The Effects of Supplier Involvement and Knowledge Protection on Product Innovation in Customer–Supplier Relationships: A Study of Global Automotive Suppliers in China

Globalization drives firms to develop product innovation through their global supply chains. While innovations generated by supply channel members, as opposed to individual partners, are playing an increasingly important role in the success of all supply chain partners, there has been limited research on how supply chain relationships cultivate the process of such innovation generation, particularly in emerging markets. Correspondingly, this study explores how multinational suppliers can develop adaptive product innovation to create competitive advantage in emerging markets. Drawing on the knowledge‐based view and transaction cost economics, this study investigates the influence of supplier involvement and other factors on supplier innovation and performance. The results of a survey of 170 multinational automobile suppliers in China provide support for most of the hypotheses. Specifically, supplier involvement in codesign has an inverted U‐shaped relationship with product innovation. Furthermore, knowledge protection, trust, and technological uncertainty are all found to drive greater product innovation. In addition, the institutional environment moderates the effect of product innovation on performance. Overall, this study enhances our understanding of how MNEs can acquire local knowledge and develop adaptive products in emerging markets.     

Global integration and innovation: Multicountry knowledge generation within MNCs

This paper examines both conditions that can enable collaborative and combinative knowledge generation within multinational corporations (MNCs) and benefits that firms can achieve from these types of innovations. I posit that more basic relationships that have been established through manufacturing integration can enable multicountry collaborative innovations and that these innovations will bring together diverse knowledge that is likely to spawn further innovation within firms. Empirical analysis of a panel that includes comprehensive and confidential data on the worldwide operations of U.S. MNCs and their worldwide patents reveals robust support for these arguments. Overall, this paper broadens extant research on knowledge generation within MNCs by exploring both the antecedents and benefits of multicountry collaborative innovations. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Intermediaries in power-laden retail supply chains: An opportunity to improve buyer–supplier relationships and collaboration

Despite the benefits of buyer and seller collaboration and hence relationships extolled in extensive studies, issues of relationship power inhibit implementation of collaborative and relational approaches, particularly in some parts of the retail sector. Further, most research regards buyer–supplier collaboration and relations as dyadic or focal relationships, or perhaps in a network context, and typically investigates buyer–supplier collaboration and relations from a power-dependency perspective; and within vertical supply integration. Little attention has been given to the potential role of supply chain intermediaries, such as logistics service providers, in objectively and independently determining and managing the course of buyer–supplier collaboration and relations in a business-to-business context. This article appraises the potential role of buyer–supplier collaboration and relations and their relevant opportunities in the power-laden, contentious environment of the retail grocery sector. With an interdisciplinary approach, drawn from supply management, relationship management, and logistics and supply chain management, this article emphasises the importance of horizontal collaboration using fourth-party logistics structures as horizontal intermediary conduits, who act independently between retailers and suppliers to facilitate collaborative and relational activity.     

The value of relational learning in global buyer‐supplier exchanges: a dyadic perspective and test of the pie‐sharing premise

Research in collaborative interorganizational relationships has typically focused on the value of these relationships to a specific supply chain partner. Furthermore, the phenomenon has rarely been explored in a global setting. Using primary data from 126 cross‐border dyads, we investigate the influence of relational learning on the relationship performance of both the buyer and the supplier, testing the contention that both members (1) benefit from relational learning efforts and (2) enjoy equal pieces of the benefits pie. We find that three specific types of relational learning (information sharing, joint sensemaking, and knowledge integration) influence relationship performance, and that these dimensions of relational learning affect supply chain partners in different ways. We draw conclusions regarding the relative value of relational learning for both buyers and suppliers. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Inter-organizational relationships and strategy quality in green supply chains — Moderated by opportunistic behavior and dysfunctional conflict

This paper presents a new research model to examine the factors influencing the quality of strategies developed and implementation in inter-organizational relationships in a green supply chain. In this study, we examine how attitude toward relationship orientation affects inter-organizational strategy quality, and how this association is affected by the opportunistic behavior and dysfunctional conflict. Relationship orientation, measured by relational benefits, relational proclivity, and connectedness, refers to the desire to develop and maintain relationships with green supply chain partners. Data are collected from 451 manufacturing firms that are among the top 1000 Taiwanese manufacturing firms of 2010 listed by Business Weekly. Relationship orientation, or the desire to develop and maintain relationships with collaborative partners, was found to be positively associated with the strategy quality. Our results show that opportunistic behavior and dysfunctional conflict decrease the willingness and damage efforts to establish relationships to enhance the strategy quality for the green supply chain.     

When to Use Loose or Tight Alliance Networks for Innovation? Empirical Evidence

This study examines the impact of different degrees of organizational coupling among the members of innovation alliance project networks on the commercial performance of collaborative innovations. Specifically, we study how type of innovation (modular vs. architectural innovation) moderates this relationship. Using data from 664 product innovation networks from five different industries in the United States, we find that the degree of organizational coupling among innovation network members significantly affects the commercial performance of collaborative innovations and that the type of innovation has a significant moderating effect. More specifically, the impact on commercial innovation performance of organizational coupling is positive for modular innovations and negative for architectural innovations.     

Integrating the supply chain: industrial relations implications in US grocery distribution

Recent technological innovations have emphasised increasing integration between enterprises across the supply chain. This article reviews these developments within US grocery distribution and highlights the potential for supply chain integration to increase union bargaining power, as well as employer strategies aimed at reducing the threat of industrial vulnerability resulting from cross-enterprise interdependence.     

Critical review of supply chain innovation research (1999–2016)

This paper aims to systematically review the supply chain innovation literature over the last 18 years. It examines the development and current state of supply chain innovation research in management and identifies research gaps. A literature review is conducted to identify and analyze publications in peer-reviewed academic journals that include contributions from different strands of management research. This paper analyzes the theoretical contributions of the supply chain innovation literature using Gregor's (2006) framework of theory classification. It also evaluates the levels of analysis of the literature using the structural view model proposed by Skinner, Han, and Chang (2006). This research identified and analyzed various topics related to the supply chain innovation construct and showed that supply chain innovations can be studied at multiple analytical levels. It also revealed that the field has largely relied on manufacturing firm-based samples and U.S. samples, limiting the generalizability of the findings. The identification and analysis of relevant articles highlighted the need to conceptualize the supply chain innovation construct and develop measurement scales to operationalize it. This literature review is the first to focus on supply chain innovations, summarizing the development of the last 18 years and providing fruitful opportunities for future research. The results presented can be applied to the decision-making process of managers regarding supply chain innovations.     

Coping with time pressure in interfirm supply chain relationships

In today's evolving marketplace, firms must increasingly focus on developing responsiveness to meet customer demands. In the pursuit of such rapid response to customer needs, firms often demand that other members of their supply chain reduce cycle times of key business activities. Although tight deadlines are commonly imposed by customers, little is known about how supplier firms respond to such time pressure. Therefore, the purpose of this research was to learn more about the phenomenon of time pressure in interfirm relationships and determine how firms cope with this common situational constraint. Grounded theory methodology was utilized to discover a time pressure coping strategies taxonomy that is driven by evaluative criteria such as the frequency, magnitude, and attribution of time pressure. The model that emerged from this research provides information about the potential costs of leveraging interfirm relationships in order to achieve supply chain responsiveness.     

Supply-chain pricing—A new perspective on pricing in industrial markets

There is growing recognition that collaborative business relationships within the supply chain provide interesting opportunities for mutually increased benefit. However, while efforts on improving collaboration within the supply chain are indeed already widespread in some aspects of goods and services—for example, many manufacturers integrate their logistics function with those of their suppliers—such efforts are lacking when it comes to pricing. In contrast to the predominant position of pricing in most industries, the following article will investigate the opportunities for suppliers and customers to collaborate on pricing in order to establish mutually beneficial relationships. The article will demonstrate that this goal can only be attained when price is no longer regarded as an ex ante distributive parameter between market partners, but as a joint tool for outcome optimization within the overall supply chain process. We will clarify this new perspective with a calculation example and point out managerial implications for practical implementation.     

Examining sustainability performance in the supply chain: The case of the Greek dairy sector

This paper evaluates the sustainability performance of the Greek dairy chain and the performance of its individual members by using key indicators in relation to efficiency, flexibility, responsiveness and product quality. We assessed the importance of these indicators based on the relevant perceptions of key members of this chain. A structured questionnaire was developed where nineteen sustainability-related issues were examined. Two hundred and fifty three members of the Greek dairy supply chain responded including breeders, manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers and catering companies. Our findings illustrate the immediate need for improvement in many key sustainability performance indicators. They also show the critical role of large dairy manufacturers who are the “sustainability performance champions” in this chain and are the driving force for the implementation of many sustainability initiatives.     

An institutional analysis of supply chain innovations in global marketing channels

The adoption of sophisticated supply chain innovations by trading partners in global channels of distribution is often limited by the institutional context of the international transaction. In particular, the regulatory, normative, and cultural-cognitive elements of institutional environments around the world can enhance or inhibit the ability of trading partners to craft the contractual, ownership, and social elements of institutional arrangements required by an innovation. Because supply chain innovations often require costly, new investments and activity sets, firms may be reluctant to participate in an innovation unless a new institutional arrangement can be crafted to provide adequate safeguards and guarantees. A conceptual model is developed to explain the role of institutions in the successful deployment of supply chain innovations in global marketing channels.     

Ameliorating food loss and waste in the supply chain through multi-stakeholder collaboration

We elaborate mechanisms through which multi-stakeholder collaboration can ameliorate food loss and waste (FLW) from the end-to-end supply chain. In this context, we integrate the discourse on collaborative relationships in supply chains with stakeholder theory (roles and orientations) and use a multi-method approach combining systematic literature review (SLR) and embedded case studies based on secondary data. We develop a conceptual framework that illustrates collective stakeholder orientation emerging from aligned vertical and horizontal stakeholder orientation across the supply chain towards reducing FLW. We explain how achieving such alignment requires these stakeholders to navigate various collaboration conditions (structural and sporadic) that otherwise spur individualism, culminating in FLW mitigation efforts across food supply chains. We develop propositions, motivate future research, and offer practical implications.     

The impact of supplier development on buyer competitive advantage: A path analytic model

As manufacturing firms increasingly realize that supplier performance is crucial to their establishing and maintaining competitive advantage, supplier development has been a subject of considerable research in supply chain management. We develop and test a path model to explore how supplier development practices affect buyer-supplier performance from the buying firm's perspective in the context of Hong Kong's electronics industry. The results show that top management, supplier evaluation, and supplier strategic objectives are significant determinants of transaction-specific supplier development, and that buyers that have closer collaborative relationships with suppliers may strengthen their competitive advantage.     

An autonomous multi-agent approach to supply chain event management

Organizations have made a significant effort to implement software for planning and scheduling, but disruptive event management is still a problem to be solved. Since a disruptive event can affect the overall performance of the supply chain, SCEM (Supply Chain Event Management) systems presenting different automation levels such as monitoring, alarm and decision support have been proposed. However, the management of disruptive events, taking into account the distributed nature of the supply chain, the members' autonomy and the ability to exert corrective control actions, has been identified as a problem that requires further research. This work presents an agent-based approach for the SCEM problem, which can perform autonomous corrective control actions to minimize the effect of deviations in the plan that is currently being executed. These control actions consist of a distribution of the variation between supply chain members, using the plan's slack in a collaborative way. An innovative feature of this approach is its focus on resources, which are affected by disruptive events in a direct way. Based on this approach, a SCEM system is designed as a net of control points defined on resources connected through supply process orders. Two novel aspects are the distributed collaborative inter-organizational architecture of the SCEM system and a Double Contract Net Protocol. This protocol allows a set of resource:representing agents to interact through an agent, representing a supply process order as a mediator. An application to a case study of the Multi-Agent SCEM system implemented with JADE is provided.     

Effects of inter-organizational compatibility on supply chain capabilities: Exploring the mediating role of inter-organizational information systems (IOIS) integration

Growing globalization and environmental uncertainty have increased the challenges managers face in delivering services or products to the customer. Integration of information systems across partnering organizations has become the backbone of supply chain management, as amalgamation facilitates the sharing of information required to enhance organizational flexibility and responsiveness while minimizing risk and inventory costs. Using data from the Australian retailing sectors, this study investigates the mediating role of inter-organizational information system (IOIS) integration on the relationships between inter-organizational compatibility and supply chain capabilities. The results indicate that inter-organizational compatibility of technical, strategic, and cultural inter-organizational dimensions facilitate IOIS integration and supply chain capabilities. To maximize benefits for all chain members, IOIS integration needs to be embedded in the strategies and goals of partnering organizations. Business-to-business and industrial marketing managers need to be aware that IOIS integration processes require support of top managers of the partnering organizations and should be embedded in the organizations' strategic goals.     

供应链弹性契约下的信息共享激励

在供应链弹性契约的约束下,要让供应链合作的双方有实现信息共享的积极性,就必须让双方在信息共享的条件下获取的利益至少不低于在未实现信息共享下的所获得的利益,这样才能实现双方利益的帕累托改善,也才能激励下游企业积极向上游企业共享需求信息,这必然要依赖于供应链弹性契约的科学设计。文章通过确定一个弹性数量契约来分析供应链上的合作双方在信息共享与信息不共享的条件下对双方运作绩效的改进,并考虑了在信息显示成本较大的情况下,对供应链中合作的双方进行信息显示成本分担的供应链弹性契约设计,从而获取满意或最优的契约参数。     

Factors influencing strategic alliance outcomes in a manufacturing supply chain: Role of alliance motives,interdependence, asset specificity and relational capital

Integration of various theories is essential to completely understand and explain strategic alliances in a supply chain. The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework by integrating the features of transaction cost theory, resource-based theory, contingency theory, social exchange theory, and Kelley's personal relationship theory and test the framework through empirical research. The present study addresses the impact of strategic alliance motives, environment, asset specificity, perception of opportunistic behavior, interdependence between supply chain partners, and relational capital on strategic alliance outcomes. Besides, the study has also tested the role of relational capital as a central mediating construct. A sample of 2156 companies representing different industries in manufacturing in Malaysia was selected for the distribution of questionnaire. We tested the structural model using structural equation modeling (SEM). Based on the results, we conclude the following significant relationships: (1) strategic alliance motives and perception of opportunistic behavior on interdependence and relational capital, (2) interdependence on relational capital, (3) environment on strategic alliance motives, (4) relational capital on strategic alliance outcomes, and (4) the mediating role of relational capital. The current study adds significantly to the body of knowledge on strategic alliances and can help managers identify factors that influence the success of strategic alliances and provide a proper direction to develop robust and effective collaborative relationships between supply chain partners.     

The mediating role of key supplier relationship management practices on supply chain orientation—The organizational buying effectiveness link

The role of key supplier relationships and their link with purchasing performance are poorly recognized in current business-to-business marketing literature. Given the predominance of collaborative supply chain relationships, purchasing must be considered to be providing value, thereby implying its effective nature. This study introduces a conceptual model of the relationship between supply chain orientation (SCO) and key supplier relationship management (KSRM) with organizational buying effectiveness (OBE) as a measure of effective purchasing behavior. To extend the model's nomological network, we link OBE with firm profitability. We find that SCO and KSRM have a strong positive influence on OBE. Furthermore, KSRM is demonstrated to be a significant mediator in the SCO–OBE relationship. Finally, OBE significantly and positively influences firm profitability, suggesting that it adequately addresses the aspects of effective purchasing behavior. We also discuss theoretical and managerial implications as well as future research directions in light of the limitations of this study.     

The trade-off between trust and distrust in supply chain collaboration

Trust and distrust can play an important role in a healthy supply chain collaborative relationship, and both carry potential shortcomings. Little attention has been paid to understanding and explaining the development process of trust and distrust in supply chain collaborations, especially in an international context. Using the Transaction Cost Economics theory, this study begins by discussing expressions of trust and distrust within the context of a supply chain collaboration dyad. Then, we explore how trust and distrust interact at a network level. Using a novel, longitudinal, multi-case-study approach, this paper provides new empirical evidence of the complementary roles of trust and distrust in supply chain collaboration, exploring how these concepts work together across different stages of the relationship and in different contexts. This study distinguishes between ‘competence trust’ and ‘integrity trust’ concerning collaboration contracts which typically create distrust. Finally, this paper offers unique insights into the influence of culture on the interpretation and performance of trust and distrust in international supply chain collaboration, grounded in the context of the Chinese automotive industry.