본 연구는 제조업체가 PB 제품의 생산을 요구하는 유통업체와 협력보다는 경쟁해야 한다는 기존 주장이 제조업체를 어려움에 직면하게 할 수 있으므로 사고전환이 필요하다는 인식에서 이루어졌다. 왜냐하면 PB는 일반화되었으며 향후에도 성장이 예상되고 상당수 제조업체가 PB를 생산하고 있는 것이 현실이기 때문이다. 다른 한편으로 PB가 제조업체에게 중요해졌음에도 불구하고 이에 관한 연구의 상당수가 소비자 또는 유통업체에 집중되어 있어 제조업체 측면에서의 PB에 대한 이해도 높지 않다. 본 연구에서는 제조업체가 유통업체에 의존하게 하는 PB 제품 관련 요인들을 자원기반관점을 토대로 검토하고 PB 제품 생산에 의존하는 것이 장기적 관계에 긍정적인 영향을 미치는 지를 살펴보았다. 구체적으로는 제조업체의 PB 의존성에 영향을 미치는 변수들은 자원기반관점의 유형자원, 무형자원, 역량 차원에서 파악하여 도출 하였다. 다음으로 도출된 변수들 간의 인과관계를 모형화하여 가설을 수립하고 PB를 생산하는 제조업체를 표본으로 하여 자료를 수집하고 이를 구조방정식으로 분석하였다. 연구결과는 다음과 같다. 첫째, 유통업체의 유형자원 중에서 특정위치진열은 제조업체의 PB 의존성에 영향을 미치지 않는 것으로 나타났지만, 실용적 제품은 긍정적인 영향을 미치는 것으로 밝혀졌다. 둘째, 유통업체의 무형자원으로 지식 특유성과 제품 혁신성은 제조업체의 PB 의존성에 긍정적인 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 셋째, 유통업체의 역량으로 내재화와 잠재시장 대응성은 제조업체의 PB 의존성에 긍정적인 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났지만 불확실환경 대응성은 그러한 영향관계를 보이지 않았다. 넷째, 제조업체의 PB 의존성은 유통업체와의 장기적 관계에 긍정적인 영향을 주는 것으로 나타났다. 후반부에 연구의 이론적, 실무적 시사점과 향후 연구방향에 대해 제시하였다.
The sales of private brands are growing faster than national brands and private brands are penetrating several types of organized distribution channel widely. For example, private brand has been generalized at discount store, and recently it is spreading rapidly to different types of stores such as department store, supermarket, and convenience store, etc. Especially, discount stores in Korea are expanding private brands in order to overcome business stagnation, so the future of private brand will continue to grow and product category would be more diversified. Private brand became a pervasive phenomenon in the last few years in Korea. Therefore, the role of private brand in the distribution channel has become crucial for not only consumers but both retailers and manufacturers. Doing business with private brand has emerged a critical issue to both retailers and manufacturers because the involvement in private brands affects the performance of manufacturers and retailers significantly. Large retailers consider private brand as a strategic marketing tool which allows them to entice consumers to visit their stores, to increase customer loyalty, and to obtain greater sales and margins. Hence, retailers reinforce marketing on private brand by displaying private brand product just next to leading national brand product in order to spread the positive image of national brand to their private brand and at the same time by selling private brand product with a lower price. In addition, retailers are maintaining quality through the contract of private brand supply and collaboration with manufacturer having competitive capability for making private brand product. Therefore, retailers eager to introduce private brands actively and ask for manufactures to produce them strongly. The continuous increase of private brands means that the initiative of power among members who involved in distribution channel shifts from manufacturers to retailers. Manufacturers consider private brand as an important factor which not only builds long term relationship with retailers but also triggers a fierce competition against retailers. During the early period of private brand, manufacturers didn`t regard private brand as threatening factor for their national brands. Because most of consumers were suspicious about the quality of private brand product in spite of the advantage of its low price, compared to national brand. Manufacturers responded negatively to private brands because the production of private brands gives harmful effects on the value perception of their national brands. In reality, nevertheless, it is a widespread phenomenon in Korea that most of manufacturers are producing private brands apart from making national brand products and increase the portion of private brand products compared to national brand in their total productions. The reason of involving private brands is that the manufacturers think they would be in trouble if they insist on producing their national brand products only without building cooperative relationship with retailers. Moreover, if the target market of private brand is the same with that of national brand, the manufacturer should implement reinforced marketing activities such as advertising and product development to compete against private brand, but small and medium sized manufacturer has a limitation to invest large amount of resource for those. As a result, manufacturers have needed to understand about private brand and utilize it as a strategic alternative in order to build long term relationship with retailers. Manufacturers should figure out the factors affecting the production of private brand and should leverage private brand progressively to improve their performance. Whereas, majority of previous researches have done focus on the retailer or the consumer side in academia, few studies have addressed the issues from the manufacturer`s standpoint. Even studies done in manufacturer`s perspective, most of them are case analyses and intuitive suggestions. There is little empirical research that assesses the rationale for the production of private brand. Therefore, the objective of this study is to identify the factors that favorably influence manufacturer`s performance in terms of private brand dependence and long term relationship with the retailer based on resource-based view. Additionally, this study explores whether manufacturer`s private brand dependence impacts positively on long term relationship with the retailer or not. Detailed hypotheses are as follows. 1) Tangible resource(special shelf space, utilitarian product) has a positive impact on manufacturer`s private brand dependence. 2) Intangible resource(knowledge specificity, product innovation) has a positive impact on manufacturer`s private brand dependence. 3) Capability (internalization, uncertain environmental responsiveness, potential market responsiveness) also has a positive impact on manufacturer`s private dependence. 4) Manufacturer`s private brand dependence has a positive impact on long term relationship with retailer. Manufacturers which produce private brand products for discount store were the respondents of this study. Data were collected from September 30th to December 30th in 2010. A total of 153 respondents were analysed finally to test hypotheses. SPSS 18.0 and LISREL 7.0 program were used to test frequency, reliability, factor analysis, and structural equation modeling analysis. According to results from factor analysis, eigen value was over 1.0 and items which were below 0.6 were deleted. Consequently, 9 factors(% of variance is 86%) were searched. All Cronbach`s α values are over the recommended level(α>0.7). The overall fit indices are acceptable such as x2=459.08(df=96, p=0.00), GFI=0.96, AGFI=0.95, NFI=0.93, RMR=0.069. All factor loadings were over the recommended level. As the result of discriminant validity check with chi-square difference test between paired constructs, each construct has good discriminant validity. The overall fit indices of final model are acceptable such as x2=36.72(df=7, p=.00), GFI=.95, NFI=.92, CFI=.92, IFI=.93, RMR=.084. According to test results, 6 out of 8 hypotheses are supported because there are statistically significant casual relationships in structural equation modeling. The results of the hypotheses are as follows. 1) Utilitarian product has a positive impact on manufacturer`s private brand dependence, whereas special shelf space does not. 2) Both knowledge specificity and product innovation have positive impacts on private brand dependence of manufacturer. 3) Internalization and potential market responsiveness have positive impacts on manufacturer`s private brand dependence, but uncertain environmental responsiveness does not show any significant influence on manufacturer`s private brand dependence. 4) Manufacturer`s private brand dependence favorably affects long term relationship with retailer significantly. Based on the findings in this study, it is necessary for manufacturer to understand affecting variables of private brand dependence and increase dependence on the production of private brand products in order to build long term relationship with retailer. In addition, manufacturer should investigate in advance on the effects of retailer resources related factors to private brand products, and then, make use of retailer to rely on production of its private brand and build long term relationship with retailer. Finally, the limitations and future research directions base on this study are discussed.