Supplier Association Relationship and Cost Stickiness —Analysis of Cooperation Effect Based on Environmental Uncertainty

From different perspectives with supplier relationships as the entry point, this paper explores the impact of external enterprises on the cost stickiness of listed companies based on the data of listed manufacturing companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2016 to 2019. The results show that when the main suppliers are the associated companies of the listed company, the suppliers’ correlation degree and the influence of the associated suppliers will significantly reduce the cost stickiness, while the suppliers’ volatility degree will significantly increase the cost stickiness. Further researches show that in the samples with high environmental uncertainty, associated suppliers can exert more cooperative effects. State-owned enterprises can better deal with the cooperative relationship with associated suppliers, thus reducing cost stickiness. This study enriches the related research on the correlation relationship of supply chain to cost stickiness. Under the current background of economic transformation and upgrading, choosing the right supplier relationship can effectively deal with the negative impact of environmental uncertainty, reflecting the “alliance effect”.