Understanding the structural characteristics of a firm's whole buyer--supplier network and its impact on international business performance

Building on the network theory and the concept of organizational ambidexterity, we investigate the impact of structural characteristics of a firm's whole buyer--supplier network: network density, betweenness centralization, and average clustering coefficient on its international business (IB) performance. We also explore the moderating roles of average path length and PageRank centrality. Using a manually-collected dataset and a robust empirical methodology, we find that, while network density is negatively related, betweenness centralization and average clustering coefficient have an inverted U-shape and a U-shaped relationship with IB performance, respectively. We also find significant moderation effects, and, in the process, we show the economic importance of firms' whole buyer--supplier network to their IB performance. We contribute to the international business and whole buyer--supplier network literature.