ABSTRACT
227When competition is no longer among firms yet among supply chains, firms are encouraged to establish beneficial collaborations in the supply chain. Supplier development is one of the popular practices believed to be able to create values in supply chain. Studies have discussed that supplier development is defined as developing measurements and exploring its implementation in organizations. However, although customer support in inter-supplier collaboration is believed as one of the supplier development practices, it is never being included in supplier development measurements. This current study makes a significant contribution by developing a measurement model of supplier development with the inclusion of customer support in inter-supplier collaboration, together with direct involvement, supplier evaluation and future business incentives. Moreover, the study supported the view that supplier development is a second-order construct consisting of four first-order constructs, namely direct involvement, supplier evaluation, future business incentives, and customer support in inter-supplier collaboration.
