Examines the debate (1891‐1923) concerning whether women shouldreceive equal pay for equal work and whether they should have equalemployment opportunities. Addresses the issues…
Abstract
Examines the debate (1891‐1923) concerning whether women should receive equal pay for equal work and whether they should have equal employment opportunities. Addresses the issues surrounding equal employment opportunities for women, whether women′s work performance was equal to that of men, the question of equal pay and, finally, the debate over equal pay vs equal job opportunity.
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Stanley E. Fawcett, Yao Henry Jin, Amydee M. Fawcett and Gregory Magnan
Trust has long been viewed as a potential governance mechanism. However, recent research discloses substantive incongruities in trust conceptualization and operationalization �…
Abstract
Purpose
Trust has long been viewed as a potential governance mechanism. However, recent research discloses substantive incongruities in trust conceptualization and operationalization – especially in the supply chain buyer/supplier context. The purpose of this paper is to develop an empirically grounded conceptualization of trust and to explore the trust-construction process.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors used the communications rationality approach to elaborate a three-stage qualitative study of supply chain trust. The authors first monologically examine trust by interviewing managers from over 50 companies (as described). The list of trust behaviors are then dialogically refined through 11 focus studies comprised of over 250 managers into different trust dimensions (as agreed upon). Finally, the authors used two in-depth, dyadic case studies to examine the dynamic trust construction process (as witnessed).
Findings
The authors find divergence in the way academics define trust and the way companies operationalize trust. Missing in action is the notion of benevolence. In the supply chain setting, managers describe trust as consisting of credibility and relationship commitment. Companies use an iterative approach to signal trustworthiness. However, ambiguity increases the costs and decreases the effectiveness of proactive trust construction as a form of supply chain governance.
Originality/value
The authors specify and evaluate novel constructs used to signal trustworthiness and document why and how companies struggle to use the signaling process efficiently and effectively. For some, this is an issue of managerial commitment. For others, this represents a lack of understanding of trustworthiness signals and the trust-construction process. Ultimately, the authors develop a more robust conceptualization of inter-organizational trust and present a roadmap for proactive trust construction.
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Stanley E. Fawcett, Matthew A. Waller and Amydee M. Fawcett
The purpose of this paper is to provide a holistic paradigmatic lens through which the supply chain collaboration phenomena – including collaborative inventory management – can be…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide a holistic paradigmatic lens through which the supply chain collaboration phenomena – including collaborative inventory management – can be understood and explained.
Design/methodology/approach
As theory‐building research, the paper explores the environmental conditions and managerial processes that promote or hinder supply chain collaboration from a variety of theoretical lenses including contingency theory, the resource‐based view of the firm, the relational view of the firm, force field analysis, constituency based theory, social dilemma theory, and resource‐advantage theory.
Findings
To demonstrate how an integrated theoretical framework can help us understand the dynamics of supply chain collaboration, the paper uses the framework to explicate the evolution and state of collaborative inventory management.
Practical implications
The framework can accurately depict and explain highly publicized collaborative failures and successes. It is also possible to draw from the model's core propositions to design prescriptive remedies for the challenges managers encounter as they seek to build collaborative inventory management capabilities.
Originality/value
Supply chain collaboration is a complex and dynamic phenomenon; however, existing management theories only describe locally observed phenomenon. As a result, it is a struggle to both explain existing “collaborative” behavior and provide prescriptions for leveraging collaboration to achieve differential supply chain performance. This holistic, integrative model delineates the path to collaborative success by exploring the connections among motivations, goals, mechanisms, resistors, and learning loops.
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Stanley E. Fawcett, Amydee M. Fawcett, August Michael Knemeyer, Sebastian Brockhaus and G. Scott Webb
Despite over 30 years of focus on supply chain collaboration, companies continue to struggle to achieve collaborative advantage. To better understand why some companies are able…
Abstract
Purpose
Despite over 30 years of focus on supply chain collaboration, companies continue to struggle to achieve collaborative advantage. To better understand why some companies are able to collaborate for competitive advantage and others can't, the authors explore how managerial commitment enables collaborative capabilities.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors employed a longitudinal inductive study, interviewing companies with reputations for intense supply chain collaboration at four different times over 20 years.
Findings
The authors identified managerial commitment as a super-ordinate enabler. They describe the dynamics of commitment development and explore three types of commitment: instrumental, normative and transformative. The authors document key antecedents and outcomes of each type of commitment.
Research limitations/implications
Theory regarding the antecedents to commitment to collaborative capability is underdeveloped. The authors elaborate these antecedents and the dynamics that enable or undermine the commitment necessary to build effective collaboration capabilities.
Practical implications
The authors provide insight (i.e. a practical and actionable roadmap) into the process companies use to cultivate commitment to collaboration and value co-creation.
Originality/value
Collaboration is critical to value co-creation, including effective supply chain risk mitigation and lasting sustainability efforts. The authors elaborate a theory of commitment dynamics that explains why most companies never go beyond basic levels of collaboration. At the same time, the authors provide a roadmap for deep, transformative collaboration.
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David Swanson, Yao Henry Jin, Amydee M. Fawcett and Stanley E. Fawcett
Over the past two decades, technological advances have spurred companies to design collaborative processes. Yet most such efforts are difficult to implement, with only a few…
Abstract
Purpose
Over the past two decades, technological advances have spurred companies to design collaborative processes. Yet most such efforts are difficult to implement, with only a few resulting in sustained competitive advantages. The purpose of this paper is to leverage the tenets of socio-technical theory to examine how collaborative process design may lead to improved collaborative performance.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors employ a multi-method – survey and interview – approach to examine the roles of technical and social initiatives in mitigating resistors to collaborative performance, and identify both the short-term appeals of technology investments and long-term social resistors that inhibit additional performance gains.
Findings
While initial investments in information technology yield alluring gains, performance benefits diminish as social resistors create limiting conditions. The dynamic capability for firms to recognize and respond to the dual and integrative nature of technical and social systems is required for firms to overcome powerful limiting conditions and change resistors through collaborative process design in order to cultivate new value-creation processes.
Originality/value
This study is the first in the discipline to utilize socio-technical systems theory to examine an issue in supply chain process redesign. The multi-method approach elaborates the difficulty inherent in cultivating new value-creation processes. The results collectively illustrate a need for recognizing the influence of both the reinforcing and limiting processes. Whereas, technical initiatives enable new capabilities, social initiatives remove fear, create vision, and inculcate skills, enabling technology adoption and process change.
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Clinton Amos, Sebastian Brockhaus, Amydee M. Fawcett, Stanley E. Fawcett and A. Michael Knemeyer
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate how service perceptions influence customer views of the authenticity of corporate sustainability claims. The goal of this paper is to help…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate how service perceptions influence customer views of the authenticity of corporate sustainability claims. The goal of this paper is to help supply chain decision-makers better understand boundary conditions in order to design more enduring and impactful sustainability programs.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors employ behavioral experiments, subjecting two theoretically derived hypotheses to verification across five diverse industries and two distinct sustainability vignettes.
Findings
Customer service perceptions emerge as a significant boundary condition to the perceived authenticity of sustainability efforts. Subjects attributed significantly higher authenticity toward sustainability efforts in above average vs below average service quality contexts. Further, respondents attributed deceptive motivations to sustainability efforts at companies with below average service.
Research limitations/implications
The authors confirm the underlying tenet of social judgment theory, which suggests that a priori perceptions create a zone of acceptability or rejection. Ultimately, investing in sustainability can lead to counterproductive cynicism.
Practical implications
The authors infer that customers’ willingness to give companies credit for sustainability initiatives extends beyond service issues to any practice that influences a priori perceptions. Supply chain managers must rethink their role in designing both customer service and sustainability systems to achieve positive returns from sustainability investments.
Originality/value
The authors challenge the assumption that customers universally positively view sustainability efforts. If customers hold a priori negative service perceptions, otherwise well-designed sustainability programs may invoke cynical reactions. Thus, sustainability programs may not inoculate firm reputations from adverse incidents. Given they touch both service and sustainability systems, supply chain managers are positioned to holistically influence their design for competitive advantage.
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Richard L. Gruner, Damien Power and Paul K. Bergey
This chapter explores the role that social media can play to support entrepreneurs in managing complex interfirm communities. As companies increasingly operate in highly connected…
Abstract
Purpose
This chapter explores the role that social media can play to support entrepreneurs in managing complex interfirm communities. As companies increasingly operate in highly connected environments, it is important to move beyond corporate networks, and understand and build corporate social communities (CSCs) that underpin organizations.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted 14 case studies at member firms of GS1 Australia — a not-for-profit association dedicated to the development, implementation, and promotion of information technology standards to improve supply chain management.
Finding
The gathered data illustrate a number of common challenges managers typically encounter in their supply chain operations. In response to these challenges, the authors propose distinct ways in which CSCs can leverage and transform interfirm relationships and support operational goals.
Research limitations/implications
The empirical investigations were limited to the supply chain context, and Australian companies. The benefits pertinent to CSCs were only explored conceptually. Further studies should address these limitations.
Practical implications
We provide empirical evidence supported by theoretical insights that CSCs are powerful tools that community designers and managers can leverage to transform business-to-business (B2B) relationships.
Originality/value
The originality of this study resides in advancing theoretical understanding and providing practical managerial guidance on how to best deploy CSCs in a supply chain context. Additionally, we consider the role CSCs play in different stages of B2B relationships, and the reasons why most managers are hesitant to adopt CSCs.
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Markus Gerschberger, Stanley E. Fawcet, Amydee M. Fawcett and Melanie Gerschberger
Complexity has been called the 21st-century supply chain (SC) challenge. Most SC managers view it as a necessary evil, ever-present, costly and tough to manage, and few prioritize…
Abstract
Purpose
Complexity has been called the 21st-century supply chain (SC) challenge. Most SC managers view it as a necessary evil, ever-present, costly and tough to manage, and few prioritize it. Still, anecdotes suggest some leverage it to drive operational excellence. This study aims to explore how they do it, delving into the development of a complexity management capability, under what circumstances it emerges and its effect on competitiveness.
Design/methodology/approach
To better understand why, and how, companies develop (or not) a distinctive SC complexity management capability, this study employed an inductive study of 10 leading European companies, each operating a complex SC.
Findings
Although SC complexity raises costs, increases disruptions and makes decision-making difficult, few companies have made complexity management a priority. Among those, most focus on reducing or absorbing complexity to improve operational excellence. A few invest to develop a distinctive SC complexity management capability. They manage complexity for market success. The interaction among competitive pressures, managerial attitudes and investments delineate a dynamic capability development process.
Research limitations/implications
Despite extensive research on complexity drivers, the tools used to manage SC complexity and the impact of SC complexity on performance, the interplay among factors that promote, or hinder, the development of an SC complexity capability continues to be poorly understood. By mapping the complexity capability development process, this study explicates a more nuanced approach to managing SC complexity that can yield a competitive edge.
Practical implications
SC complexity prevails because the dynamic, iterative complexity capability development process is overlooked. Managers can use the complexity capability roadmap to assess the cost/benefits of pursuing a distinctive complexity management capability more accurately.
Originality/value
This study demystifies the development of a complexity management capability, showing how some companies develop the capability to distinguish between value-added and value-dissipating complexity and thus become empowered to leverage SC complexity for competitive advantage.
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Marek Michalski, Jose Luis Montes and Ram Narasimhan
The purpose of this paper is to examine the non-linear aspects of the asymmetry-performance relationship under varying conditions of trust and innovation. Its novel approach is…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the non-linear aspects of the asymmetry-performance relationship under varying conditions of trust and innovation. Its novel approach is useful for addressing the strategic elements of supply chain management (SCM) relationships based on trust and innovation decisions.
Design/methodology/approach
Results are based on a study of 90 managers from small- and medium-sized firms in Spain. Instead of a classical linear relationship analysis, the authors performed a non-linear analysis, using polynomial modeling and Warp 3 partial least squares method, which provides a more nuanced view of the data and constitutes an original approach to empirical research in SCM.
Findings
This study adds a new viewpoint on SC relationships by suggesting that not all trust and innovation development leads directly to performance improvement. The principal finding is, in varying trust and innovation contexts, that the influences of asymmetry on performance have uneven characteristics and follow non-linear paths.
Research limitations/implications
This study focuses on only one particular institutional environment in one country. The data are also cross-sectional, which makes it difficult to empirically test causality.
Practical implications
The findings provide rational insights to managers on when it is appropriate to reduce (or not) asymmetric relationships with partners.
Originality/value
Trust and innovation are important and ones of the key requirements of supply chain relationships in any environment, this study argues that the interactions of key SCM elements that drive members to better performance are more complex and non-linear.