4.4 Hypotheses testing
Top SCM performer firms identified based on the opinion element of Gartner’s supply chain top 25 firm rankings (the
proxy measure for supply chain competency) and firms’ individual ACSI scores (the proxy measure for customer
satisfaction) from the ACSI database were utilized in the three-step process employed to test H1. First, top SCM
performer firms that are included in one or more of the firm rankings created from the opinion element of Gartner’s 2007-
2010 supply chain top 25 rankings as well as in the ACSI database for each year from 2000 to 2009 were identified. The
22 top SCM performer firms from nine industries that comprise the sample used for the test of H1 are shown in Table I. Second, industry averages for each of the 22 top SCM performer firms were extracted from the published yearly ACSI industry average scores in the database. Third, using PASW Statistics 18, paired t-tests were performed for
each of the ten years under examination to compare the top SCM performer firms’ annual ACSI scores with their
respective annual industry average ACSI scores.