Journal of Supply Chain Management最新文献

The interplay between a firm's customer portfolio and the firm's performance presents a theoretical conundrum that challenges traditional supply chains. In particular, the role of government customer concentration—how extensively a firm incorporates government entities as part of its customer base—emerges as a pivotal factor with the potential to both bolster and burden firm performance. Analyzing 3,643 firm-year observations from the U.S. Federal Procurement Data System-Next Generation, Compustat, and FactSet Revere reveals an inverse U-shaped relationship between government customer concentration and firm performance. Excessive or insufficient government customer concentration adversely impacts performance, suggesting that a strategic balance is essential. Firm size, absorptive capacity, and network embeddedness are crucial in navigating this complex relationship, guiding a firm toward optimizing its government customer portfolio. This research advances the discourse on customer base management, underscoring the essential strategic considerations for firms interacting with government buyers.

An outsourcing decision does not equate to the outsourcing of a sourcing decision. Many indirect transactions with lower tier suppliers are embedded in transactions with first-tier suppliers. Building on the identification of a transaction as the fundamental unit of analysis, this study proposes that transactions comprise bundles of intertwined direct transactions at the firm level and indirect transactions at the supply chain level. These indirect transactions require separate but not independent sourcing decisions. Using a buyer's decision to control or delegate the governance of indirect transactions for an externally sourced product, this study demonstrates that disaggregating the transaction advances theory by extending the range of outcomes, refining the calculus of the make-or-buy decision, and providing a coherent theoretical framework for multi-tier supply chain management. This study considers the theoretical, managerial, and societal implications across various contingencies involving inter-firm relationships.

Recent studies have provided empirical evidence that innovation performance is related to the way a firm is embedded in its supply network, specifically the centrality of its network position, but it remains unclear why some firms can use inputs from suppliers better than others, despite having comparable structural characteristics in their supply networks. Drawing on theories of social networks and organizational climate, this study examines the role of buying firms' organizational climate for innovation. It uses several structured and unstructured datasets for S&P 500 firms and applies count regression models to test hypotheses. Supply network data from FactSet were analyzed to determine the degree centrality of a buying firm. Computer-aided content analysis was used to capture the organizational climate of buying firms based on online employee reviews collected from Glassdoor. The results suggest a positive relationship between the degree centrality and the innovation performance of buying firms. Moreover, certain facets of the organizational climate related to learning, including rewards and career progress, as well as work pressure management, affect the link between the degree centrality of a buying firm and its innovation performance. In conclusion, this study enhances the understanding of the connection between supply networks and innovation. It highlights the crucial role of a firm-level factor, specifically the influential facets of organizational climate for learning, in determining innovation performance.

Supplier integration into product development (SIPD) provides better access to the specialized knowledge of suppliers but brings about interdependencies and difficulties related to effective coordination. The literature implicitly assumes that coordination in SIPD can be understood and resolved through a single-level view. This article challenges this assumption and argues for simultaneous attention to knowledge interdependencies at the product, supplier, and buyer–supplier levels. Component modularity, supplier knowledge modularity, and knowledge complementarity are focal concepts at each respective level. Theorizing from a knowledge-based multilevel perspective, this article constructs a typology of effective coordination. Interrelationships among the concepts reveal patterns of required coordination embedded in the system before product development, enabling partners to effectively direct coordination efforts during development. The framework exposes a dilemma overlooked in the single-level coordination view. For example, when there is low component modularity and high supplier knowledge modularity (i.e., opposing forces for and against coordination), it is difficult to reason how to coordinate SIPD. Proposing that each high/low modularity configuration calls for a specific type of knowledge complementarity, this article contributes to resolving this dilemma.

This article argues for the expansion of qualitative research approaches in supply chain management (SCM). By comparing mainstream qualitative approaches to popular Parisian landmarks, it argues that just as tourists can miss the city's essence by visiting only famous sites, SCM researchers limit their understanding by relying solely on conventional approaches. It emphasizes that, much like exploring lesser-known parts of a city, incorporating diverse qualitative approaches can enrich SCM research. Highlighting the dominance of realist and positivist approaches, the article calls for greater inclusion of nominalist and anti-positivist approaches. It introduces different “buildings” of qualitative research (grounded theory, interpretive research, sensemaking, sociomateriality, actor–network theory, ethnography, action research, discourse analysis, narrative research, and historical research), each offering unique insights into SCM. The article argues that embracing these diverse approaches can lead to a deeper understanding of complex global supply chain phenomena and encourage innovative theoretical development, thereby broadening the scope and impact of the discipline.

Considerable research has focused on how supply chains can better handle disruptions. Consequently, concepts such as supply chain robustness and engineering resilience have emerged, with the dominant emphasis being that disruptions are a wholly bad thing to be avoided or resisted. However, recent discourse in the supply chain disruption management literature, such as the social–ecological interpretation of supply chain resilience, suggests that disruptions can be positioned more positively as potential catalysts for growth. Yet little is known about the capabilities required for a supply chain to grow following disruption. The emerging concept of supply chain antifragility focuses specifically on growth, providing an arrowhead for investigating what enables firms to grow following disruption. Utilizing a metaphorical transfer method, this research translates the capabilities of individuals—those who grow psychologically and emotionally after experiencing trauma—into supply chain capabilities that enhance antifragility. Five key capabilities for building antifragility in supply chains are identified: supply chain mindfulness, supply chain transformative learning, supply chain plasticity, supply chain bricolage, and supply chain collaboration. Furthermore, a hierarchy of capabilities is revealed that points to a sequential approach to capitalizing on the potential growth opportunities presented by supply chain disruptions. The findings are sense-checked through focus groups with practitioners, informing the development of five propositions. This research contributes to theory development on handling supply chain disruptions by providing a capability blueprint for post-disruption growth that complements the literature on social–ecological supply chain resilience. Finally, this research highlights the value of metaphorical transfer as an innovative approach for understanding contemporary supply chain phenomena and advancing novel theoretical frameworks.

The worsening climate, biodiversity, and inequity crises have existential implications. To help resolve these crises, supply chains must move beyond a minimal harm approach. Instead, supply chains must make positive contributions to and harmoniously integrate with the living systems around them. Despite agreement on this urgent need, supply chain management research still lacks a shared roadmap for establishing economically sustainable supply chains that actively regenerate social–ecological systems. This essay deepens the understanding of regenerative supply chains, inviting supply chain scholars and practitioners to rally around timely questions and codevelop new answers. We first scrutinize the paradigmatic assumptions that continue to anchor contemporary research and practice in supply chain management, showing how these once helpful assumptions now hold the community back from seeking much needed solutions. We then offer real-world examples and synthesize emerging arguments from multiple disciplines to propose three new principles of regenerative organizing: proportionality, reciprocity, and poly-rhythmicity. We also delve into the implications of pursuing these regenerative principles for supply chain coordination, governance, and resilience. Finally, we reflect on the fit of empirical research designs and methods for examining the creation of new regenerative supply chains and the conversion of existing supply chains.

Supply failures are persistent and costly in contemporary supply chains. Viewed through the lens of agency theory, such failures are potentially caused by hidden actions of the supplier under information asymmetry and goal incongruence in the buyer–supplier relationship (as principal–agent). However, by reversing the direction of information asymmetry, an alternative cause arises: hidden expectations, where the supplier has good intentions but incomplete information regarding the buyer's true preferences and specifications. Further, following a failure, the buyer forms a causal attribution and takes subsequent action. Yet these attributions suffer from cognitive biases potentially causing buyers to misattribute supply failures, leading to costly conflict and even relationship termination. Combining agency and attribution theories, this article develops a theoretical framework to explain antecedents to a buyer's attribution process under conditions of two-sided asymmetric information. It discusses the harmful relationship effects of misattribution. The framework can assist in identifying and minimizing cognitive biases causing misattribution, hence avoiding the unintentional deterioration of relationships that often follow a supply failure. A research agenda to examine hidden expectations and misattribution is also provided.