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A supplier may sell not only to one buyer (sole relationship configuration) but also to the buyers competitors (shared relationship configuration) for a specific product category. This study examines the performance implications when suppliers establish shared relationships with the buyer’s competitors.

Secondary data are used to test hypotheses relating a supplier’s relationship configurations to its operational performance. A seemingly unrelated regression approach (SUR) is applied to analyze the data, followed by endogeneity checks of the empirical findings.

The study shows that suppliers with less-shared ties with buying firms’ competitors exhibit superior inventory efficiency and asset turnover. Thus, suppliers can improve operational efficiency by creating relatively exclusive, deep and trust-based relations instead of more extensively shared and shallower relationships.

Based on agency theory as a theoretical lens and aerospace industry data, this research contributes by addressing the supplier’s perspective and linking its operational efficiency performance with its chosen supply relationship configuration.

Suppliers need to understand the performance implications of choosing relatively exclusive relationships versus shared relationships with buying firms. The research provides new insights for managers and can guide their supply chain decision-making.

Little is known about how a supplier’s relationship configurations can elevate, or impair, its operational efficiency. While conventional wisdom holds that suppliers should focus on multiple avenues of revenue growth by selling to buyers’ competitors, this study demonstrates that more sales to a buying firm’s rivals might, in fact, reduce a supplier’s efficiency.

This research is aimed at understanding how inter-organizational team members' ability to encode, interpret, retain and recall knowledge can lead to effective supply chain collaboration, resulting in improved firm performance. Using the lens of transactive memory systems (TMS), this research demonstrates the value of knowing who knows what (specialization), is it trustworthy (credibility) and how to retrieve it (coordination) on supply chain firm performance through network collaboration.

The authors used a multi-method approach that includes quantitative survey methodology and a qualitative methodology using semi-structured interviews. In total, 207 survey responses and six semi-structured interviews provided valuable insights into the use of TMS in supply chain relationships.

This study shows that TMS can enable firms to exploit potential benefits of collaboration on network optimization, thus improving the overall efficiency and process innovations.

To maintain the efficient use of a firm's assets while suppliers get added or removed from the network, this study’s findings suggest that managers should be more knowledgeable of supply chain partners carrying codified knowledge, which can contribute to superior firm performance. Recognizing that when two or more firms collaborate, there are multiple supply chains affected by each decision, it is important that managers carefully assign the specific role of each firm within the supply chain.

This research takes a new approach to network optimization by specifically considering how firms work together to share information about their changing networks to allow firms throughout the supply chain to gain greater levels of asset efficiency and process improvement.

We conduct a multidisciplinary systematic literature review on climate neutrality in the supply chain. While carbon neutrality has gained prominence, our study argues that achieving carbon neutrality alone is not enough to address climate change effectively, as non-CO₂ greenhouse gases (GHG) are potent contributors to global warming.

We used multiple databases, including EBSCO, ProQuest, Science Direct, Emerald and Google Scholar, to identify articles related to climate neutrality in the context of non-CO₂ gases. A total of 71 articles in environmental science, climate change, energy systems, agriculture and logistics are reviewed to provide insights into the climate neutrality of supply chains.

We find that, in addition to CO₂, other GHG such as methane, nitrous oxide, ozone and fluorinated gases also significantly contribute to climate change. Our literature review identified several key pillars for achieving net-zero GHG emissions, including end-use efficiency and electrification, clean electricity supply, clean fuel supply, “GHG capture, storage and utilization,” enhanced land sinks, reduced non-CO₂ emissions and improved feed and manure management.

We contribute to the literature on climate neutrality of supply chains by emphasizing the significance of non-CO₂ GHG along with CO₂ and highlighting the need for a comprehensive approach to climate neutrality in addressing climate change. This study advances the understanding of climate neutrality of supply chains and contributes to the discourse on effective climate change mitigation strategies. It provides clear future research directions.