Inter-company relations are an important source of competitive advantage. Indeed, the benefits which
arise include increased barriers to competition, unification strategic resources, increased innovation and
ultimately, greater profitability over the partnership. Research to be carried out are expected to contribute
more for not only investigate the relationship togetherness alone. First, it presents a holistic model of
relationship-based competitive advantages that incorporates factors that hard, soft and procedural
elements of the relationship. Second, this study empirically investigated the effect of the differential with
the company's competitiveness as indicated by the relative competitive advantages of the company.
Hypothesis in this study were (1) alleged relationship exists significant and positive between the bonding
behavior (Actor Bonds) to the competitiveness of the company, (2) alleged relationship exists significant
and positive between Activity Links (sharing information) with the company's competitiveness and ( 3)
allegedly contained a significant and positive relationship between Resource ties (investment preferential
partners) with the company's competitiveness.
The independent variables were identified in this study is used to evaluate the main elements of the
company's relationship with its key suppliers respondents, consisting of elements AAR Framework, ie
Actor Bonds (X1), Activity Links (X2) and Resource Ties (X3) .To test the impact of corporate relations as
buyers with suppliers then Bonds Actor variables can be determined from a combination of trust and
commitment. Sharing information is used as an indicator of Activity Links. Investment preferential
partners used as an indicator of the dependent Ties.Variabel Resource used in the study is the
competitiveness of enterprises are defined to assess the competitive advantages of companies in the
market that is perceived by the respondents.
The sample was thirty small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the field of specialized garment of Muslim
women who are located in Surabaya, Malang, Sidoarjo, Jakarta and Bandung, which has an organizational
structure or management structure that is not too complex and the people or parties in the business small
and medium enterprises that directly interacts with the suppliers. Results of hypothesis testing using the
Partial Least Square, showed that only two hypotheses accepted or can be supported by empirical data.
The conclusion of this research is the bonding behavior (Actor Bonds) are empirically proven to have a
positive and significant to the company's competitiveness. The higher the bonding behavior (Actor
Bonds), the higher the company's competitiveness. Activity Links (sharing of information) are empirically
proven to have a negative and significant relationship to the company's competitiveness. The lower the
Activity Links (sharing information), the higher the company's competitiveness. Resource Ties (investment
preferential partners) are empirically proven to have a positive relationship and significant impact on the
competitiveness of enterprises. The higher the Resource Ties (investment preferential partners), then the
higher the company's competitiveness.
Keywords : AAR framework, competitiveness, actor bonds, activity links, resource ties, small and medium
enterprises, competitive advantage