For a deeper understanding of the relationships between “Firm Size” and supply chain digitalization: An empirical investigation

Abstract

Dr. Salomée RUEL holds a Phd in Management Sciences. She is Associate Professor in Supply Chain Management, Kedge Business School Marseille - CSR research center. Her research focuses on supply chain strategy, inter-organizational relations, information systems, dynamic capabilities (agility, resilience, visibility) and gender diversity in SCM. She is the treasurer of the AIRL-SCM Scientific Association. E-mail: Dr. Laurence VIALE holds a Phd in Management Sciences and is Assistant Professor at Ecole de Management de Strasbourg (University of Strasbourg-France). Member of Humans and Management in Society (HuManiS), her research interests include roles of Purchasing agents in the innovation process, purchasing skills and intra-organizational relationship and more recently supply chain digitalization and resilience. She has twenty years of experience in Strategic Buying and corporate sourcing and as an IT engineer. E-mail: laurence.viale@em-strasbourg.eu inter-organizational between and mechanisms for managing their resolve conflicts. working on the impact of digitalization on Supply Chain disruption. Abstract In a context of unprecedented crises and uncertainties, digital tools appear to bring more visibility to decision-takers along the Supply Chain (SC). They enhance information sharing and collaboration between SC entities. This research contributes to providing a more complete understanding of the relationships between the size of the firm and its adoption of SC digital tools and challenges encountered. For this purpose, we mobilize the Resource-Based View (RBV) and analyze 311 surveys collected from SC professionals using the Kruskal–Wallis and Mann–Whitney tests. Our results clarify the role of firm size in SC digitalization. More precisely, groups of different firm sizes show a significant difference of SC digital tools adoption level and our study enables researchers and practitioners to understand that this difference depends on the type of tools (either operational or support tools). In addition, this study brings a counter-intuitive result that is not consistent with previous research: there is no difference between the groups of different firm sizes with regards to SC digitalization challenges encountered.