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In response to calls for conceptual frameworks and generic theory building toward the advancement of sustainability in supply chain resource utilization and management, the purpose of this paper is to advance a circular framework for supply chain resource sustainability (SCRS), and a decision-support methodology for assessing SCRS against the backdrop of five foundational premises (FPs) deduced from the literature on resource sustainability.

Taking a conceptual theory-building approach, the paper advances a set of SCRS decision-support criteria for each of the theoretical premises advanced, and applies the theory of constraints to illustrate the conceptual and practical applications of the framework in SCRS decision making.

This study uses recent conceptualizations of supply chains as “complex adaptive systems” to provide a robust and novel frame and a set of decision rules with which to assess the interconnectedness of environmental, economic, and social capital of supply chain resources from pre-production to post-production.

The paper contributes to theory building in sustainability research, and the SCRS decision framework developed could be applied in tandem with existing quantitative hybrid life-cycle and input-output approaches to facilitate targeted resource sustainability assessments, with implications for research and practice.

The novel SCRS framework proposed serves as a template for evaluating SCRS and provides a decision-support methodology for assessing SCRS against the five theorized FPs.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how multinational corporations (MNCs) orchestrate internal and external resources to help their multi-tier supply chains learn sustainability-related knowledge.

An exploratory multiple case study approach was adopted and three MNCs’ sustainable initiatives in China were examined. The data were primarily collected through 43 semi-structured interviews with managers of focal companies and their multi-tier suppliers.

The authors found that in order to facilitate their supply chains to learn sustainability, MNCs tend to orchestrate in breadth by internally setting up new functional departments and externally working with third parties, and orchestrate in depth working directly with their extreme upstream suppliers adopting varied governance mechanisms on lower-tier suppliers along the project lifecycle. The resource orchestration in breadth and depth and along the project lifecycle results in changes of supply chain structure.

The proposed conceptual model provides an overall framework for companies to design and implement their multi-tier sustainable initiatives. Companies could learn from the suggested learning stages and the best practices of case companies.

The authors extend and enrich resource orchestration perspective (ROP), which is internally focused, to a supply chain level, and answer a theoretical question of how MNCs orchestrate their internal and external resources to help their supply chains to learn sustainability. The extension of ROP refutes the resource dependence theory, which adopts a passive approach of relying on external suppliers and proposes that MNCs should proactively work with internal and external stakeholders to learn sustainability.

This paper seeks to show how enterprise resource planning (ERP) could create a competitive advantage for small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs).

The main methods used in this study were questionnaires and interviews based on the application of an uncertainty diagnosing business model. Data were collected, using a questionnaire administrated to 126 SMEs, in the form of percentage contributions of the underlying causes of uncertainty (structured in the business model) on product late delivery. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was carried out in SPSS to analyse the effects of the underlying causes of uncertainty in SMEs.

ERP could create a competitive advantage in delivery for SMEs by being responsive and agile to change, but not to uncertainty. Results suggested that only a few features in an ERP system were used to deal with change due to uncertainty. It was found that SMEs generally use their ERP system to generate a plan for production and use it as a guideline. SMEs concurrently use a range of buffering or dampening techniques to tackle uncertainty for crating a competitive advantage in delivery.

The application of the business model in SMEs has provided useful knowledge to make‐to‐stock (MTS), make‐to‐order (MTO) and mixed‐mode (MM) manufacturing enterprises in which underlying causes of uncertainty were significantly affecting their product late delivery performance.

This is a highly original application of an uncertainty diagnosing business model to SMEs using ERP systems.

The aim of this paper is to investigate how enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems could create a competitive advantage for small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). The objectives of this study are to examine how responsive and agile the existing ERP systems are to change and uncertainty, and to identify the types of change and uncertainty in SME manufacturing environments.

A mixed methodology is used in this study, which involves literature review, questionnaire survey and follow‐up, in‐depth telephone interviews. An uncertainty diagnosing business model is applied to collect data from SME manufacturers in make‐to‐stock (MTS), make‐to‐order (MTO) and mixed mode (MM) manufacturing environments in a structured manner, and to analyse the effects of the underlying causes of uncertainty on product late delivery in MTS, MTO and MM manufacturing environments in SMEs. Some 108 enterprises responded (86 per cent response rate), of which 64 are SMEs. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) is carried out in SPSS to analyse the effects of the underlying causes of uncertainty on product late delivery in MTS, MTO and MM manufacturing environments in SMEs.

ANOVA results show that a different group of underlying causes of uncertainty significantly affects the product late delivery performance in MTS, MTO and MM manufacturing environments in SMEs. This study found that ERP could improve responsiveness and agility to change, but not to uncertainty. SMEs could create a competitive advantage by being more responsive to change in the ERP system before generating purchase and work order. ERP systems could not deal with uncertainty due to its stochastic and unpredictable nature. SMEs use a range of buffering or dampening techniques under uncertainty to be competitive in delivery.

It can be concluded that the application of the business model in SMEs that use ERP has provided useful knowledge about the significant underlying causes of uncertainty that affect product late delivery performance in MTS, MTO and MM manufacturing environments. Using this knowledge, similar SMEs could then prioritise the effort and devise suitable buffering or dampening techniques to manage the causes of uncertainty and hence prevent any changes to the ERP system.

To present a research model attempting to build an innovative common gateway complaint with Rosettanet Standards for the secure message exchange between electronic businesses under this age of internet economy. The use of Rosettanet Standards is to achieve the effectiveness and efficiency of message exchange and consequently gain mutual benefits by means of agile response for cross‐organizational co‐operation.

The common service gateway is modeled by taking the advantages of transmission comply with the standard model specified by RosettaNet among business trading partners involved in supply chain system. A prototyping system compliant with the model presented is built and installed as a gateway interface of digital firms and seamlessly integrate to the firm's backend information system to conduct the message exchange with its business trading partners. The prototype is also implemented to prove the feasibility and effectiveness of this proposal of innovative model.

Through the practical experiment, the service model provided can really assist the firms using this service gateway to conduct its peer trading partners with having same gateway installed may streamline their flow of business data and create a higher value of supply chain between them in terms of communication and operation costs.

More experiments and trials of the prototyping system need to be conducted in different test cases in order to make a concrete conclusion of this paper.

The adoption of international standard model is easier to implement a supply chain system and the business value is also can be achieved if the electronic data exchange is carried over the internet.

The system model presented in this paper can be a valuable reference for further similar development to build an electronic business to achieve the low cost, high efficiency, high security message exchange for digital firms at this internet era.