Supply Chain Conflict Due to Store Brands: The Value of Wholesale Price Commitment in a Retail Supply Chain*

Store brands are of increasing importance in retail supply chains, often causing channel conflict, as the retailer's product directly competes with the manufacturer's national brand. Extant research on the resulting channel interactions either assumes the national brand manufacturer can credibly commit to maintaining a wholesale price or that he lacks such ability. However, these two scenarios imply very different supply chain interactions, as only a national brand manufacturer with commitment ability can strategically adjust a national brand wholesale price to prevent a store brand introduction by the retailer. We specifically analyze the impact of this assumption on the manufacturer, the retailer, and the customers. We determine when long‐term contracts that provide the manufacturer with such commitment ability can improve supply chain profitability.     

Interorganizational System Characteristics and Supply Chain Integration: An Empirical Assessment*

Some firms have gained significant benefits by effectively deploying interorganizational systems (IOS) to tightly couple operations with their supply chain partners. In contrast, other firms with IOS deployments have struggled to achieve this level of success. So it is not clear how such systems can be configured to promote idiosyncratic interorganizational processes that integrate the supply chains and facilitate successful outcomes. To shed further light on this issue, we draw from multiple theoretical perspectives to develop a comprehensive and unique conceptualization of IOS characteristics that goes beyond the limited treatment it has received in extant literature. Furthermore, we empirically examine the IOS configuration choices made by firms with different supply chain integration (SCI) profiles. Our results support the notion that successful firms sequence the configuration of IOS characteristics toward effectively developing and supporting their supply chain process capabilities. In particular, we found that firms at the lower end of SCI configure IOS features to support supplier evaluation and automatic alerts. As organizations move to the upper end of the SCI spectrum, greater attention is paid to features associated with systems integration, planning, and forecasting. Recommendations to managers and academics stemming from our study are provided, along with avenues for future research.     

Systems Collaboration and Strategic Collaboration: Their Impacts on Supply Chain Responsiveness and Market Performance*

Recognizing the importance of interfirm collaboration and recent advancement of information technology (IT) to enhance joint decision making between firms, this study conceptualizes systems collaboration and strategic collaboration as two essential types of interfirm collaboration. The study then simultaneously examines the multiple roles of systems collaboration and strategic collaboration, and how they directly and indirectly influence a firm's supply chain responsiveness and market performance. Hypotheses are tested on survey data collected from 184 firms. Results suggest that the sequential relationships among IT competency, interfirm collaboration, and supply chain responsiveness have significant market performance implications.     

An Alternative Theoretical Explanation and Empirical Insights into Overordering Behavior in Supply Chains*

The beer game and the supply line underweighting theory are central to our knowledge of decision making in dynamic environments such as supply chains. The core of these theories is that people are incapable of recognizing the pipeline inventory and this is the main cause of overordering and dysfunctional behavior. This article identifies lacunae in the theoretical and empirical foundations of extant literature and proposes an alternate explanation, a “correction model,” explaining why overreactions occur. We adopt a multi‐method research design, comprising a field case study and laboratory experiments, to ground our findings. [Submitted: July 19, 2010. Revisions received: December 8, 2010; March 14, 2011. Accepted: March 28, 2011.]     

The Decision of the Supply Chain Executive to Support or Impede Supply Chain Integration: A Multidisciplinary Behavioral Agency Perspective*

Applying the behavioral agency model developed by Wiseman and Gomez‐Mejia (1998) , this article analyzes human resource factors that induce supply chain executives (SCEs) to make decisions that foster or hinder supply chain integration. We examine two internal sources (compensation and employment risk) and one external source (environmental volatility) of risk bearing that can make SCEs more reluctant to make the decision to promote supply chain integration. We argue and empirically confirm the notion that an employment and compensation system that increases SCE risk bearing reduces the SCE's willingness to make risky decisions and thus discourages supply chain integration. We also reveal that this negative relationship becomes stronger under conditions of high environmental volatility. In addressing the “so what?” question, we found empirical support for the hypothesis that supply chain integration positively influences operational performance. Even though this decision has a positive value for the firm, we showed that SCEs discourage supply chain integration when they face higher risk bearing. Hypotheses are tested using a combination of primary survey data and archival measures in a sample of 133 Spanish firms.     

Supply Chain Management of Fresh Products with Producer Transportation*

This article considers a class of fresh‐product supply chains in which products need to be transported by the upstream producer from a production base to a distant retail market. Due to high perishablility a portion of the products being shipped may decay during transportation, and therefore, become unsaleable. We consider a supply chain consisting of a single producer and a single distributor, and investigate two commonly adopted business models: (i) In the “pull” model, the distributor places an order, then the producer determines the shipping quantity, taking into account potential product decay during transportation, and transports the products to the destination market of the distributor; (ii) In the “push” model, the producer ships a batch of products to a distant wholesale market, and then the distributor purchases and resells to end customers. By considering a price‐sensitive end‐customer demand, we investigate the optimal decisions for supply chain members, including order quantity, shipping quantity, and retail price. Our research shows that both the producer and distributor (and thus the supply chain) will perform better if the pull model is adopted. To improve the supply chain performance, we propose a fixed inventory‐plus factor (FIPF) strategy, in which the producer announces a pre‐determined inventory‐plus factor and the distributor compensates the producer for any surplus inventory that would otherwise be wasted. We show that this strategy is a Pareto improvement over the pull and push models for both parties. Finally, numerical experiments are conducted, which reveal some interesting managerial insights on the comparison between different business models.     

Supply Chain Knowledge and Performance: A Meta‐Analysis

Many firms make significant investments into developing and managing knowledge within their supply chains. Such investments are often prudent because studies indicate that supply chain knowledge (SCK) has a positive influence on performance. Key questions still surround the SCK–performance relationship, however. First, what is the overall relationship between SCK and performance? Second, under what conditions is the relationship stronger or weaker? To address these questions, we applied meta‐analysis to 35 studies of the SCK–performance relationship that collectively include more than 8,400 firms. Our conservative estimate is that the effect size of the overall relationship is  = .39. We also find that the SCK–performance relationship is stronger when (i) examining operational performance, (ii) gathering data from more than one supply chain node, (iii) gathering data from multiple countries, (iv) examining service industries, and (v) among more recently published studies. We also found that studies that embraced a single theory base (as opposed to using multiple ones) had a stronger SCK–performance relationship. Looking to the future, our meta‐analysis highlights the need for studies to (i) include lags between the measurement of SCK and performance, (ii) gather upstream data when examining innovation, (iii) examine SCK within emerging countries, and (iv) provide much more information relative to the nuances of the SCK examined.     

Risk Uncertainty and Supply Chain Decisions: A Real Options Perspective

Supply chain risk uncertainty can create severe repercussions, thus it is not surprising that research interest in supply chain risk has been growing. While extant inquiry is informative, there is a lack of investigations that center on supply chain investment decisions when facing high levels of risk uncertainty. Given the potential dollar value involved in these decisions, an understanding of how these supply chain decisions are made is of significant theoretical and practical importance. Real options theory, with its focus on decision making under conditions of uncertainty, is an appealing theoretical lens for this endeavor. In essence, real options theory asserts that managerial decisions center on creating and then exercising or not exercising certain opportunities. To date, theorizing about and investigations of real options have used firms as their focus. Not yet examined are real options within supply chains that cross firm boundaries and drive much of the competitive activity in the modern economy. Accordingly, we extend real options theory to the supply chain context by examining how different types of options are approached relative to supply chain project investments. Specifically, we theorize how the options will be related to perceived value under conditions of high supply chain risk uncertainty. Overall, our investigation builds knowledge by extending real options theory to the supply chain context and by providing evidence suggesting some options operate differently in supply chains than they do in firms.     

The Impact of Competitive Strategy and Supply Chain Strategy on Business Performance: The Role of Environmental Uncertainty*

This article investigates the relationships among competitive strategy, supply chain strategy, and business performance while examining the moderating effect of environmental uncertainty. A total of 604 questionnaires were collected from three cities in China, and the statistical results show significant moderating effects of external environment on the relationships among competitive strategy, supply chain strategy, and business performance. Firms that primarily focus on a differentiation strategy emphasize an agile supply chain strategy. Cost leaders are inclined to implement both lean and agile supply chain strategies, but their emphasis on agile strategy is significantly greater in a volatile environment than in a stable environment. The choice of supply chain strategy does not appear to be an “either‐or” decision and firms could adopt either a lean or an agile strategy, or both, depending on the environment. This article provides significant managerial implications for supply chain practitioners to co‐align supply chain strategy and competitive strategy with the environment to improve performance.     

The Differential and Contingent Impact of Concurrency on New Product Development Project Performance: A Holistic Examination*

This article comprehensively examines how the four facets of new product development (NPD) concurrency, consisting of process and product concurrency groupings, influence NPD project performance under the five contextual conditions of (i) location of product in family stream, (ii) project size, (iii) stage in the product life cycle, (iv) innovativeness of the product, and (v) predictability of market demand. Using data from a large sample of NPD projects in multiple industries, there is support for this hypothesized four‐faceted structure of concurrency, consisting of process and product concurrency groupings, thereby contributing new knowledge to the concurrency literature. All four facets of concurrency display a contingent impact on NPD project performance, even though individual effects vary according to the specific contextual variable under consideration. In particular, the process concurrency facet of dynamic iterative routines was universally effective across all five contextual variables, while the product concurrency facet of cross‐functional coordination was effective in significantly influencing at least one NPD project measure. This article also reports similar, but less strong, contingency patterns, with respect to the process concurrency facet of the implementation of downstream coordination and the product concurrency facet of the use of computer‐based integrated design tools. Theoretical and practical implications of our results are also offered.     

Health Care Supply Chain Design: Toward Linking the Development and Delivery of Care Globally*

This article is motivated by the gap between the growing demand and available supply of high‐quality, cost‐effective, and timely health care, a problem faced not only by developing and underdeveloped countries but also by developed countries. The significance of this problem is heightened when the economy is in recession. In an attempt to address the problem, in this article, first, we conceptualize care as a bundle of goods, services, and experiences—including diet and exercise, drugs, devices, invasive procedures, new biologics, travel and lodging, and payment and reimbursement. We then adopt a macro, end‐to‐end, supply chain–centric view of the health care sector to link the development of care with the delivery of care. This macro, supply chain–centric view sheds light on the interdependencies between key industries from the upstream to the downstream of the health care supply chain. We propose a framework, the 3A‐framework, that is founded on three constructs—affordability, access, and awareness—to inform the design of supply chain for the health care sector. We present an illustrative example of the framework toward designing the supply chain for implantable device–based care for cardiovascular diseases in developing countries. Specifically, the framework provides a lens for identifying an integrated system of continuous improvement and innovation initiatives relevant to bridging the gap between the demand and supply for high‐quality, cost‐effective, and timely care. Finally, we delineate directions of future research that are anchored in and follow from the developments documented in the article.     

Innovation Strategy,Human Resource Policy,and Firms' Revenue Growth: The Roles of Environmental Uncertainty and Innovation Performance*

This study investigates the interactions of innovation strategy execution and innovation‐focused human resource (HR) policy adoption on innovation performance and revenue growth. In addition, we investigate the moderating role of environmental uncertainty on the effects of innovation strategy execution and innovation‐focused HR policy on innovation performance. Results show that the interaction of innovation strategy execution and innovation‐focused HR policy is positively related to innovation performance. Results also show that environmental uncertainty positively moderates the innovation strategy execution–innovation performance relationship. Finally, innovation performance mediates the interaction of innovation strategy execution and environmental uncertainty on firms’ revenue growth. Implications of these findings for theory and practice are discussed.     

The Effects of Strategic and Structural Supply Chain Orientation on Operational and Customer‐Focused Performance

Supply chain orientation (SCO), or the implementation of a supply chain management philosophy, consists of two distinct, yet interdependent elements, namely strategic SCO and structural SCO. Strategic SCO involves integrating an SCM philosophy into the firm's strategy development, while structural SCO encompasses operational‐level behaviors and actions that reflect such a philosophy. This study extends the research on SCO by developing hypotheses on the contingent effects of strategic SCO and structural SCO on a firm's operational and customer‐focused performance. Drawing on the strategy‐structure‐performance framework, the study proposes that strategic SCO and structural SCO positively affect different dimensions of performance and that structural SCO plays a mediating role in the relationship between strategic SCO and performance. These relationships are tested using primary survey data and archival data from 183 manufacturers in the Midwestern US. Results confirm that strategic SCO is associated with both operational performance and customer‐focused performance, but structural SCO is only related to operational performance. Structural SCO acts as a mediator in linking strategic SCO with operational performance and customer‐focused performance and mediation effects are strengthened at higher levels of environmental dynamism.     

Market Orientation,Ownership Type,and E‐Business Assimilation: Evidence from Chinese Firms

While more and more firms have implemented e‐business in business operations, a better understanding of the factors that successfully drive the assimilation of e‐business will provide insights for firm executives and practitioners to develop effective strategies for e‐business. Different from previous studies that focus on individual‐level factors related to business executives and top management teams, this study examines how firm‐level strategic and cultural factors shape e‐business assimilation. Based on the strategy and marketing literature on market orientation and firm ownership, we developed a research model to describe how a firm's market orientation impacts e‐business assimilation. The model also describes the moderating effect of firm ownership type on the relationship between market orientation and e‐business assimilation. Based on data from 301 Chinese international trade firms, we found that two dimensions of market orientation (i.e., customer orientation, competitor orientation) had significant effects on e‐business assimilation. However, the third dimension, interfunctional coordination, was only partially significant. In addition, ownership type was a significant moderator of the effects of customer orientation and competitor orientation on e‐business assimilation, although ownership type was not a moderator of interfunctional coordination. Being one of the first studies of the impact of market orientation and firm ownership type on e‐business assimilation, we conclude with a discussion of the implications for future research and practice.     

我国制造型企业市场导向和创新导向对新产品绩效影响的实证研究

本研究基于我国227家制造型企业的问卷调查数据,实证考察了市场导向和创新导向对新产品开发绩效的影响,以及创新导向和环境变动在市场导向和新产品绩效关系中的调节作用。结果显示:(1)本研究的概念模型整体拟合度优于西方常用模型;(2)市场导向和创新导向对制造型企业新产品开发绩效的影响显著为正,且均高于以前文献研究的一般水平;(3)创新导向和技术变化对于市场导向和新产品绩效的关系起到正向调节作用;(4)市场变化和竞争强度的调节作用不显著。研究结果对于制造型企业改善产品创新绩效具有重要的启示意义。     

Organizational Integration for Product Development: The Effects on Glitches,On‐Time Execution of Engineering Change Orders,and Market Success

Deviations from requirements during the product development process can be considered as glitches. Fixing glitches, or problems, during the product development process consumes valuable resources, which may adversely affect product development time and hamper the firm's goal to pursue a first‐mover advantage. It is posited that an integrated organizational response can diminish incidences of glitches and improve the ability of the firm to respond to engineering changes, subsequently leading to improved market success. This organizational response frequently includes heavyweight product development managers who are seen as essential catalysts for internal integration. Though internal integration is vital, it is equally important to integrate with customers and suppliers alike because such network partners can provide access to information, knowledge, and unique and complementary resources that are otherwise unavailable to the firm. Findings, which are based on a sample of 191 product development projects in the automotive industry, suggest that some integration routines have a positive impact on product development outcomes and market success, while other routines can in fact hamper the collective effort.     

Formal Infrastructure and Ethical Decision Making: An Empirical Investigation and Implications for Supply Management

Building on Rest's (1986) conceptual model of ethical decision making, we derive and empirically test a model that links an organization's formal ethical infrastructure to individuals’ moral awareness of ethical situations, moral judgment, and moral intention. We contribute to the literature by shedding light on the importance of a multifaceted formal ethical infrastructure—consisting of formal communication, recurrent communication, formal surveillance, and formal sanctions—as a crucial antecedent of moral awareness. In so doing, we discern how these four elements of a formal ethical infrastructure combine to collectively influence moral awareness based on a second‐order factor structure using structural equation modeling. We test our model based on survey data from 805 respondents with significant work experience across three separate ethical scenarios. Our results across the three scenarios provide overall support for our model. We found that a second‐order factor structure for the formal ethical infrastructure explains the variance among the four infrastructure elements and that a multifaceted formal ethical infrastructure significantly increases moral awareness. Our results further suggest a strong positive effect of moral awareness on moral judgment, which in turn was found to have a positive impact on moral intention. These results were substantiated when taking several individual and contextual control variables into account, such as gender, age, religiosity, work satisfaction, and a de facto ethical climate. Implications for theory, practice, and supply management are discussed.     

产品多元化、国际化与公司绩效——来自中国制造业上市公司的经验证据

产品多元化与国际化战略是公司成长的两种重要模式.本文以2002-2004年我国制造业上市公司为研究样本,利用路径分析法对两者的关系进行实证检验后发现,公司在实施产品多元化与国际化战略的程度上呈现出正相关关系,体现了两种战略的互补效应,并且随着国际化进程的推进,这种关系更加显著.此外,利用2002-2004年三年的混合样本进行分析的结果表明,这两种战略对公司绩效的直接影响并不显著,但对公司绩效的间接影响存在着互补效应.     

关系认知、关系运作和企业绩效:来自广东省私营中小企业的实证研究

在我国,关系对于私营企业的生存具有战略意义.本研究以142家广东省私营中小企业为样本,研究了私营企业关系运作、关系认知和私营企业绩效之间的联系.研究发现,在中国经济转型过程中,私营企业家认识关系的重要性对企业的绩效并没有助益,联系的网络大、示好运作多会降低企业的绩效;私营企业家过年过节跑关系、宴请商务对象、回报交易方等具体的关系运作方式和企业绩效正相关.