Andrew Cox, Daniel Chicksand and Martin Palmer
This paper aims to assess the findings of a research project that investigates the scope for lean strategies to be adopted in beef, lamb and pig supply chains.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to assess the findings of a research project that investigates the scope for lean strategies to be adopted in beef, lamb and pig supply chains.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper reports on action research carried out in three red meat supply chains. The methodology is inductive and qualitative, using a multi‐case, multi‐site approach. Each of the supply chains was analysed from farm gate to consumer, interviewing multiple participants at each stage of the supply chain.
Findings
The analysis demonstrates that, although a lean approach has been introduced in the pig supply chain, it is much more problematic in beef and lamb supply chains. Furthermore, the majority of participants in the UK pig supply chain – the first to adopt lean strategies – have not received the commercial improvement (the “stairway to heaven” of higher returns) that was anticipated. On the contrary, the majority of participants in this supply chain are experiencing a strategic “treadmill to oblivion” of continuous lean operational efficiency, but with low commercial returns.
Research limitations/implications
The research is based upon three red meat supply chains – beef, lamb and pig. It would be beneficial if further in‐depth studies could be undertaken in other agri‐food supply chains to further validate the findings.
Practical implications
If government agencies and/or multiple retailers develop lean strategies in UK beef and lamb supply chains, it is not at all clear that this will benefit all parties in these chains. This raises important questions about the efficacy and appropriateness of lean strategies in supply chains that do not have the same demand, supply and power and leverage characteristics as those in which lean principles were first developed.
Originality/value
This paper should be of value to researchers in this area and to managers responsible for strategy formation in UK agri‐food supply chains.
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Adrian Castro-Lopez, Laura Caso Fernández-Pacheco, Víctor Iglesias and Javier De la Ballina
This study aims to analyzes the effects of the consumer-generated media (CGM) boom on hotel managers’ investment behavior concerning quality signals.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to analyzes the effects of the consumer-generated media (CGM) boom on hotel managers’ investment behavior concerning quality signals.
Design/methodology/approach
Survival analysis has been conducted, considering the permanence/dropout of the Spanish hotels in a quality certification system during the 1998–2020 period.
Findings
The number of hotels certified since 2010 has been progressively falling, pointing to a decreasing interest of the managers in these certifications. Nevertheless, this is not a generalized phenomenon: the hotel characteristics and the number and nature of reviews about them in CGM significantly affect their permanence decisions in certification systems.
Practical implications
The findings provide several keys to optimizing investment management in quality signals considering hotel characteristics and their positioning in CGM.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that analyses the relationship between the presence of hotels in CGM and their investments in alternative quality signals. The results will allow future investment decisions based on previous real business experiences.
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Sanaz Chamanara, Benjamin P. Goldstein and Joshua P. Newell
Supply chain governance constitutes the rules, structures and institutions that guide supply chains toward various objectives, including environmental sustainability. Previous…
Abstract
Purpose
Supply chain governance constitutes the rules, structures and institutions that guide supply chains toward various objectives, including environmental sustainability. Previous studies have provided insight into the relationship between governance and sustainability but have overlooked two crucial dimensions: power dynamics and the influence of outside actors. This paper aims to address these two gaps by measuring differential power (i.e. power asymmetries) among actors across the supply chain, including external actors.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper quantifies power dynamics across the entire chain through a structured survey in which supply chain participants rank their peer’s ability to affect environmental and social outcomes. This paper tests this approach by surveying 200 industry professionals (e.g. feedlot owners, retailers) and external actors (e.g. NGOs) in the US beef sector.
Findings
Respondents ranked the most powerful actors as follows: feedlot owners; processing plant owners; and regulatory agencies. Results also revealed that trade associations, retailers and cow–calf producers and ranchers perceive a sense of powerlessness. This study reveals multiple power nodes and confirms a shift in the power structure depending on which indicator respondents considered (e.g. environmental impacts vs employee safety). This study concludes that the buyer–producer dichotomy often used to assess supply chain governance fails to capture the complex dynamics among actors within supply chains.
Originality/value
This study demonstrates a novel approach to measure perceptions of power in supply chains. This method enables researchers to map networks of power across entire supply chains, including internal and external actors, to advance understanding of supply chain governance dynamics. Previous studies have misidentified who governs environmental outcomes in supply chains, and NGOs have overestimated the power of consumers and retailers to influence producers.
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– The purpose of this paper is to explore and generate propositions of factors that affect the degree of performance management process integration in retail supply chains.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore and generate propositions of factors that affect the degree of performance management process integration in retail supply chains.
Design/methodology/approach
The performance management processes of two retail supply chains were explored and their degree of process integration was classified. Differences in the degree of performance management process integration and affecting factors lead to the generation of five propositions.
Findings
Dependence, brand importance, business process integration, performance demand and the existence of a performance management standard seem to be positively related to the degree of performance management process integration in the relation. Both factors that affect process integration in general and performance management process integration specifically are included. Some insights on integration in a vertically integrated retail chain were provided.
Research limitations/implications
This study has specified the knowledge in process integration to the performance management process and expanded it into a retail context. It has generated a number of propositions on factors that affect the degree of performance management process integration, including a factor that was not found in previous research on manufacturing supply chains. The contribution to process integration theory is however limited until the propositions are validated in a broader study.
Practical implications
Knowledge in affecting factors is useful when “performance management managers” need to communicate integration ambitions with other managers within and outside their own company. The detailed descriptions of performance management processes and integration practices can serve as inspiring benchmarks, as in the daily groceries supply chain, where the industry standard is especially interesting. They can also indicate practices to avoid, as in the home textiles supply chain. Another managerial take-away is the need to handle each relation, manufacturer-wholesaler and wholesaler-retailer store, with their specific affecting factors in specific ways.
Originality/value
Previous knowledge on performance management process integration is mainly based on manufacturing companies. This study expands existing knowledge into a retail context.
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Miguel Hernández‐Espallardo, Augusto Rodríguez‐Orejuela and Manuel Sánchez‐Pérez
Inter‐firm knowledge sharing and learning constitute one of the main avenues to improve supply chains' performance in today's business environment. This paper aims to examine how…
Abstract
Purpose
Inter‐firm knowledge sharing and learning constitute one of the main avenues to improve supply chains' performance in today's business environment. This paper aims to examine how effective different governance mechanisms are in promoting knowledge transfer, learning and performance in supply chains.
Design/methodology/approach
Following on from the literature in inter‐organizational learning, transaction costs economics, business‐to‐business relational marketing, and supply chain management, a model is presented and tested using structural equations modeling. Data were collected from 219 Colombian apparel manufacturers.
Findings
This paper finds that from more influential to less, social mechanisms of governance, hostages and behavioral control favor knowledge sharing, learning and performance in supply chains. Output control exerts a negative influence on learning in supply chains.
Research limitations/implications
Governance has a key role in promoting transparency and learning in supply chains. Future research should analyze whether it impacts on the firms' learning intent.
Practical implications
Knowledge sharing and learning have a positive influence on the supply chain's performance. Results of the study suggest that the supply chain's competitiveness lies in the adequate governance of the interfirm relationships, i.e. by using trust, hostages and behavioral control to support knowledge exchange.
Originality/value
Compared with studies that limit their analysis to the impact of one specific type of governance mechanism, generally trust, the paper for the first time jointly examines the role of several types of governance on knowledge‐sharing in supply chains, on learning and on performance. This allows a comparison of the different mechanisms in terms of their safeguarding and coordination role.
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Under this heading are published regularly abstracts of all Reports and Memoranda of the Aeronautical Research Committee, Reports and Technical Notes of the U.S. National Advisory…
Abstract
Under this heading are published regularly abstracts of all Reports and Memoranda of the Aeronautical Research Committee, Reports and Technical Notes of the U.S. National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, and publications of other similar research bodies as issued
Harry Sminia, Anup Nair, Aylin Ates, Steve Paton and Marisa Smith
This chapter addresses the dynamics in inter-organizational relations. The authors probe the value networks so prevalent within contemporary manufacturing to put forward that…
Abstract
This chapter addresses the dynamics in inter-organizational relations. The authors probe the value networks so prevalent within contemporary manufacturing to put forward that their basic cooperation/competition duality manifests itself in practical terms as capability, appropriation, and governance paradoxes. The authors conducted a longitudinal ethnographic study aimed at capturing the process by which inter-organizational collaboration in manufacturing value networks is enacted. Our study finds that inter-organizational relations are “nested” in that a relationship plays out over an interpersonal network where the inter-organizational relationships are a framework for action, while simultaneously interpersonal interactions affect how the inter-organizational relationships take shape and evolve. Furthermore, we found that inter-organizational dynamics is essentially a stratified process. Solving particular and concrete problems at the surface level, with regard to specific collaboration issues between organizations, simultaneously shapes truces with regard to the underlying capability, appropriation, and governance paradoxes.
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Terje I. Vaaland and Morten Heide
The purpose of this paper is to focus on small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and the extent to which they are prepared to meet SCM challenges through the use of modern…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to focus on small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and the extent to which they are prepared to meet SCM challenges through the use of modern planning and control methods.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is based on a cross‐sectional survey of 200 Norwegian companies with informants mainly related to the SCM function and from top management.
Findings
The findings clearly indicate that SMEs give less attention to planning and control methods than LEs. SMEs are less satisfied with the methods applied; less concerned with methods supporting SCM on product quality, rationalisation of operations and capital cost rationalisation; less focused on system integration with other actors in the supply chain; and less focused on EDI and e‐based solutions.
Research limitations/implications
The study focuses primarily on managerial components and excluded logistics structures and business processes that are more or less inter‐related.
Practical implications
Horizontal cooperation or vertical integration can reduce the information technology gap by sharing planning and control systems. The suppliers of support systems should consider delivering complete “turn‐key” solutions for revitalising the supply chain functions, specifically targeted towards SMEs.
Originality/value
The strength of this study is that it has been able to identify systematic differences between LEs and SMEs across sectors with respect to how SCM challenges are met.
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Daniel Chicksand and Jakob Rehme
The purpose of this paper is to consider how value can be better defined and to understand the drivers of value appropriation in business relationships. In doing so, the authors…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to consider how value can be better defined and to understand the drivers of value appropriation in business relationships. In doing so, the authors explore the role that power plays in determining the sharing of value in those relationships.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper contains a conceptual discussion about value and the appropriation of value in business relationships, which leads to the development of a methodology for assessing the sharing of value.
Findings
In this paper, the authors have developed a view of total value in supply chain relationships. They argue that the value of the relationship is the sum of the customer and supplier value, including both tangible and intangible benefits and sacrifices. In addition, they maintain that the appropriation of value in a business relationship is reliant upon: the power both parties possess; the direct and tangible value each party has to offer; and the indirect and intangible value that each has to offer. They also provide a methodology, which can be used to determine the sharing of value between two actors within a business exchange.
Research limitations/implications
In arriving at the conceptualisation of total value and in the discussion of value appropriation in business relationships, the authors drew upon extant literature. However, a limitation is that they were unable to fully consider all the academic discourse centred on value and value appropriation.
Originality/value
The discussion brings together the issues of customer value and supplier value to the concept of “total value”. Thereafter, it links the contentious issue of buyer and supplier power, so as to better understand the appropriation of value in business relationships.