Journal of Supply Chain Management最新文献

Social enterprises seek solutions for some of society's most pressing problems through the development of commercially viable businesses. However, pursuing social impact is often at odds with financial viability, and social enterprises need to engage with a wide range of stakeholders to access tangible and intangible resources to overcome this tension. Although the current literature emphasizes the need for social capital within social enterprises' supply chain relationships, it does not consider the costs associated with the development of such capital. This article examines how social enterprises develop social capital in their supply chain relationships and how this social capital affects their ability to pursue impact and viability. Using data from in-depth interviews with nine social enterprises, the findings indicate that the roles and positions of beneficiaries in supply chains determine the appropriate forms of social capital needed to sustain simultaneous impact and viability. The empirical insights highlight that structural and relational capital are most valuable within core supply chain relationships, whereas cognitive capital is most beneficial within peripheral relationships aimed at enhancing competitiveness. Further, social enterprises sometimes relinquish power in their supply chain relationships to prioritize impact but develop relational capital to mitigate threats of opportunism. This study advances a contingent view of social capital in cross-sectoral supply chain relationships and provides valuable implications for managers pursuing impact.

This article outlines the main methodological implications of using Bloomberg SPLC, FactSet Supply Chain Relationships, and Mergent Supply Chain for academic purposes. These databases provide secondary data on buyer–supplier relationships that have been publicly disclosed. Despite the growing use of these databases in supply chain management (SCM) research, several potential validity and reliability issues have not been systematically and openly addressed. This article thus expounds on challenges of using these databases that are caused by (1) inconsistency between data, SCM constructs, and research questions (data fit); (2) errors caused by the databases' classifications and assumptions (data accuracy); and (3) limitations due to the inclusion of only publicly disclosed buyer–supplier relationships involving specific focal firms (data representativeness). The analysis is based on a review of previous studies using Bloomberg SPLC, FactSet Supply Chain Relationships, and Mergent Supply Chain, publicly available materials, interviews with information service providers, and the direct experience of the authors. Some solutions draw upon established methodological literature on the use of secondary data. The article concludes by providing summary guidelines and urging SCM researchers toward greater methodological transparency when using these databases.

As a means of acquiring trade credit, delaying supplier payments by extending payables (days to payment) offer financial benefits for buyers. However, such extensions may also engender costly supplier retaliation that results in operational disruptions and financial loss. Terms of payment between buyers and suppliers often affect the relationships established between trade partners; thus, changes to these terms should be evaluated within a social context. Social exchange theory (SET) is applied to analyze the benefits and costs of abrupt payable extensions on buyers' operational outcomes and profitability. The findings indicate that buyers who delay supplier payables by abruptly lengthening payables tend to subsequently increase investments in accounts receivable, inventory, and capital expenditures. Contrary to popular expectations, however, these buyers financially underperform when compared with similar (matched) firms that do not raise payables. Further analysis indicates that these buyers also experience greater supplier turnover and increases in indirect costs. These results are consistent with the expectation of retaliatory supplier responses to payable extensions. It is also revealed that the detrimental effects of delaying supplier payments by payable extensions are significantly smaller for more powerful and financially stronger firms. However, the relationships between payable extensions and capital-based benefits do not appear to be contingent on buyer power or financial strength. This study extends SET by applying it as a lens through which researchers can examine shifts in trade credit terms. The findings suggest a broadened scope of factors to be considered in social exchange and offer new operationalizations of power and trust factors often addressed in SET studies. The study ends with a discussion of the implications of these findings for practice and future research.

This article contributes to the Emerging Discourse Incubator initiative by presenting how supply chain management scholars can contribute to theory development by means of necessity theories. These are unique theories that inform what level of a concept must be present to achieve a desired level of the outcome. Necessity theories consist of concepts that are necessary but not sufficient conditions for an outcome, where the absence of a single causal concept ensures the absence of the outcome. The theoretical features of necessary conditions have important implications for understanding supply chain management phenomena and providing practical applications. In 2016, Necessary Condition Analysis (NCA) became available for building and testing necessity theories with empirical data. However, NCA has not yet been used for the development of supply chain management theories. Therefore, we explain how necessity theories can be built and tested in a supply chain management context using necessity logic and the empirical methodology of NCA. We intend to inspire scholars to develop novel necessity theories that deepen or renew our understanding of supply chain management phenomena.

How and when do relationships between supply chain stages normalize misconduct? This question is especially relevant to oversupply, a form of normal misconduct peculiar to supply chains. Oversupply occurs when apparently ordinary production and distribution processes deliver products in excess of the safe needs of a market. Although past research sheds light on firm-level processes of organizational misconduct, it has neglected the question of between-stage influences on systemic phenomena like oversupply. We explore this question by analyzing the oversupply of prescription drugs that fueled the American opioid epidemic during the early decades of the 21st century. Manufacturers, distributors, pharmacies, and physicians have settled billions of dollars in claims related to opioid oversupply. These settlements overshadow the fact that many supply chain members made the strategic choice to not participate in oversupply. Focusing on the pharmacy stage of the supply chain, this study finds that participation in opioid oversupply is positively influenced by pressure from supplier pools and by the example of nearby competitors as well as by market characteristics. We test our model using a unique dataset that combines geographic, market, and public health data with prescription opioid transaction data from the United States Drug Enforcement Agency. The study breaks new ground by developing the oversupply construct to explain how pressures within supply chains shape misconduct. The oversupply concept is widely generalizable with the potential to inform a next generation of responsible supply chain research that addresses wicked problems like toxic production and consumption.

The increase in stakeholder pressure for responsible business draws closer public scrutiny when buyers use their power advantage illegitimately to exploit weaker suppliers. In this study, we develop the novel concept of buyer abusive behavior (BAB) and examine BABs exerted by buyers of trucking services against truck owner–operators as their suppliers. This focus is timely given the recent emergence of online platform businesses where precarious work and associated worker abuse are prevalent. Building on the theory of power imbalance and risk-taking behavior, we elaborate on how BAB can jeopardize supplier welfare that comprises performance and safety. The analysis of the data pertaining to 260 owner–operators in South Korea shows that contract-unrelated BAB (e.g., buyer's request for money and valuables) harms supplier performance and supplier safety while contract-related BAB (e.g., buyer's unfair subcontract price decision) does not. Furthermore, the positive relationship between supplier performance and supplier safety is attenuated by contract-related BAB but reinforced by contract-unrelated BAB. We contribute to the growing body of the literature on decent work by exposing BAB as a major detriment to supplier worker welfare and laying the groundwork for the development of theories on power abuse and working conditions in multi-tiered subcontracting work environments.

The Journal of Supply Chain Management's 2022 emerging discourse incubator looks to encourage scholars from different disciplines to develop and test new theories to advance our understanding about why and how firms should manage supply network resources for deploying competitive actions and gaining competitive advantage. To start that discourse, this issue offers three invited papers. In “Broadening our understanding of interfirm rivalry: A call for research on how supply networks shape competitive behavior and performance,” Christian Hofer, Jordan Barker, Laura d'Oria, and Jon Johnson discuss the criticality of the supply network to a focal firm's capability in engaging competitive behaviors and the effectiveness of their rivalrous activities, which together affect the firm's competitive advantage. Michael Howe and Yao Jin explore the relational multiplexity theoretical framework in “It's Nothing Personal, or is it? Exploring How Relational Multiplexity in the Supply Chain Can Enhance Competitive Behavior.” In “A theoretical model on how firms can leverage their supply chain strategy through political actions,” Abhay Grover and Martin Dresner use the structure-conduct-performance and competitive dynamics perspectives to theorize about the relationship between political strategies, supply chain risk management strategy, and firm competitive advantage. These invited papers provide a solid foundation to further a discourse that explains how and why changes in supply chain networks can enable firms to rapidly introduce competitive actions such as new product innovations to remain competitive in their respective industries.

The success of a firm's supply chain strategy depends on resources in the political environment and the supply network in which it operates. If the political environment is not conducive to a firm's supply chain strategy, a firm can either change its supply chain strategy or seek a political environment that is more favorable to its supply chain. This paper examines this second alternative. The structure-conduct-performance (SCP) paradigm and the competitive dynamics literature are used to explore the relationships between political actions that leverage supply network resources, supply chain strategies, and firm performance. We extend a well-known typology of political actions from the strategic management literature and suggest that beyond influencing or complying with the political environment, firms may choose to moderate the political environment (circumvent or submit) or stay neutral (free ride). An integrated model is developed to explore the relationships between political actions and supply chain strategy, along with a series of propositions outlining how political actions can facilitate supply chain risk management strategies. Finally, suggestions are provided for future research.

Supply chain relationships—both within and between firms—can have significant implications on the firm's ability to successfully compete. Thus, it is increasingly important for supply chain managers to skillfully navigate multiplex relationships to coordinate and manage resources across functions and firms in today's competitive environment. In this work, we describe, in a supply chain context, how the prevalence of multiplex relationships, which exist when multiple, potentially incongruous relationships are present between firms and among individuals within these firms, is an important basis for individual behaviors that influence firm competitiveness. Drawing on recent advances in the relational multiplexity theoretical perspective, we identify and discuss several research opportunities for enriching our understanding of interpersonal level antecedents of firm competitiveness. Specifically, we present research opportunities related to supply chain behavioral implications of individual differences and socio-structural adaptation, informal relationship capitalization and creation, temporal orientation and transience, contemporary multiteam structures, and cross-level relational valence (a)symmetries. Throughout, we emphasize the importance of the informal, interpersonal relationships that overlay formally specified roles and develop representative research questions to spur further exploration in each area.