Ecosystem network health and SMEs’ credit quality

Abstract

Purpose

In industrial and business-to-business (B2B) marketing research, a business network ecosystem is an important antecedent of small- and medium-sized enterprises’ (SMEs’) performance. The purpose of this study is to clarify the direct and indirect effects of ecosystem network health on SMEs’ credit quality.

Design/methodology/approach

The data is collected from a survey of operations managers and financial managers of 282 SMEs in China. Structural equation modeling is used to test the hypotheses, and latent moderated structural equations are used to estimate the moderating effect model.

Findings

This research indicates that ecosystem network health can directly affect SMEs’ credit quality and have an indirect impact on credit quality through value co-creation capability. In addition, better informal institutional arrangements in the ecosystem can amplify the positive effects of network health and value co-creation capability on SMEs’ credit quality.

Originality/value

From an ecosystem perspective, it is necessary to bring the ecosystem characteristics into business scenario and explore their impacts on SMEs’ financing behaviors. This study contributes to B2B marketing research in terms of investigating the role played by ecosystem characteristics and value co-creation capability.

Citation

Song, H., Chen, S. and Yu, K. (2022), "Ecosystem network health and SMEs’ credit quality", Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Vol. 37 No. 5, pp. 961-974. https://doi.org/10.1108/JBIM-03-2020-0160