Journal of Business Logistics最新文献

Existing literature has established supply chain orientation (SCO) as a critical enabler of supply chain management. Although SCO is predicated on alignment across supply chain members, it has primarily been examined at the individual firm level. Given this limitation, we collected triadic archival and survey data from multiple levels of the supply chain to introduce the concepts of SCO supplier fit (i.e., firm's SCO matches its supplier) and SCO customer fit (i.e., firm's SCO matches its customer). The results reveal that SCO supplier fit and SCO customer fit each positively impacts firm operational and customer performance in return on assets (ROA) and return on sales (ROS). More specifically, a firm with an SCO matching its primary upstream or downstream partners performs significantly better than a firm with a higher or lower SCO. In fact, firms with relatively more SCO than key supply chain partners perform significantly worse than those having relatively less SCO. Finally, firms with both SCO supplier fit and SCO customer fit perform better than firms with SCO supplier or customer fit alone. Ultimately, SCO alignment across the supply chain appears to be more important than the level of SCO itself.

Much of the potential of industrial additive manufacturing (AM) is said to lie in the digital specification of components that can be transmitted seamlessly and unambiguously to partners fostering flexible outsourcing. In industry, we observe nuanced AM supply chain governance structures that result from make-or-buy decisions, with a tendency to implement AM in-house. Thus, there is a discrepancy between what is discussed in the literature and implemented in practice. We apply a multiple-case study approach to investigate why and how AM impacts the make-or-buy decision of manufacturing firms. We identify four decision profiles demonstrating the spectrum of specific governance structures and develop a framework to explain the underlying rationales. We find strong arguments for in-house AM including firms’ perceived need to protect their digitally encapsulated intellectual property, reevaluation of their core competencies, commitment to internal learning, and senior management's enthusiasm for AM. By using transaction cost economics and the resource-based view, we contribute to the understanding of how arguments of these general theories are modified by the digital and emerging traits of AM. We reveal contradicting guidance in the theories’ argumentation for the case of AM and provide managers a clear perspective on alternative strategies for their AM implementation process.

With the advancement of innovation initiatives in the port industry, port labor has fundamentally changed in terms of new tasks, skills required, professional profiles, training, employment relations, work organization, and number of jobs. Current literature often focuses more on the assessment of investments in this particular sector rather than on the evaluation of innovative processes and the interaction with employment issues. In this article, the authors assess the relationship between innovation and employment in the port industry by comparing two distinct case studies—the ports of Antwerp and Genoa—which are characterized by partially common features and different socio-institutional contexts. Based on qualitative research conducted between 2016 and 2019, the comparative study finds that incremental innovative solutions produce a polarized port labor market in both cases, as previous studies assess. Nevertheless, the findings show that, in the case of Antwerp, a mediated and structured bargaining system interacts positively with employment issues and incremental innovative solutions, while in the case of Genoa, a disarticulated and less structured context reflects a weaker ability to influence virtuously the intertwine between innovation and employment.

Although technological innovation has enabled a new wave of warehouse automation, human involvement remains necessary for most order picking operations in grocery retailing. This has spawned new forms of interaction between humans, machines, and intelligent software, that is, cyber-sociotechnical systems. However, scant empirical field-based research has been conducted on how this transition impacts human learning and the perception of work characteristics. Considering that humans are an essential element of these systems, it is fundamentally important to quantify the impact of these transformations when aspiring to improve performance, quality, and workers' well-being as primary outcomes of order picking systems. This study utilized a mixed-methods design, developing and applying parametric and non-parametric approaches to operationalize learning progress, and semi-structured interviews were conducted to examine perceived work characteristics. The findings indicate that the perception–cognition–motor–action cycle for learning by doing tasks can be accelerated through real-time feedback provided by the order picking system. Furthermore, perceived work autonomy and feedback from the picking system are constant or perceived as greater when human decisions are accepted. The results have valuable implications for logistics practitioners, emphasizing the need for human-centered work system design.

Artificial intelligence (AI) applications are increasingly used to support supply chain management (SCM) activities. However, industry reports and recent research indicate difficulty in implementing AI solutions. This study explores the role of organizational factors in reconciling the differences between the potential SCM benefits of AI and its actual acceptance and use. We apply thematic analysis techniques to explore the marketing materials used by vendors of AI-enabled software and interviews with organization leaders that have experience with the deployment of AI-based technologies. The emergent model from our data analysis highlights organizational tactics often used to emphasize AI trustworthiness. Our findings suggest several tactics that could be used to convey that AI is a trustworthy technology. We build on the thematic model to situate the findings as offering theoretical extensions to the “social influence” aspect of UTAUT; and develop a robust call for research related to the effects of AI trustworthiness on internal, upstream, and downstream activities in the supply chain. The results contribute to academic conversations related to the acceptance and use of technology and the growing digitalization of supply chains. We outline managerial implications regarding the role of AI trustworthiness in AI use for managing SCM.

Building on prior literature on sales and operations planning, corporate social responsibility, and marketing campaigns, we investigate cause-related marketing (C-RM) effects on sales and operations performance across the retail supply chain. C-RM is a corporate social responsibility marketing campaign, in which a for-profit firm donates proceeds from consumer purchases of a promoted product to a designated nonprofit cause. Using a unique, rich, and proprietary dataset from an actual CR-M campaign, we conduct a quasi-experiment analysis. Our findings suggest positive C-RM effects on retail store sales during the campaign, coupled with enduring negative effects on forecast bias and service levels upstream in the retail supply chain. Although academic studies and the specialized media have thoroughly documented the benefits of C-RM to corporate branding, our findings point to trade-offs in sales and operations performance across the retail supply chain. These findings call for firms to carry out holistic assessments of the strategic value of C-RM involving all of its stakeholders, including sales and operations planners and the nonprofit cause, as well as investments in the development and improvement of their forecasting management competence.

Freight transportation emissions reduction is on the environmental sustainability agenda for the logistics and transportation function in many organizations. Transportation is the fastest growing form of emissions in developing countries and is second only to electricity emissions generation globally. However, freight transportation is not a priority on the overall organizational sustainability agenda for many companies. This research uses in-depth interviews with 12 organizations to provide insight into the Transportation functional and the organizational level action and commitment to freight transportation emissions reduction as part of the overall corporate sustainability agenda. The context of this research takes the perspective of shippers to understand the benefits perceived by shippers in joining a green network/partnership focused on the reduction of freight emissions, fuel consumption, and the associated costs. In most organizations, reducing freight emissions is managed within the Transportation function and there is a lack of organizational focus on outsourced freight transportation emissions reduction. Given the increasing saliency of emissions reductions in many organizations, this represents a gap that needs to be addressed. The research suggests methods for creating more concern and visibility of freight transportation emissions.

The increasing trend toward digitalization in logistics poses a significant managerial challenge, particularly by fundamentally changing the traditional, manual workplaces in intralogistics. Although intralogistics processes have, in some cases, already been automated or are supported by smart technologies, humans remain an inevitable part of future intralogistics but with changing work characteristics. This study aims to examine the influences of the transition toward Intralogistics 4.0 on work characteristics of intralogistics employees. First, a systematic literature review on work characteristics and job satisfaction in a broader Logistics 4.0 context was conducted. Thereafter, a qualitative, explorative methodology was employed to examine the perception of work characteristics that impact job outcomes such as job satisfaction, motivation, and performance at different Intralogistics 4.0 maturity levels. The results of semi-structured interviews conducted across seven companies demonstrated the significant, heterogeneous changes of work characteristics related to the type of technology applied in Intralogistics 4.0. Our findings indicate that the development toward Intralogistics 4.0-implemented workplaces does not have a simple or predefined impact on humans; instead, the individual design is relevant and can improve the workplaces with more opportunities for satisfying and motivating jobs.

In globalized factor markets, firms face threats of resource scarcity, which challenge purchasing managers in interpreting signals about complex and uncertain factor-market conditions. When future resource supply is threatened, purchasing managers are affected not only by the expected scarcity but also by the uncertainty of the scarcity threat. We investigate how expected resource scarcity and scarcity uncertainty affect managerial attention to scarcity perceptions, which, in turn, impacts the likelihood to respond to the scarcity threat by collaborating with the major supplier. We collected data from 203 purchasing managers about their experience with a scarcity incident and developed new scales for assessing perceived scarcity. Our findings indicate that expected resource scarcity results in increased levels of managerial attention while scarcity uncertainty reduces managerial attention. Importantly, managerial attention mediates the effect of expected resource scarcity and scarcity uncertainty on purchasing managers’ propensity to collaborate. The results illustrate the contrary impact of expected resource scarcity and scarcity uncertainty on purchasing managers’ attention and highlight managerial attention as an important behavioral consideration to understand how purchasing managers mitigate environmental risk. Finally, we identify individual (responsibility, experience) and organizational (trust) factors that increase purchasing managers’ attention to scarcity threats and collaboration.