Original Articles
“Using data collected from 277 buyers employed at large purchasing organizations (LPOs) in the U.S. and U.K., this study investigates factors that might influence their willingness to procure goods and services from ethnic minority businesses (EMBs). The social capital literature is used to develop hypotheses concerning the cognitive, structural, and relational dimensions that may play roles in decisions to buy from minority firms. Subsequently, modern discrimination theory is employed to provide inductive insights into how buyers' attitudes toward supplier diversity mediate the effects of social capital on their procurement activities with EMBs. The results of multiple regression analysis suggest that in both the U.S. and U.K., positive social capital as perceived by the buyers has a direct, significant relationship with their expenditures with EMBs. The results also reveal that in both countries, buyers' attitudes toward supplier diversity mediate the relationship. Interestingly, although the U.S. originated the concept of supplier diversity, our research uncovers that U.K. LPO buyers have greater expenditures with their EMBs. Based on these findings, this research illustrates how strategic corporate social responsibility initiatives set forth by LPOs may be impacted by their buyers' social relationships with EMBs and their attitudes toward supplier diversity”
The full article can be found here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jscm.12237
https://doi.org/10.1111/jscm.12237
“Recent research highlights opportunities to study collaborations between established firms and startups from a buyer–supplier relationship perspective. However, before firms can leverage startups’ resources and capabilities in a buyer–supplier relationship, they need to identify, evaluate, and select suitable startups as their suppliers. As prior research has only studied how buying firms select established firms as suppliers, it is unclear which processes, tools, or organizational approach firms use when selecting startup firms as suppliers. These suppliers are markedly different in that they lack organizational routines, financial resources, and operational capabilities, posing a significant risk for buying companies. This inductive, qualitative case study research collects data from 20 established buying firms and investigates how they select startups as suppliers. We first identify five design themes distinguishing buying firms’ selection strategies. Based on these themes, we develop a typology of three supplier selection archetypes. The results suggest that firms that are willing and able to adapt their selection approach to startups are expected to show a higher selection performance, meaning that they are more likely to select suitable startups as suppliers. The results extend the supplier selection literature and provide new insights into the emerging field of new venture suppliers.”
The full article can be found here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jscm.12230
https://doi.org/10.1111/jscm.12230
“The cannabis industry is a new quasi-legal industry. Growing, selling, and using cannabis are still illegal in most countries. However, 24 countries and 33 U.S. states have approved cannabis for medical use, and five countries and 11 U.S. states allow recreational use. This research focuses on value-added producers (VAPs), companies that process cannabis to manufacture ingestible, inhalable, or topical products. Due to public health concerns, the VAP tier of the cannabis supply chain faces stringent regulatory focus and turbulence. Using multiple case studies of VAPs in an emerging cannabis industry, this research investigates how these companies' primary supply chain decision-makers make and implement strategic decisions in an environment characterized by fast-changing regulations. While the public often perceives this new market as a way for new business owners to get rich quick, the results of this research paint a different picture. Neither significant corporate expertise and funding nor black-market cannabis experience are necessarily predictors of success. Incorporating the underpinnings of dynamic managerial capabilities, namely managerial cognitive capital, human capital, and social capital, this research investigates how VAP companies have managed their production and supply chains to ultimately thrive, survive, or fail. Human and cognitive capital is important, but social capital that reaches beyond the supply chain is a distinguishing feature of firms that thrive in this nonpredictive environment.”
This research has been featured in our Spotlight series, details can be found here:https://www.journalofsupplychainmanagement.com/new-blog/2020/10/23/spotlight-fighting-to-survive-how-supply-chain-managers-navigate-the-emerging-legal-cannabis-industry
The full article can be found here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jscm.12238
https://doi.org/10.1111/jscm.12258
Emerging Discourse Incubator: Research where the focal actor in the network is not a for-profit firm
“The literature has extensively discussed whether and how public organizations differ from private ones. Publicness theory argues that the degree of publicness is determined by ownership, funding, goal setting, and control structure of an organization. However, these theoretical ideas have not yet been extended to the interorganizational level. The need for further research is reflected in the sustained debate on the applicability of for-profit management approaches in public contexts and supply chains. Starting from the premise of the dimensional publicness theory, this study focuses on theory elaboration. We focus our empirical study on the criminal justice supply chain, which encompasses the process of bringing a criminal case to court. This chain provides an interesting public case to explore how specific dimensions of publicness affect or limit supply chain integration mechanisms. The results of our series of embedded cases focusing on Dutch criminal justice supply chains show that control structures, embodied in laws and regulations, define the governance of relationships between supply chain partners. In addition to these formalized ties, extensive known for-profit information and operational integration mechanisms can be observed, along with limited relational integration. Surprisingly, although similar integration mechanisms are used as in for-profit contexts, integration serves a different role in several of the relationships investigated: dealing with tensions stemming from the specific goal setting and stakeholders of criminal justice chains. Although our findings specifically relate to criminal justice supply chains, they have important implications for other supply chains using contracts and laws and those being selective in applying supply chain integration in cases of contrasting objectives. Moreover, we provide a stepping-stone for the extension of publicness theory to the interorganizational level.”
The full article can be found here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jscm.12245
https://doi.org/10.1111/jscm.12245
This research has been featured in our Spotlight series, details can be found here: https://www.journalofsupplychainmanagement.com/new-blog/2020/10/2/spotlight-on-publicness-theory-and-its-implications-for-supply-chain-integration-the-case-of-criminal-justice-supply-chains
“While NGO–business relationships have much in common with buyer–supplier relationships, the literature specifically indicates several additional challenges in achieving effective and efficient NGO–business relationships. The present study seeks to understand how NGOs and businesses can overcome these additional challenges. From a practitioner’s viewpoint, we not only strive to acknowledge the complementarity of NGOs and businesses for implementing successful relationship practices but also seek to understand how these understudied cross-sector relationships can be successfully built. We use a multicase study design to investigate nine NGO–business relationships in a humanitarian context. This study contributes to the supply chain literature by demonstrating how social capital mitigates tensions within NGO–business relationships, that is, by indicating that social capital has not only a bonding, but also a bridging role when building cross-sectoral relationships. In summary, our analysis enabled us to present a more generic process framework for creating social capital within NGO–business relationships. It shows that trust within NGO–business relationships appears to develop more naturally compared to commercial relationships, but that these relationships require more effort in terms of structural and cognitive capital to ensure that partners communicate and share knowledge efficiently, as there are inherent differences in goals and communication languages between NGOs and businesses.”
The full article can be found here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jscm.12243
https://doi.org/10.1111/jscm.12243
This research has featured in our Spotlight series, details can be found here: https://www.journalofsupplychainmanagement.com/new-blog/2020/11/6/spotlight-what-is-the-role-of-social-capital-in-creating-ngo-business-relationships
Editorial Commentary
“Supply chain management researchers are increasingly using archival data to push boundaries of existing knowledge. Archival data provide opportunities to address new research questions and offer fresh perspectives on old questions. This editorial seeks to establish a common ground regarding research design, measurement validity, and endogeneity to help both authors and reviewers fully utilize archival data to advance supply chain management knowledge.”
https://doi.org/10.1111/jscm.12236
Announcement
The purpose of this EDI is to encourage a re-examination of how a firm can leverage resources within its supply chain network to enhance its competitive advantage via both market and non-market based competitive actions. For example, Apple Corporation is able to engage in highly successful product competition with firms such as Samsung because its supply chain network has the needed resources to design, manufacture and bring the firm's products to market faster than its rivals. Therefore, this EDI is particularly interested in submissions that adopt a competitive dynamics perspective to investigate the role of supply chain networks on firm-level competitive moves and countermoves (Grimm, Lee, and Smith, 2006; Hofer, Cantor, and Dai, 2012). Examples of competitive moves and counter-moves include pricing actions, marketing and advertising actions, facility expansion actions, new product innovation actions (e.g., Ferrier, Smith and Grimm, 1999). Increasingly, firms are also engaging in non-market competitive moves such as political lobbying actions as a way to take a proactive posture towards the public policy environment (e.g., Oliver & Holzinger, 2008).
Strategy scholars and economists have debated for many years the role of market forces on the promotion of overall economic growth and innovation. Due to issues of potential market share erosion or industry dethronement (see creative destruction, Schumpeter, 1950; Chen and Miller 2012), many firms such as Apple, Google, and Amazon, are highly incentivized to undertake competitive actions to enhance firm performance. However, only recently has there been increased interest in how internal and external resources within the supply chain network play a critical role in enabling the firm to engage in competitive behavior. While there is little debate that the supply chain can represent an important resource to enhance the firm's ability to compete in hyper-competitive markets, some stakeholders are concerned that firms will leverage their supply chain resources for anti-competitive purposes.
Full Details can be found here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jscm.12271