Development” from the province of Tungurahua, Ecuador. It has also been analyzed if high quality relationships can increase the perceived advantages of the business partnerships and improve their results. The results of this study show that the quality of relationships can be improved through relational coordination mechanisms, as problem solving communication and shared goals are key dimensions for the improvement of the quality of relationships in business partnerships. The relationships between partners must be based on mutual respect, as it increases the frequency of communication. Shared knowledge is also important, as when partners achieve to cooperate sharing with others information and knowledge, they also work together for the achievement of shared goals. IEPS can help these partnerships to implement relational coordination mechanisms. IEPS must not only give advices to the micro and small entrepreneurs in the legal procedures of a partnership establishment as it does in present, but must also help them to find the best mechanisms for the achievement of a proper level of coordination of their activities. IEPS can also encourage the specific knowledge sharing of the sector among these artisans, by organizing events with the aim of bringing them together. The results also show that the quality of relationships has an impact on the perceived advantages of the partnership. Therefore, IEPS must promote other partnership advantages among these entrepreneurs and how they can keep good quality relationships. Another factor that can influence the success and survival of these partnerships is the satisfaction with the results. And the research proves that through high quality relationships business partnerships can achieve satisfactory results. This research proves that relational coordination has not only the power to transform relationships in business partnerships and improve their results, but it can also help to transform the economy of an entire region. If the business partnership from the program “Spinning the Development” in Tungurahua will survive, these micro and small businesses will have more opportunities to grow, jobs will be created and the standard living of many people from the region will be improved. The results of this study are important, but the investigation presents some limitations. First, we had difficulty in obtain complete answers to the questionnaire and, therefore, the sample represents 52% of the total numbers of micro and small entrepreneurs participating in the program. Secondly, the study has been done only in one province of Ecuador and it should be extended to other provinces.
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