Effects of managerial ties and trust on supply chain information sharing and supplier opportunism

Managerial ties and trust are important factors in facilitating collaboration and reducing opportunistic behaviour. There is, however, a lack of empirical evidence on how these relational factors influence the sharing of information among supply chain partners. For example, do stronger managerial ties help to improve supply chain information sharing (SCIS) and reduce supplier opportunism? To what extent SCIS is influenced by managerial ties and trust? How do managerial ties interact with trust in influencing SCIS? Using data from 272 Chinese manufacturers, this paper examines the impact of managerial ties and trust on SCIS and supplier opportunism. The results show that, through trust managerial ties can significantly influence the extent of information sharing and the quality of the information shared. Managerial ties also have a direct impact on the extent of information sharing, but not on the quality of the information shared. The main implication for management practice is that the quality of the information shared – rather than the extent of information sharing – should be seen as the main leverage in reducing supplier opportunism.     

面向供应链合作的信任维系协调体系的研究

为了保证节点企业合作中信任协调的合作关系,以有效地实现企业经营目标,从信任的视角提出了一个包括目标层、合作层、信任协调层、支撑层在内的供应链合作(SCC)信任维系协调的解决思路.把节点企业内、外部的供应链运作、合作行为、业务目标集成起来,给出了整体框架模型,并对基于企业目标的信任协调机制、信任金字塔和实现协调层的具体方式等关键问题进行了探讨.信任协调体系框架模型对供应链合作运作提供了一定的参照.     

Developing global supply chain quality management systems

This paper presents a global supply chain quality management (SCQM) framework as an extension of the traditional supply chain operations and quality management. Three distinct groups of variables are adopted in this study to illustrate the conceptual framework: a hierarchy of design variables, a hierarchy of system variables, and a hierarchy of problem solving methods. The aim of this theoretical framework is to offer practical guidelines to global business leaders and their value chain partners. This study also involves interviews with senior executives from a multinational enterprise in Taiwan. Four major SCQM themes are identified – design for six sigma (DFSS); international standards; supply chain management (SCM); global leadership and human resource management. In this study, we also view the cycle of decision making as an integral part of any global SCQM strategy. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is used to develop priority indices for the following three hierarchical levels: environmental scanning, strategic choice, and tactical choice. The presented framework adopts a systems approach and ensures that quality conscious products are designed, manufactured, and distributed.     

The impact of total quality management on supply chain management and firm's supply performance

This research investigates the relationships among total quality management practices (TQMP), supply chain management practices (SCMP) and firm's supply performance (FSP) in the automotive industry in Thailand. The measurement instruments for SCMP, TQMP and FSP were developed based on an extensive literature review and verified by experts, pilot test and various statistical techniques to ensure reliability and validity in structural equation modeling constructs. The hypothesized model was tested through a path analysis. Qualitative case studies of two large first-tier automotive suppliers were conducted to obtain more in-depth information. We found that the set of SCMP, TQMP and FSP measures are reliable and valid for Thailand's automotive industry. TQMP not only has a significant direct positive impact on SCMP and on FSP but also a significant indirect positive impact on FSP through SCMP.     

Methodological approaches to supply chain design1

This paper reviews methodological approaches to the design (or redesign) of the supply chain (SC), including comprehensive approaches (proposals concerning the entire process of designing the SC) and those that deal with four specific aspects of the process (definition of the SC objectives, reverse SC, finance, and generation and use of scenarios) that have a decisive influence on the whole design of the SC. The comprehensive approaches include those based on typologies of products, markets and SCs and those that propose a succession of the stages to follow through the design process. The discussion shows that the use of typologies is not adequate to face SC design and that the methods proposing a succession of stages may suit, provided that they are developed and presented in a manner appropriate to their use for practitioners. The discussion leads also to suggest several research lines.     

Mapping the future of supply chain management: a Delphi study

Supply chain management, a field that developed from business practice and research, is undergoing a major transformation. It is changing from tactical in nature (where the major focus is on cost and delivery) to a field that is strategic in nature. However, the future issues and challenges facing managers and executives are just now becoming understood. This paper reports these issues by drawing on the findings generated by a three-phase study consisting of a literature review, a two-round Delphi study, and a workshop. Unique in this Delphi study is that it brings together leading practitioners in supply chain management with leading supply chain management researchers. The findings show that while the focus of the current tactical supply chain view is relatively limited to issues of delivery, risk, and leadership, the supply chain view of the future (i.e., five years from now) is more complex and demanding. The findings also show that there is generally no difference between researchers and practitioners in terms of how they view the issues. Finally, the study uncovers major obstacles that must be resolved before the strategic potential of future-state supply chains can be realised.     

The impact of contract parameters on the supply chain performance under different power constellations

Reporting forecast data is a common method used to improve the functioning of supply chains (SCs) and to reduce supply shortages. Customers tend to report the maximum possible demand as a forecast if restrictions are missing. Such a forecast is useless for suppliers. Hence, special contracts are needed to enhance the value of forecast data and therefore the cooperation between SC partners. In this paper, such a contract is presented. It encourages the customer to report a more realistic forecast. Deviations from the reported forecast are punished in different ways: If the customer reported too much and wants to release less than what was reported, he has to pay a penalty. On the other hand, the customer has the flexibility to purchase more than reported to meet the demand on his outlet but at the cost of an additional fee. This paper analyses how different contract parameters affect the performance of the SC, in particular when the bargaining power of customer and supplier is not equally distributed. Results show that the supplier and therefore the SC is better off if the supplier leaves the contractual cost parameters untouched but hides the true value of flexibility, especially when the customer is less powerful than the supplier.     

Trust-embedded coordination in supply chain information sharing

This paper studies supply chain coordination with trust-embedded cost-sharing contract. In a two-tier supply chain, a retailer (she) and a supplier (he) make their private demand forecasting individually. The retailer places soft-orders, which are costless, non-verifiable and cancellable before shipping, to the supplier. After that, the supplier relies on the retailer’s ordering information to update his demand evaluation and prepare his capacity. How much the supplier relies on the retailer’s ordering information is specified by trust, which is a kind of psychological feeling and affected by multiple factors. When the supplier does not fully trust the retailer, he tends to prepare a conservative capacity to avoid over-production. To coordinate the supply chain, a two-stage coordination process is proposed. At the first stage, the supplier and retailer negotiate a cost-sharing rule to bind soft-orders. At the second stage, the retailer places a soft-order and decides whether or not to bind it referring to the cost-sharing rule. After that, the supplier determines his optimal production capacity. We show that the retailer and supplier value trust differently in the experimental studies. We also find that there is a threshold of negotiation power for the supply chain partners which means the supplier’s/retailer’s expected profit drops down if his/her negotiation power exceeds certain thresholds. The experimental studies also show that the proposed the two-stage coordination is effective.     

A framework for designing supply chain disruptions management considering productive systems and carrier viewpoints

With the advent of the global and digital world, the number of geographically dispersed firms throughout the world has increased and the problem of Supply Chain (SC) disruption appeared as a main concern to many industries. In such context, designing disruptions management strategies for a robust SC has become a critical worldwide issue that is still under-explored. Since its design phase, this class of robust and global SC must integrate technologies and agents of production. However, the existing works only consider the Productive Systems (PSs) and the carrier viewpoint must also be considered since goods should be produced and distributed at the right quantity, at the right place and at the right time. In this complex task of designing disruptions management, a formal method must be used to integrate technologies ensuring the compliance of certain requirements, such as: developing collaborative and autonomous models, allowing reuse templates, considering analysis/simulation abilities and facilitating the interaction among engineering practitioners. Therefore, this paper presents a framework to model, analyse, control and monitor the robust and global SC, designing and integrating models with Petri Net, agent-based model techniques for disruptions management and considering both PSs and carrier viewpoints. A case study is investigated and the findings demonstrated the proposed solution supports decisions making for solving problems of design, analysis and control.     

Information management strategies and supply chain performance under demand disruptions

The operations management literature presents inadequate comprehensive understanding on information management strategies of mitigating supply chain disruption risks. By using control theory modelling and simulation, this study compares the disruption mitigation effects of three information management strategies. From the aspect of stability, the existing stability boundaries are revised by a new method in a two-echelon case. It shows that supply chains (SC) with popular information management strategies are not evidently more stable than traditional ones. From the aspect of disruption recovery time, an innovative two-echelon swiftest response problem under these information management strategies is formulated and solved. Results show that a collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment (CPFR) SC with complete SC information performs the best. However, in a later operational risk mitigation test, an information sharing (IS) SC with partial information has the smallest bullwhip effect. From the aspect of demand amplification and frequency response, an innovative frequency–response plot of order amplification is proposed in a time-continuous SC with moving average forecasts. It implies the best frequency response for concurrently mitigating both operational and disruption risks coming from a CPFR SC. But for a certain SC structure there is still a balance between mitigating bullwhip effect and quick response. Moreover, it also implies that anti-bullwhip should exist in a certain condition, as realised in our numerical experiments.     

On differences in how operations and supply chain managers approach quality management

In this research, we administered surveys to operations and supply chain managers from different companies to better understand how they approached quality management. The underlying research question was whether the increased emphasis in supply chain management in the workplace had implications for how quality management is practiced and how quality-related values are emphasised. We found that those who identified themselves as supply chain managers utilised and emphasised quality tools and values to a greater extent than those who identified themselves as operations managers. The tools emphasised by supply chain managers included benchmarking, complaint resolution, design for the environment, ERP, supplier development, focus groups, and supply chain management. The primary theoretical implication of this study is that there exists an emerging field that we can term ‘supply chain quality’. This study provides a preliminary outline of the domain of this field.     

Knowledge sharing in collaborative supply chains: twin effects of trust and power

Knowledge sharing has been recognised as a key enhancer of supply-chain performance. However, the sharing of knowledge may not take place easily and automatically among the supply-chain partners. This paper attempts to shed some light on the mechanisms underpinning knowledge sharing in supply chains. In particular, we focus on knowledge sharing in a dyadic buyer–supplier relationship. We posit that trust and power are two important antecedents of two types of knowledge sharing between a buyer and supplier, namely technical exchange and technology transfer. To build our research model, a large-scale mail survey was conducted from a contact list of 800 companies provided by the Singapore Logistics Association. The results of the structural equation modelling suggest that trust has significant effects on technical exchange and technology transfer. Further, power also affects technical exchange and technology transfer significantly, though the impacts appear to be weaker than trust. The theoretical and practical implications of this research are discussed.     

Literature review on disruption recovery in the supply chain*

Recent research underlines the crucial role of disruption events and recovery policies in supply chains. Despite a wealth of literature on supply chain design with disruption considerations, to the best of our knowledge there is no survey on supply chain with disruptions and recovery considerations. We analyse state-of-the-art research streams on supply chain design and planning with both disruptions and recovery considerations with the aim of relating the existing quantitative methods to empirical research. The paper structures and classifies existing research streams and application areas of different quantitative methods subject to different disruption risks and recovery measures. We identify gaps in current research and delineate future research avenues. The results of this study are twofold: operations and supply chain managers can observe which quantitative tools are available for different application areas; on the other hand, limitations and future research needs for decision-support methods in supply chain risk management domains can be identified.     

Towards a better understanding of supply chain quality management practices

This paper reports the results of a comparative study of quality tools and methods adoption by operations and supply chain managers. A survey was administered to both types of managers in the Western United States. Performing a Kruskal Wallis analysis, we found support for the hypothesis that operations and supply chain managers approach quality management differently. We found that operations managers tend to manage supply chains through procedural methods such as ISO 9000 and supplier evaluation. Supply chain managers tend to be more collaborative, emphasising supplier development and complaint resolution. We found that both types of managers adopted on the job training, data analysis, supply chain management, customer relationship management, project management and surveys. This paper represents another step in defining the field of supply chain quality management.     

Agile supply chain strategy and supply chain performance: complementary roles of supply chain practices and information systems capability for agility

The paper examines the mediating effect of supply chain (SC) practices on the relationship between agile supply chain (ASC) strategy and SC performance. It further examines the moderating effect of information systems (IS) capability for agility on this mediated relationship. Using the theoretical lenses of complementarity and the information processing view of the supply chain, we hypothesise that strategic supplier partnership, customer relationship, postponement and lean practices, mediate the relationship between ASC strategy and SC performance. We further hypothesise that IS capability for agility moderates each of these mediated relationships. We empirically test the hypotheses using survey data from members of senior and executive management in the logistics/supply chain functions of 205 firms. The paper contributes to the literature on ASCs by theoretically explaining and empirically demonstrating how SC practices and IS capability for agility act together to effect a positive relationship between ASC strategy and supply chain performance.     

Unearthing the determinants of Blockchain adoption in supply chain management

The behavioural intention to adopt Blockchain for supply chain management (BCSCM) is studied in this paper. The research framework adopted considers how Performance Expectancy (PE), Effort Expectancy (EE), Facilitating Condition (FC), Technology Readiness (TR), Technology Affinity (TA) and Trust (TT) can lead to the adoption of the technology. Data gathered from 157 firms is analysed using SPSS version 2 while the quality of the measurement is tested using WarpPLS. Findings revealed that FC, TR and TA have a positive influence on intention to use BCSCM and regulatory support moderates the effect of FC. This study offers valuable insights into the applicability of Blockchain technology for supply chain management.     

Threats and benefits of power discrepancies between organisations: a supply chain perspective

The discrepancy of power between organisations has raised concerns over the abuse of power in inter-organisational relationships, especially in the supply chain where parties often have different power positions. In this study, we develop and test a model that explains how the less powerful party may react to different forms of power exercised by the power source. Nowadays, customers are typically more powerful than manufacturers in supply chains. Specifically, based on data from 617 manufacturers representing various organisational sizes and industries, we examine the impact of customer coercive and expert power on the manufacturer’s information sharing behaviours (information systems and content) as well as the performance implications for both the manufacturer and the customer. Structural equation modelling reveals that customer expert power positively predicts the establishment of information systems and the extent to which information is actively shared. In contrast, customer coercive power is negatively associated with the establishment of information systems, while it is positively related to information content. Information systems, in turn, predict the extent to which information is effectively exchanged, which ultimately relates positively to flexibility and delivery performance. Flexibility performance is positively related to financial performance, while delivery performance is not. Taken together, these findings enrich our understanding of inter-organisational power dynamics by offering important insights into differential reactions that the power target may choose to counter power imbalances.     

Blockchain technology and its relationships to sustainable supply chain management

Globalisation of supply chains makes their management and control more difficult. Blockchain technology, as a distributed digital ledger technology which ensures transparency, traceability, and security, is showing promise for easing some global supply chain management problems. In this paper, blockchain technology and smart contracts are critically examined with potential application to supply chain management. Local and global government, community, and consumer pressures to meet sustainability goals prompt us to further investigate how blockchain can address and aid supply chain sustainability. Part of this critical examination is how blockchains, a potentially disruptive technology that is early in its evolution, can overcome many potential barriers. Four blockchain technology adoption barriers categories are introduced; inter-organisational, intra-organisational, technical, and external barriers. True blockchain-led transformation of business and supply chain is still in progress and in its early stages; we propose future research propositions and directions that can provide insights into overcoming barriers and adoption of blockchain technology for supply chain management.     

Production lead-time hedging and coordination in prefabricated construction supply chain management

This paper studies a coordination scheme to solve a production lead-time hedging (PLTH) issue in the prefabricated construction supply chain management. To mitigate tardiness delivery owing to prefab production uncertainty, the project contractor (PC) prefers to inform the prefab factory (PF) an earlier due date which is termed as PLTH strategy. However, this strategy forces the PF to compress its production process. A balance must be optimised through the proposed PLTH coordination scheme. It includes a PLTH-related cost term, i.e. crashing money (charged by the PF to the PC) and a constant transfer term. Three models with different power structures are considered. Firstly, two Stackelberg games with alternative decision-making sequences and an equal power model are discussed to obtain the optimal PLTH amount and crashing money. Later on, a cost-sharing term is used to fairly allocate the system surplus. It is observed that this coordination scheme reduces the PLTH amount and ensures win–win coordination for both parties. Some interesting managerial implications are also obtained from comparison analysis and numerical studies.     

A systematic review of China’s belt and road initiative: implications for global supply chain management

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is one of the world’s largest infrastructure projects, with its potential political and economic impact being widely discussed since its inception in 2013. Yet the phenomenon has received only limited attention in the Supply Chain Management (SCM) literature. In response, we first conduct a broad systematic review of the literature to assess how China’s BRI is portrayed. Using this as a backdrop, we then distil the likely impact of the BRI on location decisions and supply chain flows. Finally, in a broader discussion of the SCM literature, we explore the implications of the BRI for future research in four key areas: supply chain configuration, supply chain resilience, sustainable SCM, and cross border SCM. While these areas are not new, the BRI presents a unique context that can be used to enhance theory and understanding in each area. The BRI reduces time distance independent of geographical distance by diverting supply chain flows from established routes to new routes via far less accessible regions. This introduces new risks and sustainability issues that call for multi-criteria decision support systems. Another important issue is the adoption and diffusion of the BRI since this will ultimately determine project success.