Does supplier-customer organizational culture similarity improve supplier service quality: the moderating roles of supplier innovation capability and product diversity

Purpose By integrating cognitive social capital theory and contingency theory, this study examines how supplier-customer organizational cultural similarity affects supplier service quality and how this effect is further moderated by supplier innovation capability and product diversity. Design/methodology/approach Based on the data of 147 suppliers collected from a leading electric utilities company in China, the current study conducted a regression analysis to test the model. Findings The current study finds that supplier-customer organizational cultural similarity improves supplier service quality. In addition, supplier innovation capability strengthens the positive relationship between supplier-customer organizational cultural similarity and supplier service quality, whereas supplier product diversity weakens this relationship. Originality/value This study contributes to a better understanding of the impact of supplier-customer organizational cultural similarity and service management literature. First, our study uses the BERT model to calculate supplier-customer organizational cultural similarity, which provides a more accurate assessment of culture similarity by understanding the concepts in organizational culture descriptions than traditional algorithms based on keyword matching, word frequency statistics, or simple text similarity. Second, our study theorizes and empirically tests how and under what conditions supplier-customer organizational cultural similarity influences supplier service quality, thus providing practical insights for organizations to adopt this approach in their operational strategies.