Cognitive bias is highly likely to have an impact on quality risk, a critical factor in supplier management. Manufacturers can reduce such risk by adopting a stakeholder perspective during their reviews of how their suppliers perform. However, there is a paucity of research that has examined the relationship between manufacturers and their suppliers using real-life supplier assessment data. Furthermore, the application of stakeholder theory in understanding supplier–buyer relationship management, particularly within the context of the semiconductor industry, remains limited. By exploring quality-value discrepancies between a semiconductor manufacturer and its suppliers, this study helps fill that gap.
Stakeholder theory has been incorporated into the SERVQUAL model in order to investigate discrepancies in quality values between a manufacturer and its suppliers. A database containing four years’ worth of information about 210 entities that supplied a prominent Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturer was used as the basis of our investigation, guided by stakeholder theory, of the quality-risk issues associated with quality-value gaps.
The results reveal that supplier self-assessed performance was better than the case company’s on-site assessment of its suppliers. Also, suppliers react differently to pressure from buyers because suppliers have different risk levels.
Using the lens of stakeholder theory, its analytical results elucidate the crucial buyer–supplier behavior associated with a manufacturer and her suppliers as a basis to develop best practices and guidelines to address quality risk.
Pressure from manufacturers is not always strong enough to control suppliers. A manufacturer should develop appropriate strategies to mitigate the quality risk across suppliers.
This case study of the relationship between a manufacturing buyer and her suppliers in the semiconductor industry represents a valuable contribution on quality risk to the field of buyer–seller relationship management.
