The human factor in SCM

How to not lose oneself: the case for relational identity in collaborative supply relationships

Purpose

For a long time, researchers have stressed the importance of identity for collaborative supply relationships. Accordingly, it has been proposed that supply relationships may be efficiently managed by establishing a shared collective identity among partners. However, this strategy may challenge the partners' individual distinctiveness and thus lead to adversarial relationship outcomes. In this article, it is argued how and when establishing an intergroup relational identity may be a better choice than building a collective identity.

Design/methodology/approach

The conceptual research is based on an analysis of previous literature. Relational identity theorizing and the theory of intergroup leadership are applied to build on and extend previous views on identity in interorganizational contexts.

Findings

It is proposed that when supply chain actors are subject to identity threats in collaborative supply relationships, such threats are driven by the imbalance of power between or among the parties. Therefore, establishing an intergroup relational identity should be preferred over a collective identity in situations characterized by a high identity threat.

Research limitations/implications

Future studies could support this article's theoretical suggestions with empirical evidence.

Practical implications

Intergroup relational identity preserves the distinctiveness of all parties involved in a collaborative relationship and is based on their individual contributions. Managers could support a collaborative environment and promote a shared vision between or among organizations through appropriate rhetoric.

Originality/value

This study contributes to an understanding of the relational aspects of interorganizational behavior by adapting social psychological theories to this area of research.

Social sustainability in supply chains: the role of local practices and informal networks

Purpose

The study aims to investigate cultural aspects in supply chains, analysing the effect that local customs may have in the quality of buyer–supplier relationships. Building on the premisses of social exchange theory (SET), it concentrates on the impacts that suppliers’ use of local practices and informal networks may have in buyers’ attitudes and perceptions. The issues addressed and the empirical evidence provided represent initial, yet important steps in the fulfilment of the ‘cultural void’ within supply chain social sustainability (SCCS) literature.

Design/methodology/approach

Through a role-playing experiment applied to a total sample of 468 participants, the effects of Chinese guanxi, Russian blat, South Korean yongo and Brazilian jeitinho on buyers’ satisfaction, buyers’ commitment, trust and solution severity are measured by their use to access informal networks as solutions to both common (i.e. documentation irregularities) and extraordinary (i.e. modern slavery) supply chain problems.

Findings

Results show that, while the activation of informal networks may impact buyers’ perceptions, the use of some local practices by suppliers (i.e. Chinese guanxi and Brazilian jeitinho) cause greater variations in buyers’ attitudes and perceptions than others (i.e. South Korean yongo and Russian blat), with ethical offences (i.e. modern slavery) and higher levels of buyers’ dependency acting as catalysts of these processes.

Originality/value

The investigation of cultural practices typical of economically peripheral countries contributes to the understanding of new facets of buyer–supplier relationships, with the investigation of non-Northwestern practices being particularly important in this regard.

A thematic analysis-based model for identifying the impacts of natural crises on a supply chain for service integrity: a text analysis approach

Numerous studies have been conducted to identify the effects of natural crises on supply chain performance. Conventional analysis methods are based on either manual filter methods or data-driven methods. The manual filter methods suffer from validation problems due to sampling limitations, and data-driven methods suffer from the nature of crisis data which are vague and complex. This study aims to present an intelligent analysis model to automatically identify the effects of natural crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic on the supply chain through metadata generated on social media. This paper presents a thematic analysis framework to extract knowledge under user steering. This framework uses a text-mining approach, including co-occurrence term analysis and knowledge map construction. As a case study to approve our proposed model, we retrieved, cleaned, and analyzed 1024 online textual reports on supply chain crises published during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019-2021. We conducted a thematic analysis of the collected data and achieved a knowledge map on the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the supply chain. The resultant knowledge map consists of five main areas (and related sub-areas), including (1) food retail, (2) food services, (3) manufacturing, (4) consumers, and (5) logistics. We checked and validated the analytical results with some field experts. This experiment achieved 53 crisis knowledge propositions classified from 25,272 sentences with 631,799 terms and 31,864 unique terms using just three user-system interaction steps, which shows the model's high performance. The results lead us to conclude that the proposed model could be used effectively and efficiently as a decision support system, especially for crises in the supply chain analysis.

The effect of team-member knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) and a common learning experience on sourcing teamwork effectiveness

Purpose

A lack of sourcing-specific team research prevents a full understanding of sourcing teamwork effectiveness (STE). Moreover, the limited purchasing and supply management (PSM) team literature often tends to focus on an aggregate group level. The paper makes a step towards adopting an individual actor perspective on teamwork effectiveness with an emphasis on the context of sourcing, explicating the effects of team-member knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs), and examining how these relationships are moderated by a common learning experience of strategic sourcing masterclass.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on a cross-sectional survey, this study analyses a sample of 90 sourcing team members from a global aerospace manufacturing company using hierarchical regression analysis.

Findings

The results suggest that four of the five KSAs positively and significantly affect STE; the exception was collaborative problem solving. Masterclass learning outcomes were found to positively moderate the effects of these KSAs on STE, again exclusive of the collaborative problem-solving KSA.

Research limitations/implications

Cross-sectional design focused only on the aerospace sector may affect generalizability. Further, longitudinal research designs would capture the effects of the common learning experience over an extended period.

Practical implications

Sourcing team members could be selected based on having KSAs which significantly affect teamwork effectiveness. Training and development for sourcing teams should combine guided reflexivity and cross-training to deliver learning outcomes that create similar team mental models.

Originality/value

The study provides an individual team-member perspective on the functioning of sourcing teams which is absent in the extant research. It contributes to the very limited research base on skills in PSM.

Impact of metric-alignment on supply chain performance: a behavioral study

Purpose

Previous research has shown that firms are struggling to incorporate collaboration among supply chain partners. This paper presents a new approach to incorporate collaboration using metric-alignment. The analysis provides key insights regarding the usefulness of this approach to synchronize decision-making that leads to reduced bullwhip effect, less backordering and lower supply chain costs.

Design/methodology/approach

This research is based on a large-scale behavioral study comprising 556 participants in multi-echelon supply chain games. Supply chain decisions from these experiments are evaluated to study the impact of metric-alignment on managerial decision-making and the corresponding effects on the overall supply chain performance.

Findings

Results show that the metric-alignment approach offers an informal and self-enforced governance mechanism that changes managerial decision-making behaviors and improves supply chain performance. Results also show this approach to yield operational and financial benefits for all supply chain partners in the form of reduced bullwhip effect, less backordering and lower supply chain costs.

Originality/value

This is the first behavioral study of its kind that evaluates a new approach to incorporate collaboration in supply chains using metric-alignment. This approach avoids the shortcomings of current industry practices of using monetary penalties, such as on-time in-full (OTIF) mandates in supply contracts. The study shows that metric-alignment approach can improve overall supply chain performance while offering mutually beneficial rewards for all supply chain partners.

How supply chain professionals learn at work: an investigation of learning mechanisms

Purpose

Supply chain (SC) professionals and their competence play a key role in creating value and competitive advantage for companies. A considerable amount of this competence is developed at work, but little is known about how this takes place. Drawing on constructivist learning theory, the authors investigate how SC professionals develop their competence at work.

Design/methodology/approach

The study takes off from a theoretical framework of workplace learning mechanisms, followed by a series of in-depth interviews with an expertise panel of profoundly competent and experienced SC professionals.

Findings

The results provide detailed insights into the learning process of SC professionals. The key findings show that SC professionals use a wide range of learning mechanisms throughout their careers, and that the contribution and complexity of these mechanisms differ and change dynamically with seniority. The findings also show that learning mechanisms should not be viewed as isolated phenomena, but closely related to every-day SCM work as well as learning attitude.

Research limitations/implications

By conceptualizing learning as a process, and congregating the fragmented literature into a framework of workplace learning mechanisms, this research provides a theoretical reference point for future studies. The empirical findings bring a new level of detailed knowledge on how SC professionals learn at work.

Practical implications

The results can assist SC professionals, HR managers and academic program leaders in their quest to develop competence in the field of SCM.

Originality/value

This paper makes a unique contribution to the human aspects of SCM literature by presenting the first study that investigates in depth the crucial but complex process of how workplace learning takes place for SC professionals in practice.

The interplay between inter-personal and inter-organizational relationships in coordinating supply chain activities

Purpose

This paper aims to identify and explain the link between relational dynamics and the development of coordination capabilities of Fourth-Party Logistics Providers (4PL) within a supply chain (SC). We aim to demonstrate the critical role relational dynamics can play in converting trust from interpersonal to inter-organizational level and facilitate the improvement of capabilities to coordinate customer's SC activities.

Design/methodology/approach

Using semi-structured interviews with 78 logistics managers operating in 45 different logistics service providers located in France, we developed a set of propositions and built a conceptual framework. Exploratory qualitative research in the form of propositional discourse analysis (PDA) is used to develop propositions in our research to contribute to theory in supply chain management (SCM).

Findings

Results indicate that both interpersonal and inter-organizational trust is a convertible capital. Based on their dynamic interactions, these two levels of trust endow the supply chain partners with economic benefits that would otherwise be highly costly or even practically extremely difficult to achieve through complex socio-economic transactions (meso-social level).

Research limitations/implications

Future research may test our conceptual model using primary and secondary data and conduct longitudinal case studies that are necessary to triangulate our results and thus strengthen our conclusions. The prospect of adding control variables to our model would be of considerable importance.

Practical implications

Our results suggest that “4PL” need to invest more in interpersonal relations to facilitate collaboration with their clients and enhance their capability to coordinate and manage customer's supply chain activities. The ability to convert interpersonal trust represents an invaluable capital contributing to the achievement of above-normal profits.

Originality/value

This work contributes to a better understanding of the coordination of supply chain activities through the development, mobilization and maintenance of social capital. While previous research explained the importance of trust in SCM, this paper explores and studies the process of converting interpersonal trust into social capital mobilized at the supply chain level. We add to the existing literature on structural and relational dimensions of social capital by offering a process-based explanation of the conversion of interpersonal trust into inter-organizational trust and its role in facilitating collaboration in logistics services.

Drivers of logistics outsourcing: examining transaction costs, core competences and planned behavior

Purpose

This study aims to investigate the extent to which psychological factors and the agency of decision-makers drive outsourcing decisions. Arguments based on transaction cost economics, the core competence approach and the theory of planned behavior are used to explain logistics outsourcing.

Design/methodology/approach

The literature was reviewed to identify constructs that are antecedents of logistics outsourcing intentions, and corresponding measures were developed. The data were gathered through a survey of supply chain professionals in Finnish manufacturing companies. A measurement model was reviewed to ensure reliability and validity and converted into a structural model for analysis. The analysis was based on partial least squares (PLS) structural equation modeling.

Findings

Supply chain managers objectively consider the characteristics of their organization's logistics identified in previous research as requiring assessment during the outsourcing process. However, and surprisingly, they also tend to rely on behavioral subjective factors such as positive attitudes, encouraging subjective norms and competence. Moreover, it seems that firms do not outsource logistics activities despite the high strategic importance of the function, but because of it.

Research limitations/implications

The constructed model is limited to the constructs chosen to represent drivers of logistics outsourcing. Further application with more samples would improve its reliability.

Practical implications

The factors proposed here with respect to assets and the capabilities of third-party partners could facilitate decision-making related to logistics outsourcing.

Originality/value

The findings emphasize the role of behavioral factors in the procurement function and therefore enhance the understanding of behavioral supply chain management.

Promising research fields in supply chain risk management and supply chain resilience and the gaps concerning human factors: A literature review

BACKGROUND

Recent studies concerning supply chain management have shown that topics such as supply chain risk management (SCRM) and supply chain resilience (SCRes) are the new trends in supply chain management. Initial studies in the early 2000s developed frameworks to identify, measure and mitigate risks and assess/evaluate the degree of resilience of a company or supply chain. Recently, a large variety of studies has emerged, including more conceptual and review studies as well as more sophisticated, quantitative studies. However, studies on human-related factors are still lacking, and there is no systematic method to answer questions such as "What literature is available concerning human factors related to SCRM and SCRes?", "Which human factors contribute to SCRes?" and "Which human factor can amplify SC Risks?"

OBJECTIVE

The main goal of this paper is to conduct a systematic literature review to identify human factors that impact supply chain resilience and supply chain risk management.

METHOD

This study was performed using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) method. The objective of using this review protocol is to ensure that the review has the minimum amount of bias due to research expectations.

RESULTS

This study highlighted a summary of human-related risk and resilience factors as well as a discussion about these preliminary findings.

CONCLUSIONS

As our main conclusion, we highlight that human factors may generate significant risks in the supply chain, nevertheless, there are other human factors that must be nourished to obtain SCRes.

The S&OP process and the influence of personality and key behavioral indicators: insights from a longitudinal case study

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to extend the research domain of Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) beyond the hard issues by focusing on soft issues in S&OP processes. This paper aims to investigate how consciousness of different personality types can affect S&OP processes.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper is based on a single longitudinal case study from a medium-sized enterprise with a data collection period of more than two years. This paper is based on observation and interviews gathered at several stages during pilot implementation and operation phases.

Findings

This paper indicates that a focus on behavior using personality type theory and key behavioral indicators has provided a common framework for understanding how the S&OP process is impacted by different personalities and behavior. This knowledge has increased the awareness of which behavior sustains a silo mentality and which behavior breaks it down. Quotations are used to provide substance of this explorative topic.

Research limitations/implications

As a single case study, this paper only provides results for analytical generalization.

Practical implications

Consciousness of behavioral elements in S&OP processes is proposed here as a complement to key performance indicators as levers to implement and obtain sustained operation of S&OP.

Originality/value

This paper is the first explicitly integrating personality type theory for a better understanding of implementing and operating S&OP processes. This paper contributes with a new understanding of S&OP success factors and how a common language may improve process efficiency.

An integrated offshore oil spill response decision making approach by human factor analysis and fuzzy preference evaluation

Human factors/errors (such as inappropriate actions by operators and unsafe supervision by organizations) are a primary cause of oil spill incidents. To investigate the influences of active operational failures and unsafe latent factors in offshore oil spill accidents, an integrated human factor analysis and decision support process has been developed. The system is comprised of a Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) framework to qualitatively evaluate the influence of various factors and errors associated with the multiple operational stages considered for oil spill preparedness and response (e.g., oil spill occurrence, spill monitoring, decision making/contingency planning, and spill response); coupled with quantitative data analysis by Fuzzy Set Theory and the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (Fuzzy-TOPSIS) to enhance decision making during response operations. The efficiency of the integrated human factor analysis and decision support system is tested with data from a case study to generate a comprehensive priority rank, a robust sensitivity analysis, and other theoretical/practical insights. The proposed approach improves our knowledge on the significance of human factors/errors on oil spill accidents and response operations; and provides an improved support tool for decision making.

Shipping surcharges and LSQ: pricing the last mile

Purpose

Pricing the shipping surcharge is a major strategic decision for online retailers, and free shipping promotions are becoming more common among online retailers. The purpose of this research is to examine the effect of last mile pricing strategies on customer attraction and retention in the hypercompetitive online retailing industry. Specifically, this paper investigates the effect of partitioning the shipping surcharge on consumer logistics service quality (LSQ) perceptions and, in turn, purchase behavior.

Design/methodology/approach

Employing signaling theory and expectation–disconfirmation theory, hypotheses are derived for two specific points in an online purchase scenario: prepurchase and following a logistics disruption. The hypotheses are tested using a scenario-based experiment with manipulations for the level of shipping surcharge partitioning and the presence of a logistics disruption.

Findings

The results suggest that partitioned shipping surcharges influence prepurchase expectations of LSQ satisfaction and amplify the negative effects of logistics disruptions. This, in turn, drives the purchase and repurchase intentions.

Practical implications

The findings inform online retailers of the perceptual and behavioral effects of last mile pricing strategies. Specifically, this research demonstrates how and under what conditioning partitioning the shipping surcharge can influence the attraction and retention of online customers.

Originality/value

This study integrates pricing and LSQ research to assess the black box of consumer purchase behavior. This is one of the first studies to empirically contrast the effects of last mile pricing strategies on consumer expectations and perceptions of LSQ.

Social network analysis in operations and supply chain management: a review and revised research agenda

Purpose

Social network analysis (SNA) seeks to manage the connections between entities through investigating and understanding behaviours and relationships. This study demonstrates the increasing relevance of social network approaches to solving contemporary and looming operations management (OM) and supply chain management (SCM) problems; including the coordination operations challenges raised by increased connectivity.

Design/methodology/approach

The systematic literature review approach adopted here examines 63 papers in OM and SCM published between 2000 and 2019. To-date OM reviews on SNA have focussed on discussing archetypal supply chains, what differentiates this study is the focus on how value was created in other forms of chains and operations.

Findings

This study reveals that current SNA adoption in OM is dominated by a manufacturing style focus on linear, sequential value creation, with a resulting focus only on sequential interdependence. SNA studies on reciprocally co-ordinated value creation (e.g. many service and network operations) are shown to have been neglected and are linked to a new agenda on contemporary management issues.

Research limitations/implications

Beyond encouraging the use of SNA, this study seeks to re-orient SNA approaches towards how contemporary services and networks create value.

Originality/value

Through adopting a unique combination of approaches and frameworks, this study challenges extant work to offer a substantially revised agenda for SNA use in Operations and Supply Chain Management.

The dark side of social media connectivity

Purpose

The increasing use of social media after work hours for work purposes, termed social media connectivity (SMC), is an emerging phenomenon in supply chain management. Although SMC can have debilitating effects on supply chain professionals and their organizations, research on its effects on work-related attitudes, especially turnover intentions, remains largely unexplored. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of SMC on voluntary turnover of supply chain professionals and the resulting implications for them and their organizations.

Design/methodology/approach

The study draws from the conservation of resources theory and the concept of information overload to explain how SMC leads to emotional exhaustion and impacts turnover intentions of supply chain professionals, contingent on work–life balance. The model is tested using survey data (n=325) collected at multiple times from a large Chinese pharmaceutical manufacturer and distributor with spatially dispersed workforce and distribution facilities.

Findings

The results confirm that emotional exhaustion mediates the association between SMC and turnover intentions and that SMC exacerbates the intentions of supply chain professionals to quit their jobs. However, work–life balance is found to dampen the exhausting effects of SMC on emotional exhaustion thereby reducing its debilitating effects on turnover intentions of supply chain professionals.

Originality/value

The focus on SMC highlights the need for greater understanding of the dark side of social media on supply chain professionals and their organizations and how SMC can be better managed in an age of social media ubiquity.

Mediated power and sustainable supplier management (SSM)

Purpose

As focal buyers implement sustainable supplier management (SSM) to advance their supply chain sustainability, the purpose of this paper is to provide a more nuanced understanding of how buyers’ use of power may incite varying perceptions of justice from suppliers that affect sustainable supplier performance (SSP).

Design/methodology/approach

This paper draws on multidisciplinary literature and collects empirical data from 181 supplying firms in China to examine the complex links among power use, justice, SSM, and sustainable performance using partial least squares structural equation modeling.

Findings

Both coercive and reward buyer power can facilitate SSM implementation and justice perception moderates the impact of SSM on SSP. Furthermore, coercive power adversely influences justice evaluation, thereby attenuating the effect of SSM on performance.

Research limitations/implications

This study complements and extends sustainable supply chain management research by evaluating SSM: on environmental, social and economic performance; from the perspectives of suppliers; and in an emerging market where many suppliers of Western firms are located. It also adds to behavioral SCM research by examining how buyers’ exercise of power might influence suppliers’ justice perception.

Practical implications

To implement SSM, focal buyers cannot simply issue codes of conduct to suppliers and ignore suppliers’ disposition to commit to standards. While coercive power might be convenient and tempting for buying firms, managers ought to be judicious in the use of coercion.

Originality/value

This is the first large-scale empirical investigation on the links among power use, justice, SSM and sustainable performance from the perspectives of suppliers in an emerging economy.

Supervisor and mentoring effects on work-family conflict in logistics

Purpose

A talent shortage and underrepresentation of women in logistics emphasize the need to assess the logistics work culture. As logistics practitioners face round-the-clock job pressures, work–family conflict presents one such opportunity for study. Consequently, the purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of supervisors and mentoring on work interference with family (WIF) and subsequent job satisfaction and intent to leave logistics.

Design/methodology/approach

Under role conflict theory, the authors apply structural equation modeling to survey data of logistics practitioners, focusing on time, strain and behavior WIF sources.

Findings

The results highlight the complexity of WIF in logistics. Strain and behavior-based WIF relate to job satisfaction, which then relates to intent to leave logistics. Family-supportive supervisors reduce time and strain-based WIF, and mentoring provides complementary support for behavior-based WIF. However, mentoring also yields unintended contradictory effects for women as detrimental to time-based WIF.

Research limitations/implications

The relatively small sample size, particularly for women, limits generalizability of the results.

Practical implications

To foster supportive work environments, logistics organizations must train supervisors and mentors to resolve employee WIF, including its different sources and gender-specific impacts.

Originality/value

The interplay of supervisors and mentors has not been well studied to date. Also, the contradictory impacts of mentoring for women based on WIF sources challenges WIF literature and issues warnings for mentoring in professional practice. Finally, the results provide insight into the talent shortage and gender imbalance in logistics that lack empirical study.

Service Supply Chain Research: A Conceptual Model Based on Business Processes

When economy transfers from tangible manufacturing to intangible services, it is extremely important to understand whether the lessons learned from manufacturing industries can be directly applied to service supply chains. This paper aims to compare traditional manufacturing industries with service supply chain sector and the results emphasize that the similarities and differences do exist between these two sectors — demonstrating that effective supply chain strategies in one sector may not be appropriate in the other sector. Based on the unique characteristics of service, this study builds a conceptual model of service supply chain.

Promoting logistics performance in Vietnam-based manufacturing firms

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how service-oriented high-performance work systems (HPWSs) contribute to logistics performance and the mediation mechanisms underlying this relationship.

Design/methodology/approach

Employees and their managers from logistics departments and/or business departments of manufacturing firms in the Vietnamese business setting were recruited as participants in the data collection. Structural equation modeling was employed for the data analysis.

Findings

Service-oriented HPWSs demonstrated the positive effects on logistics performance via serving culture. Serving culture was found to have the positive link with logistics performance via the mediating roles of collective role breadth self-efficacy and collective customer knowledge.

Originality/value

The current research extends the logistics management research by identifying service-oriented HPWSs as an antecedent of logistics performance as well as the mediation mechanisms underlying this effect.

Individual goals and social preferences in operational decisions

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to develop propositions explaining the influence of individual goals and social preferences on human decision making in transport planning. The aim is to understand which individual goals and social preferences planners pursue and how these influence planners’ decisions.

Design/methodology/approach

Propositions are developed based on investigation of decision making of transport planners in a Dutch logistics service provider using multiple data collection methods.

Findings

The study shows how decision making of transport planners is motivated by individual goals as well as social preferences for reciprocity and group identity.

Research limitations/implications

Further research including transaction data analysis is needed to triangulate findings and to strengthen conclusions. Propositions are developed to be tested in future research.

Practical implications

Results suggest that efforts to guide planners in their decision making should go beyond traditional (monetary) incentives and consider their individual goals and social preferences. Moreover, this study provides insight into why transport planners deviate from desired behaviour.

Originality/value

While individual decision making plays an essential role in operational planning, the factors influencing how individuals make operational planning decisions are not fully understood.

Cost estimation accuracy in supply chain design

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how management attention and supply chain complexity affect the decision-making process and cost estimation accuracy of supply chain design (SCD) decisions.

Design/methodology/approach

The research follows an embedded case study design. Through the lens of the behavioural theory of the firm, the SCD decision process and realised outcomes are investigated through longitudinal data collection across ten embedded cases with varying degrees of supply chain decision-making complexity and management attention.

Findings

The findings suggest that as supply chain decision-making complexity increases, cost estimation accuracy decreases. The extent to which supply chain decision-making complexity is readily recognised influences the selection of strategies for information search and analysis and, thus, impacts resulting cost estimation errors. The paper further shows the importance of management attention for cost estimation accuracy, especially management attention based on conflicting goals induce behaviours that improve estimation ability.

Research limitations/implications

A framework proposing a balance between supply chain decision-making complexity and management attention in SCD decisions is proposed. However, as an embedded case study the research would benefit from replication to externally validate results.

Originality/value

The method used in this study can identify how supply chain complexity is related to cost estimation errors and how management attention is associated with behaviours that improve cost estimation accuracy, indicating the importance of management attention in complex supply chain decision-making.

A Machiavellian behavioural framing of social conflict risks in supply chains

Purpose

This conceptual paper aims to explore how supply chain managers deal with social threats to supply chains, in the process of demonstrating the potency of a largely neglected strand of realist social theory. This theory, as posited, sheds a great deal of light on the behavioural reality of how supply chain managers operate within the social aspects of their risk environments.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper is presented as a narrative synthesis of classical realist sociological literature.

Findings

The Machiavellian approach provides a template that can be used to help academics and practitioners understand how and why supply chain managers orient themselves to the social threats they confront in very different ways. The theory’s contention that the behavioural reality can be subdivided between two basic patterns allows it to serve as a constructively simple template for becoming attuned to ways in which supply chain managers socially construct and act within their social threat environments.

Research limitations/implications

The growing social complexity of supply chains gives behavioural responses a complexity reduction function. The authors theorise that such patterns, once activated, may not necessarily adapt rationally as guides to optimise the chance of success against the full range of social threats they are likely to encounter.

Originality/value

Cross-disciplinary supply chain management research is increasingly drawing upon sociology and behavioural science to facilitate greater understanding of not only the supply chain environment but also the roles of supply chain managers as relationship influencers and managers of conflict. The authors posit that Machiavellian–realist social theory can contribute to supply chain management scholarship by offering a constructively simple approach to evaluate the behavioural realities associated with social threats.

Balancing theoretical and practical relevance in supply chain management research

Purpose

The discussion of rigor vs relevance is an ongoing debate in academic environment. Ambitions to fulfill one of these two objectives might not exclude the other. Instead, they could and should be achieved simultaneously. However, what seems to be missing in supply chain management (SCM) research is the unfolding of symmetrical balance between the two dimensions of relevance – theoretical vs practical relevance. The purpose of this paper is to advance the understanding of this symmetrical balance and to change the conversation to also include the practical relevance dimension.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper is based on literature studies as well as the results of a questionnaire survey distributed to the Danish Supply Chain Panel consisting of 113 supply chain executives (as per the beginning of 2017). A short interview about the questionnaire results was also carried out with three panel members.

Findings

With an increased focus on journal rankings, there is a risk of pursuing more theoretically relevant SCM research at the expense of practically relevant SCM research. Both types of relevance are important for growing the discipline. But the current development seems to favor theoretical relevance, further widening the gap with respect to practical applications. Practical relevance is important both in the knowledge production and in the knowledge transfer stages.

Research limitations/implications

There is a need to further explore different resources to close the gap between theoretical and practical relevance in SCM research. Researchers ought to follow an ambidextrous research strategy. This paper advises to bring back the core of the profession – the research process. This paper encourages researchers to be more creative and intensify the focus, equally, on both the theoretical and practical relevance in their research.

Practical implications

This research showcases a variety of different approaches for researchers to engage with practice so as to reduce any prejudices from both sides and enhance SCM decision-making processes. This paper recommends adding a new type of paper “practical paper” and including practitioners in the review board to evaluate the practical content of the research paper. This initiative would strengthen the interaction between researchers and practitioners.

Originality/value

This paper provides new insights on the need for symmetrical balance between theoretical and practical relevance being important for both academia and practice.

Middle-range theorizing on logistics customer service

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how a systematic application of middle-range theorizing, which pays particular attention to contexts and mechanisms, can be used to extend current knowledge on logistics customer service (LCS) in a number of critical areas.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper applies Stank et al.’s (2017) framework for middle-ranging theorizing in logistics to develop a research framework and agenda that can guide future LCS research. Results are generated through a review of the LCS literature and an application of the main concepts of middle-range theorizing.

Findings

The paper outlines opportunities for middle-range research that would extend LCS knowledge in the areas of human and behavioral factors, time-based competition, supply chain complexity, and digitization and technological innovation.

Research limitations/implications

Describing the main characteristics of middle-range theorizing and how middle-range theorizing can be fruitfully applied to LCS research should help to stimulate new knowledge creation in this important area of supply chain logistics management.

Practical implications

By focusing on why and when questions, middle-range theorizing engages with the practical realities of LCS that interest managers and students. Middle-range theorizing moves researchers toward developing a detailed understanding of what actually has to change in order for desired LCS-related outcomes to occur and the contextual factors likely impacting the change process. The paper should, therefore, allow managers to better translate LCS theory into action.

Originality/value

Middle-range theorizing remains new to the supply chain logistics field. The application of middle-range theorizing to LCS research, and logistics research more generally, demands new perspectives on established relationships with the potential to drive original research in areas most relevant to managers.