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Human resource management issues in supply chain management research: A systematic literature review from 1998 to 2014
Abstract
Purpose – With today's increasing globalization and associated growing demand for talented supply chain managers, human resource management (HRM) in supply chain management (SCM) has emerged as a top priority for firms. However, a thorough analysis of HRM issues in SCM research has not been made so far. To address this gap this paper provides a systematic and comprehensive literature review. The purpose of this paper is threefold: to analyze HRM/SCM issues published in leading SCM journals, to identify different HRM research streams in the SCM literature and to propose areas for future research.
Design/methodology/approach – This paper employs a systematic literature review methodology. The selected journal articles are categorized on the basis of an analytical framework that contains seven HRM/SCM research streams derived from the extant literature.
Findings – The systematic literature review indicates a growing focus on HRM/SCM issues in recent years, a trend that is predicted to continue. Additionally, the study findings show that research has primarily emphasized certain popular categories while other crucial ones lack analysis.
Originality/value – This paper presents a structured overview of 109 peer-reviewed articles published in leading academic journals from 1998 to 2014. The review structures extant HRM/SCM literature and highlights its critical importance in SCM research. Topical gaps in the literature are identified as areas for future research.
... Consequently, identifying the skills and knowledge required by a position inevitably plays an important role in achieving organization success. Becoming widespread in many organizations since the end of the 1990s [10], [11], Competence-Based Management (CBM) integrates human capital with business strategies, emphasizes the identification of competencies needed to carry out any job, and stresses the alignment of human resources and corporate strategies, so as to improve work performance and foster competitive advantages [12], [13]. In addition, CBM identifies a set of core competencies that apply to all employees and job-specific (functional) competencies mandate by individual occupations [10]. ...
... Methods Skills Analyses [14] Interview educators from U.S., U.K., and Netherland schools; survey graduate students from 10 universities in Europe, Asia, and USA; interview corporates on the knowledge and skills required by logistics and supply chain managers 13 Ranking Academics vs. students vs. corporate [16] Survey U.S. recruiting firms on skill requirements for senior-and entry-level logistics mangers 80 ...
... Means and ranking logistics managers [20] Content analysis of employment pages in an Australian newspaper on employers' desired attributes for log. managers 13 Ranking and categorization [21] Survey U.S. practitioners on skill requirements for logisticians 83 Means and ranking [22] Survey U.S. headhunters on knowledge prerequisites for senior-level logistics executives 83 Means and ranking [23] Comparisons of surveys of U.S. headhunters and practitioners on skill requirements for senior-level logisticians 83 ...
As the human dimension becomes increasingly critical to overall success of supply chain management (SCM), practitioners, researchers, and educators face the daunting task of identifying requisite competencies for SCM professionals. By using a large, frequently-updated, publicly-available archive – O*NET, this research contrasts SCM and other business professionals to highlight the unique competencies that define the SCM profession. We find that SCM professionals need greater functional knowledge about operations (e.g., transportation, production), higher general knowledge in geography and foreign language, extensive interpersonal skills, and a person-oriented management style. Furthermore, while limited differences exist between purchasing and logistic managers in the SCM profession, they exhibit certain competencies that distinguish them from operation managers. Such results inform efforts at curriculum design, recruitment, career development, and corporate training by suggesting areas where it may well be advantageous to customize efforts toward ensuring that requisite competencies are addressed.
... Consequently, identifying the skills and knowledge required by a position inevitably plays an important role in achieving organization success. Becoming widespread in many organizations since the end of the 1990s [10], [11], Competence-Based Management (CBM) integrates human capital with business strategies, emphasizes the identification of competencies needed to carry out any job, and stresses the alignment of human resources and corporate strategies, so as to improve work performance and foster competitive advantages [12], [13]. In addition, CBM identifies a set of core competencies that apply to all employees and job-specific (functional) competencies mandate by individual occupations [10]. ...
... Methods Skills Analyses [14] Interview educators from U.S., U.K., and Netherland schools; survey graduate students from 10 universities in Europe, Asia, and USA; interview corporates on the knowledge and skills required by logistics and supply chain managers 13 Ranking Academics vs. students vs. corporate [16] Survey U.S. recruiting firms on skill requirements for senior-and entry-level logistics mangers 80 ...
... Means and ranking logistics managers [20] Content analysis of employment pages in an Australian newspaper on employers' desired attributes for log. managers 13 Ranking and categorization [21] Survey U.S. practitioners on skill requirements for logisticians 83 Means and ranking [22] Survey U.S. headhunters on knowledge prerequisites for senior-level logistics executives 83 Means and ranking [23] Comparisons of surveys of U.S. headhunters and practitioners on skill requirements for senior-level logisticians 83 ...
As the human dimension becomes increasingly critical to overall success of supply chain management (SCM), practitioners, researchers, and educators face the daunting task of identifying requisite competencies for SCM professionals. By using a large, frequently-updated, publicly-available archive – O*NET, this research contrasts SCM and other business professionals to highlight the unique competencies that define the SCM profession. We find that SCM professionals need greater functional knowledge about operations (e.g., transportation, production), higher general knowledge in geography and foreign language, extensive interpersonal skills, and a person-oriented management style. Furthermore, while limited differences exist between purchasing and logistic managers in the SCM profession, they exhibit certain competencies that distinguish them from operation managers. Such results inform efforts at curriculum design, recruitment, career development, and corporate training by suggesting areas where it may well be advantageous to customize efforts toward ensuring that requisite competencies are addressed.
... Similarly, as both workforce size and complexity has expanded, a greater focus on metrics and analytics emerged, as managers and strategic decision-makers look to capitalize and plan on how best to enhance their human capital. Staff well-being, agility, and expertise alongside with the push toward Industry 4.0 set the scene for an interesting future of HRM (Srinivasan et al., 2020;Hohenstein et al., 2014). This shift toward HRM away from personnel management provided more insightful knowledge of HR, enriching the value of the workforce and the philosophies of its management (see Table 1). ...
... The Value of HRM in Supply Chain Management HRM in supply chain management can provide value as an intangible measure that can contribute to competitive advantage a network of organizations. Hohenstein et al. (2014) and Sweeney (2013) cite the importance of human capital across the interorganizational logistical concerns and how communication and the relationships between people help facilitate both efficiency and effectiveness. Supply chain network links are bolstered by the strength of these relationships, social engagement, and employee belonging all contributing to a human-centric environment (Myers et al., 2004;Nahapiet & Ghoshal, 1998). ...
... The nature of global supply chain firms means that this competition is not only enhanced but retention of their best and brightest talent is also of great concern. Ultimately, the aim of any recruiter is to identify the largest pool of appropriately qualified and experienced employees that possess all skills, knowledge, and acumen required to perform the role well (Hohenstein et al., 2014). ...
Human resources (HR) are a fundamental asset and vital resource in achieving organizational goals and objectives. Appropriate understanding of the workforce and their management and strategic decision-making to train and enhance them are important considerations for supply chain firms. Through examining international human resource management (IHRM), the chapter discusses the international nature of supply chain firms and how this has not only brought increased competition for talent but added complexities and cultural dimensions that need to be appropriately managed. Strategic human resource management (SHRM), workforce analytics, and various environmental forces – customer demands, complexity in global supply chains, and uncertainty from global pandemics – and their impact on HRM are also discussed. Digital transformation of the supply chain has also meant that HRM practices may be disrupted. The chapter covers these various issues and the challenges facing supply chain firms along with identifying key trends in HR practice. It also highlights key managerial concerns for the future of HR and how these may affect supply chain firms.
... Therefore, HRM practices increase competitive advantage by leveraging external customers and supply resources (Koulikoff-Souviron and Harrison, 2010). Furthermore, HRM practices have emerged as one of the important strategic priorities in SC and firms' efforts to gain sustainable growth by leveraging human capital (Stank et al., 2011;Hohenstein et al., 2014;Huo et al., 2015). The professionals' capabilities in T&D and change management (CM) help SC managers disseminate a broader understanding of SCM concepts within and between firms (Ellinger and Ellinger, 2014). ...
... The SCM literature often focuses on managing supplier and customer relationships, ignoring the essentials of HRM activities such as recruitment, succession planning and training in logistics and SCM (Sweeney, 2013;Hohenstein et al., 2014). Thus, HRM practices have not adequately advanced to understand the needs of SCM, resulting in a severe shortage of skilled resources in logistics and SCM (LCLogistics India, 2011). ...
... Different practices of HRM at the intra-/inter-level of organizations have brought much attention to SCM since the logistics process within a SC is human-centric (Hohenstein et al., 2014). In addition, most SCM relationships occur at the intra-or inter(joint)-organizational level (Koulikoff-Souviron and Harrison, 2010). ...
Purpose-Human resource management (HRM) is struggling to cope with the increasingly volatile demand for skilled resources in the logistics and supply chain sector. Thus, this study discovers the possible integration of HRM and supply chain management (SCM) practices for improved supply chain performance. The purpose of this study is to explore the effect of intra HRM-SCM and joint HRM-SCM decisions on the performance of the supply chain. Design/methodology/approach-An intra HRM-SCM and joint HRM-SCM model is developed following an empirical study. Survey data collected from 109 supply chain managers from Indian logistics firms are used to test the developed hypotheses. Structural equation modeling is used to analyze and validate the model. Findings-The results suggest that supply chain performance is significantly influenced by joint HRM-SCM, compared to intra HRM-SCM practices, especially under volatile demand environments. Training and development, recruitment and selection, and performance management affect joint HRM-SCM significantly compared to the other three factors identified. Moreover, HRM and SCM show strong correlation and mutual support in identifying and fulfilling the demand of the logistics and supply chain sector. Practical implications-With a growing trend toward globalization and digitalization, a joint HRM-SCM model will help businesses make robust and informed decisions for improved supply chain performance. Originality/value-An empirical relationship between joint HRM-SCM, intra HRM-SCM, supply chain inhibitors and supply chain performance is established in this study. Although some part of this relationship may already exist, the study provides robust evidence to support this complex, collaborative relationship.
... Training and development have a substantial effect on increasing overall organizational performance (Khan et al., 2011). Also, they have a huge effect on realizing the SC successfully, where Hohenstein et al. (2014) highlight that managerial training shows a critical role in SC success. Therefore, employee training and development have been recognized as the most fundamental elements of strategic HRM (Dhamodharan et al., 2010). ...
... The role of HRM in SCM has become a top priority for organizations, since they have started to cope with expanding globalization and a corresponding rising demand for capable SC managers (Hohenstein et al., 2014). Sweeney (2013) specifies that the supply chain is a 'human chain' and SCM has to do with those managing the supply chains. ...
... A visualization of the relationships between variables is shown in Figure 1, i.e. the research framework, which shows the structure of research hypotheses that, as an image, present the path of the proposed relationship between variables. It is based on the mediation of the direct model, explained by Hayes (2018). ...
Doing business in an increasingly turbulent marketplace requires integrating strategically sound choices (to increase the ability to survive, adapt and prosper despite dynamic changes) that go beyond organizational boundaries. A perusal of the literature shows that a broad frame of references for organizational success is not adequately developed; it suffers from the absence of an integrative strategic model. Therefore, by taking an interdisciplinary approach with a relational perspective, this study takes an integrative and fresh approach toward illuminating the role of SCM practices in realizing the potential influence of HRM practices on organizational performance. Using the data obtained from 157 manufacturing organizations, this study tests, examines and develops the mediating role of SCM practices. The findings indicate a positive linkage between HRM practices, SCM practices and organizational performance. In addition, the findings also show that SCM practices mediate the relationship between HRM practices and organizational performance.
... Furthermore, HRM practices have emerged as one of the important strategic priorities in supply chain and firms' efforts to gain sustainable growth by leveraging human capital (Stank et al., 2011;Hohenstein et al., 2014;Huo et al., 2015). The professionals' capabilities in training and development and change management help supply chain managers disseminate a broader understanding of SCM concepts within and between firms (Ellinger and Ellinger, 2014). ...
... The SCM literature often focuses on managing supplier and customer relationships, ignoring the essentials of HRM activities such as recruitment, succession planning and training in Logistics and SCM (Sweeney, 2013;Hohenstein et al., 2014). Thus, human resource management practices have not adequately advanced to understand the needs of SCM, resulting in a severe shortage of skilled resources in logistics and SCM (LCLogistics, India, 2011). ...
... Different practices of HRM at the intra-/inter-level of organizations have brought much attention to SCM since the logistics process within a supply chain is human-centric (Hohenstein et al., 2014). In addition, most SCM relationships occur at the intra-or inter(joint)organizational level (Koulikoff-Souviron and Harrison, 2010). ...
Purpose
Human resource management (HRM) is struggling to cope with the increasingly volatile demand for skilled resources in the logistics and supply chain sector. Thus, this study discovers the possible integration of HRM and supply chain management (SCM) practices for improved supply chain performance. The purpose of this study is to explore the effect of intra HRM–SCM and joint HRM–SCM decisions on the performance of the supply chain.
Design/methodology/approach
An intra HRM–SCM and joint HRM–SCM model is developed following an empirical study. Survey data collected from 109 supply chain managers from Indian logistics firms are used to test the developed hypotheses. Structural equation modeling is used to analyze and validate the model.
Findings
The results suggest that supply chain performance is significantly influenced by joint HRM–SCM, compared to intra HRM–SCM practices, especially under volatile demand environments. Training and development, recruitment and selection, and performance management affect joint HRM–SCM significantly compared to the other three factors identified. Moreover, HRM and SCM show strong correlation and mutual support in identifying and fulfilling the demand of the logistics and supply chain sector.
Practical implications
With a growing trend toward globalization and digitalization, a joint HRM–SCM model will help businesses make robust and informed decisions for improved supply chain performance.
Originality/value
An empirical relationship between joint HRM–SCM, intra HRM–SCM, supply chain inhibitors and supply chain performance is established in this study. Although some part of this relationship may already exist, the study provides robust evidence to support this complex, collaborative relationship.
... Competence in SCM requires broad-ranging and high-level skills (Sweeney, 2013;Shub and Stonebraker, 2009), and so it is not surprising that a considerable amount of SC professionals' competence development occurs while working (Mangan and Christopher, 2005;Gammelgaard and Larson, 2001). Conversely, studies have found that formal competence development often fails to develop the desired professional skill sets and competences in SCM (Fl€ othmann et al., 2018;Hohenstein et al., 2014). Although there is plenty of literature on workplace learning, much of it applies to generic learning in generic workplaces (Fenwick, 2006) and not specifically to how particular professionals learn at work. ...
... Second, we tidy up the territory of workplace learning literature by gathering learning mechanisms into a theoretical framework, thus providing a theoretical reference point for this and future studies. Third, we highlight the role of learning in the SC profession, thereby adding to the human aspects of SCM literature as called for by Hohenstein et al. (2014) and Wieland et al. (2016). The findings provide detailed insights into how the identified learning mechanisms operate in practice for SC professionals, and how the relative contribution of each mechanism changes throughout one's career. ...
... The SC profession is thus a learning profession. This understanding is important because it helps to explain why people in SCM offer a unique source of sustainable competitive advantage (Hohenstein et al., 2014). ...
Purpose
Supply chain (SC) professionals and their competence play a key role in creating value and competitive advantage for companies. A considerable amount of this competence is developed at work, but little is known about how this takes place. Drawing on constructivist learning theory, the authors investigate how SC professionals develop their competence at work.
Design/methodology/approach
The study takes off from a theoretical framework of workplace learning mechanisms, followed by a series of in-depth interviews with an expertise panel of profoundly competent and experienced SC professionals.
Findings
The results provide detailed insights into the learning process of SC professionals. The key findings show that SC professionals use a wide range of learning mechanisms throughout their careers, and that the contribution and complexity of these mechanisms differ and change dynamically with seniority. The findings also show that learning mechanisms should not be viewed as isolated phenomena, but closely related to every-day SCM work as well as learning attitude.
Research limitations/implications
By conceptualizing learning as a process, and congregating the fragmented literature into a framework of workplace learning mechanisms, this research provides a theoretical reference point for future studies. The empirical findings bring a new level of detailed knowledge on how SC professionals learn at work.
Practical implications
The results can assist SC professionals, HR managers and academic program leaders in their quest to develop competence in the field of SCM.
Originality/value
This paper makes a unique contribution to the human aspects of SCM literature by presenting the first study that investigates in depth the crucial but complex process of how workplace learning takes place for SC professionals in practice.
... From the literature, it is noticed that there are two reasons for the lack of research: first, scholars have only looked at theoretical findings, indicating that GHRM strategies are a major internal force of green supply chain management (GSCM) practices (Aragón-Correa et al. 2013;Cantor et al. 2012;Dubey et al. 2017), though external pressures on enterprises exist (Wolf 2014). Second, data collected on supply chain management (SCM) and human resource management (HRM) were based mainly on their relationship but rarely touched on the concept of "green" (Chiappetta Gómez-Cedeño et al. 2015;Hohenstein et al. 2014;Huo et al. 2015;Longoni et al. 2018;Nejati et al. 2017;Zaid et al. 2018). As per the literature, there is a greater need for further research to explore the trade-offs of GSCM and GHRM under the triple bottom line's economic, environmental, and social performance. ...
... Furthermore, skilled employees in supply chain management can improve the production chain's performance, resulting in a long-term competitive edge (Ellinger and Ellinger 2014). The interplay of various mechanisms and resources may also bring competitive advantages (Hohenstein et al. 2014). Literature asserts that GSCM practices' successful application mainly relies on green human resource management practices (Chiappetta ). ...
Using the resource-based view theory, this paper explores the association between green human resource management and green supply chain management. Moreover, the collective impact of green human resource management and green supply chain management on the triple bottom lines (social, environmental, and economic performance) was tested. The current study employed a random sampling technique in evaluating data from 212 firms from the chemical, pharmaceutical, automotive, textile, and food industries. Our main findings include the following. First, green human resource management positively influenced the triple bottom lines. Second, green supply chain management mediates green human resource management and triple bottom lines. Specifically, internal green supply chain management mediates green human resource management practices and sustainable performance. In contrast, external green supply chain management practices only mediate the relationship between green human resource management practices and the environmental and social perspective of sustainable performance. The study provides managerial implications and future recommendations.
... Demographic information is collected to confirm that the participant in the study has sufficient knowledge and experience related to the field of the study. We designed a questionnaire based on variables adapted from prior literature (Behl & Dutta, 2020;Ellinger & Ellinger, 2014;Hohenstein et al., 2014;Pradhan & Jena, 2017;Safarpour et al., 2020) that suggested individual performance, human resource management, learning experience, and communication are important to describe the performance of humanitarian operations in organizations in Malaysia, respectively. The questionnaire was created in Bahasa Melayu and English to ease the respondent's understanding of the details. ...
... It was justified by the human resources management that a β-value of 0.531 (p < 0.000) unit rises in human resources associated with the improvement in the performance of humanitarian operations in an organization. The outcomes of this study are similar to the outcomes attained by Hohenstein et al. (2014). They elaborated that the improvement in humanitarian operation performance can be attained if organizations have human resource management. ...
Aim/Purpose: This research aims to analyze the effect of human resource management on humanitarian operations performance, using humanitarian organizations in Malaysia as a case.
Background: Humanitarian organizations need to develop and continue effective on-the-job human resource management, such as training and development and managing
employee performance to enhance the performance of their humanitarian operations.
Methodology: The sampling technique that was conducted is probability sampling. In particular, the technique is called stratified sampling. This technique is chosen because it is involving the division of a population into a smaller group, called “strata”. The questionnaire survey was distributed to humanitarian organizations in Malaysia to collect research data, and PLS-SEM analysis was conducted to validate the conceptual model.
Contribution: This research focuses on the effect of human resource management on humanitarian operations performance in humanitarian organizations with consistent training to ensure successful humanitarian operations.
... #1 AND #2). This search is inspired by similar reviews such as Hohenstein et al. (2014), Mohamad Mokhtar et al. (2019), Durach et al. (2015) and Wong et al. (2015). We developed the search protocol, as shown in Table 2. ...
... The data set was limited to relevant articles only. Considering consensus refinement from the past literature such as Hohenstein et al. (2014), Kulkarni et al. (2018) and Wetzstein et al. (2016), the final set of 116 peer-reviewed articles were selected for further review and analysis. ...
The emergence of additive manufacturing (AM) is expected to recon figure the traditional supply chain (SC) with more flexibility and agility, leading to opportunistic collaboration. The purpose of the work is to identify research dimensions based on AM-enabled supply chain management (SCM) taxonomy from the product, information and service flow point of view. This article uses a systematic literature review (SLR) on AM-enabled SCM. The literature from 116 peer-reviewed journal papers over 10 years (2010–2021) was comprehensively reviewed and assessed. The selected articles were characterized using (a) SC processes—upstream, manufacturing and downstream and (b) SC flows—goods and services, information and finance. This work provides a direction to scholars and academicians for identifying important SC implications of AM technology adoption. Practitioners can benefit by understanding several challenges involved in AM technology adoption and its implications on SC processes. This work adds new insights by identifying research dimensions based on AM-enabled SCM taxonomy.
... As a first step, a systematic literature review (SLR) of work relating to SPSM competences from the extant body of literature was undertaken to provide a foundation for initial competence identification. From this SLR it was established that there is a substantial body of knowledge relating to supply chain competences (Flöthmann et al. 2018;Hohenstein et al. 2014) and in particular to those PSM competences required for what might be considered 'traditional' (e.g. cost or delivery) aspects of PSM (Giunipero et al. 2006;Giunipero and Pearcy 2000). ...
... For research on SPSM from an individual view, being one of the first studies on the nature of SPSM competences for individual purchasing professionals, this paper adds the sustainability perspective, focusing on both the social and environmental aspects of sustainability, to complement existing research on individual PSM and SCM competences (Flöthmann et al. 2018;Giunipero et al. 2006;Giunipero and Pearcy 2000;Hoberg et al. 2020;Hohenstein et al. 2014). Besides a mere adding of SPSM competences to existing framework proposals, the nature of the SPSM competences that resulted from this study may drive a discussion in the academic field as to how SPSM competences are related to a future competence profile for PSM professionals. ...
In order to implement sustainability standards in practice, capabilities are needed at the organizational level as well as at the individual level. The presented sustainable purchasing and supply management (SPSM) competence model is based on the combination of a systematic literature review (SLR) and a Delphi study. The competence model outlines specific SPSM competences which are divided into functional-oriented, cognition-oriented, social-oriented and meta-oriented competence clusters. We also discuss their applicability during typical purchasing and supply management processes. Each of the 26 competences is presented with a short definition as well as exemplary behaviors. For research on SPSM from an organizational point of view, the analysis of the relevance of competences with regard to purchasing process stages offers a conceptual basis for bringing sustainability into overall PSM models, instead of positioning sustainability as an ‘add-on’ activity, which risks the potential of sustainability issues becoming marginalized. The resulting SPSM competence model can serve as a basis for improving teaching and training in both higher education and professional training contexts. In practice, it can also serve to aid the selection of new employees, evaluate employee performance, create development plans or build HR systems.
... Most recently, vanHoek (2020) mentioned the importance of talent management in SCM to enhance SCM resilience and learning to improve decision-making as witnessed by the Covid-19 pandemic crisis in which SCM was disrupted. Yet, to date, very few research studies have directly investigated the role of HRM in SCM (Hohenstein et al., 2014). ...
... Several studies have found the relationship between HRM and SCM. Some have found that HRM is a key issue for SCM implementation (Teller et al., 2011;Vanichchinchai and Igel, 2011;Hohenstein et al., 2014) which can lead to improved firm performance. Furthermore, people in an organization are the powerful driving force for achieving the goal in SCM implementation because SCM requires all internal functions to coordinate efficiently (Liu et al., 2007;vanHoek et al., 2010). ...
Purpose-This paper aims to investigate the relationships among supply chain management (SCM) implementation, human resource management (HRM) practices and small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) firm performance in Thailand. It further examines whether HRM practices have a mediating effect on such relationship. Design/methodology/approach-A survey instrument was developed based on the literature review which then was verified by SCM expert opinions. Cross-sectional surveys of sample employees of SMEs in Thailand were undertaken by both direct and mail surveys. Of about 779 questionnaires distributed, 203 usable questionnaires were returned. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was performed to analyze the obtained data. Findings-The statistical results reveal that SCM indirectly improves firm performance of small-and medium-sized firms through HRM practices. The latter, HRM practices, is found to fully mediate the impact of SCM implementation on SME firm performance. These results suggest that SCM cannot enhance SME firm performance if its implementation is undertaken without effective HRM practices. Originality/value-This study identified the research gap in SCM areas by recognizing the scarcity of research on SCM in SMEs and by identifying and integrating HRM practices as a significant behavioral support system to SCM implementation in SMEs. Its results reveal that HRM practices fully mediates the impact of SCM on SMEs' firm performance.
... Given the dearth of SC professionals who possess the full range of technical competencies and managerial skills (Dubey and Gunasekaran, 2015a;Jordan and Bak, 2016;Leon and Uddin, 2016), most studies have focused on what the "ideal" profile of SC professionals should be (Gammelgaard and Larson, 2001;Rossetti and Dooley, 2010;Derwik and Hellström, 2017;Flöthmann and Hoberg, 2017;Flöthmann et al., 2018a). Other studies explored how HRM can lead to better coordination of the SC actors (Lengnick-Hall et al., 2013;Kiessling et al., 2014;Hohenstein et al., 2014;Essex et al., 2016;Huo et al., 2016;Riley et al., 2016). The latter focused on specific HRM aspects such as performance management, teamwork, motivation, and retention of SC employees (Menon, 2012;Leon and Uddin, 2016;Prockl et al., 2017). ...
... Specifically, the SCM literature supports the notion that strong skills of SC employees enable globalization and the resulting expanded SC (Fisher et al., 2010;Menon et al., 2012;Wu et al., 2014;Huo et al., 2016;Flöthman et al., 2018a;2018b). Thus, skilled and competent employees can use their knowledge to enable not only operationally, through SC improvements, but also strategically, by expanding markets and deploying effective distribution networks (Hohenstein et al., 2014;Jordan and Bak, 2016). Thus: ...
Purpose
In line with the knowledge-based view of organizations, this paper aims to analyze how supply chain (SC) employees contribute to the creation of competitive advantage through knowledge acquisition and utilization activities. The authors consider SC employees' skills and competencies, their external network of relationships, their job satisfaction and company investments in training and test how they relate to SC-level outcomes (i.e. SC growth).
Design/methodology/approach
The authors design a research model including the aforementioned variables, and the authors apply structural equation modeling (SEM) to survey data collected from 246 SC professionals in Latin America. The authors also use multi-group analysis to evaluate how the relationships between these variables change with different levels of company investment in training.
Findings
The results show that a broad professional network of relationships contributes to increasing the skills and competencies of SC professionals, which, in turn, impact job satisfaction and SC performance. This reinforces the value of investing in skilled human talent, who can contribute to knowledge acquisition, utilization, and, ultimately, to SC competitiveness. Companies that invest more in training to develop their SC employees benefit from stronger SC outcomes.
Originality/value
This study contributes to broadening the understanding of the impact of human resource management (HRM) on supply chain management (SCM). One of the added original foci of this research is the emphasis on developing countries where these HRM-to-SCM performance relationships have not been studied before.
... As shared by Hohenstein, Feisel and Hartmann (2014), supply chain performance is the extended activities within the supply chain aimed at enabling the firm to meet the requirements of the end users covering availability of the products and delivery of products on time. It extends the boundary of the enterprise to include materials and finished products and the means of their distribution top reach the end users. ...
... Procurement of goods/services is one of the Supply Chain Management (SCM) chains that regulate the movement of resources, especially towards Human Resource Management (HRM) in the context of public services with the aim of increasing trust and collaboration of various parties in the supply chain. Hohenstein et al. (2014) stated that the categories that influence the above include: a) skills, knowledge, and abilities, b) training and development, c) the impact of human resource management on performance, d) education and teaching, e) recruitment and recruiting, f) compensation and salary, g) global mindset. ...
The lack of ASN (Aparatur Sipil Negara/ State Civil Apparatus) interest in participating in the procurement process is a problem that affects the performance of the procurement process in terms of its effectiveness and efficiency. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to identify and evaluate the factors that influence the difficulty of obtaining functional procurement from the viewpoint of various government workers authorized for procurement. This research used a quantitative approach with a questionnaire survey method for data collection. From the results of the literature study, 22 elements of the challenge to obtain procurement professionals were successfully identified. Questionnaires were distributed to ASN (public procurement officials), namely structural, functional and functional assistants working in the field of Procurement of Goods and Services within the West Sumatra provincial government. Furthermore, the data were analyzed using Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA). As a result, there are three factors of the difficulty of obtaining functional procurement from the perspective of various ASN procurement managers, namely Standard and Policy Factors (6 variables), Transparency and Accountability Factors (4 variables), and Experience and Education Factors (2 variables). This research also suggests measuring the relationship between the three factors by means of confirmatory factor analysis for future research.
... This helps in studying the observe phenomenon by enhancing the understanding and guiding ways toward the identification of the unsolved and critical issues, which gives room for further research (Fink, 2013). Hence, in this study, we adopt the methodologies used by different well-known researchers, such as (Hohenstein, Feisel, & Hartmann, 2014;Rashman, Withers, & Hartley, 2009;Soni & Kodali, 2011;Winter & Knemeyer, 2013), with a focus to include peer-reviewed and high-quality articles. Mckinnon (2013) stated that frequently cited papers show its quality. ...
Proceedings of IACSC 2022 on Environment, Public Health, Urban Planning and Other Issues Related to Sustainable Cities
... The centricity of humans and their influence on the performance of multiple SC stages make employees valuable and a competitive differentiator [8,11]. It is essential to acknowledge the interpersonal aspects of all inter-organisational SC partners. ...
The assertion “Our people are what set us apart from our rivals” is a common statement made by nearly every company, highlighting the significance of their people as the most valuable asset. Similarly, a corporate culture emphasizing risk awareness and learning from experiences has played a key role in shaping supply chain resilience (SCRES) amidst competitive dynamics in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Employee engagement, communication, and collaboration, as dimensions of SC risk awareness, determine the effectiveness of firms’ cultures in handling large-scale disruptions with robustness and agility. Additionally, the COVID-19 crisis has had a positive impact on firms’ learning orientation. The crucial necessity of digital supply chain (SC) transformation to enhance SCRES under pandemic conditions has further reinforced the need for dynamic adaptation and reconfiguration of firms’ culture and employee skillsets through digital upskilling.
... The articles were searched in title, abstract and keywords of the publications. This search has been inspired by many similar articles like Hohenstein et al. (2014); Durach et al. (2015); Wong et al. (2015); and Mohamad Mokhtar et al. (2019). To ensure high quality, book and book chapters, conference proceedings, doctoral thesis, white papers, editorial notes are eliminated from the dataset. ...
Electric vehicles (EVs) serve an important role in lowering greenhouse gas emissions, which helps to mitigate global warming while also contributing to long-term growth. Thus, this research explores various criterions relevant to electric vehicle (EVs) adoption and causal relationships using the decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) method. From the comprehensive literature review, a set of criteria for EVs adoption were identified and are finalised through the Delphi method. The data was gathered from eleven experts and was analyzed using the DEMATEL method to develop the causal relationship between each criterion. The sensitivity analysis was performed to check the robustness of the model. The findings revealed that the key criteria for EV adoption include their causal relationships. It is observed that charging time, driving range and price are the most important criteria for an EV purchase. Battery capacities have a major and influential impact on other criteria like charging time, torque, driving range, and maximum power. Professionals and managers in the EV manufacturing industry can benefit from this prioritization of criteria by understanding the causal relationships between them. This study can also serve as guidance for EV engineers when it comes to implementing client preferences into vehicle design. It can also assist low-performing electric vehicles in determining their benchmarks. This work contributes to building an improved understanding of causal factors of electric vehicle adoption in resource-constrained environments for policy making.
... Finally, 228 articles were extracted at the end. Many researchers commonly use this procedure in their previous work (Muessigmann et al. 2020;Hohenstein et al. 2014). All searches spanned from the period 2008 to 2021 and included journal articles, book chapters, and conference papers published in English only. ...
With the rapid developments in the field of blockchain technology, the food supply chain has entered the era of blockchain applications for the past few years. Although many publications related to blockchain technology have shown a remarkable impact on the food supply chain, there is no bibliometric report that considers this research trend. The research for this study was carried out from the years 2008 to 2021, with the first paper in this field being published in the year 2016. The research uses multiple databases for data analysis, studying approximately 2637 records to enlighten scholars around the world, and 150 records are finalized for the study. The primary purpose of this study is to conduct a systematic literature review to understand the current research status of blockchain technology in managing and transforming food supply chains and fill the gap. Additionally, bibliometric analysis is utilised with the VOS viewer to visualise, comprehend, and simulate the diverse range of findings in terms of essential authors, authorship pattern, keyword analysis, and blockchain usage pattern in food supply chains. Additionally, the literature also examines the advantages, difficulties and applied blockchain-based models in the food supply chain. The study concludes by outlining research gaps, implications, and future research opportunities. This research will help the students, academicians, and experts to get a complete idea of the development of blockchain in the food supply chain area. The highly cited implementation papers existing in the literature have demonstrated that blockchain could improve transparency, traceability, food safety, and food quality. It is a promising technology to build trust among food supply chain actors. Furthermore, it revealed that blockchain is moving from its nascent stage to maturity stage.
... Other studies highlighted factors influencing turnover intention among female nurses working on shifts in the medical sector, such as high work pressure and workfamily conflict [11]. Thus, insufficient empirical research exists on female workforce retention in Supply Chain Management (SCM) to resolve the talent shortage [12]. ...
The logistics sector is considered non-traditional for women as the industry employs mostly men as the required tasks are considered masculine. Logistics operation runs 24/7, which leads to long working hours and overlaps with women’s household responsibilities. The situation is linked to turnover intention among women in this industry. Numerous studies have acknowledged women to be as good as men. Therefore, turnover among women in this industry is a significant loss for the industry as gender imbalance remains a major issue. Furthermore, studies on this subject remain scarce. This study addressed the literature gap by adopting the Self Determination Theory (SDT) and investigated the factors influencing female employees’ intention to stay in the logistics industry. Data analysis was performed using a purposive sampling technique and Smart Partial Least Squares (Smart PLS). Resultantly, job satisfaction mediated the relationship between intrinsic motivation and intention to stay but did not mediate extrinsic motivation and intention to stay. Additionally, the relationship between work-life balance and intention to stay was mediated by organisational commitment. The findings benefit human resource management in the logistics industry to design a better policy to reduce retention prevalence and decrease the number of talented female employees leaving this industry.
... Specifically, training and teamwork [22,23], selective recruitment, variable payment, and, in particular, global thinking [24], improve the supply chain's sustained performance. Regarding employee incentives, Huo et al. [25] relate them positively with the supply chain internal integration, negatively with customer integration, and with no effect on supplier integration. ...
Purpose
This paper aims to determine the effect that human capital and key competitive drivers such as quality, agility, and cost have on firm performance, whether this effect is related to the firm’s outsourcing strategy, and whether the firm size is relevant in explaining such relationships.
Design
This study uses structural equation modeling to test the hypothesized relationships for small to medium enterprises (SMEs) and large organizations using a custom survey based on a review of the literature and completed by 404 firms in the Valle del Cauca agro-industrial region in Colombia.
Findings
Human capital strategies are essential for the effective deployment of operational agility, quality, and cost management strategies, which impact firm performance through effective outsourcing strategies. These relationships, however, do not hold the same across firms of different sizes. Specifically, outsourcing practices are lacking amongst SMEs in the studied region. The study is limited to a specific region, with infrastructure and connectivity limitations that hinder or undermine otherwise potentially valuable third-party logistics strategies.
Practical implications
This paper contributes to the theory and practice in supply chain competitiveness by extending current knowledge of the impact of human capital and key competitive drivers on firm performance, highlighting regional specificities that could hinder firms’ competitiveness, and by presenting a novel, quantitative methodology seldom used for these topics.
... In the PSM discipline, the human capital is strategically important for firms' success (Eltantawy, Giunipero, & Fox, 2009;Hohenstein, Feisel, & Hartmann, 2014;Knight, Tu, & Preston, 2014). Here, the function itself does not make the difference but the people in purchasing (Knight et al., 2014). ...
Nowadays, the human‐centric purchasing and supply management (PSM) discipline is strategically important for firms’ success. Scholars address PSM professionals’ skills and provide practitioners with academic insights. Researchers expect shifts in purchasing objectives, working environment, and tasks due to changes in the business environment. This paper aims to contribute to the PSM professional skills literature by defining current PSM professionals’ skill gaps as the difference between the acquired skill level and perceived skill importance. Therefore, a multinational European survey has been studied. Results show that current PSM professionals feel underqualified to extract the full potential of stakeholders in the supply base. Findings also distinguish three buyer profiles, the junior, senior and executive buyers, and identify skill gaps concerning innovation sourcing, sustainability and the influence of Industry 4.0 on PSM. These skill gaps need to be solved by adequate educational methods to increase buyers’ performance. Here, educational professionals are especially challenged to train current professionals and future PSM students.
... rough effective person-post matching, the quality of enterprise resource management can be comprehensively improved, which plays an important role in enterprise operation and work development. It is also very helpful for enterprises to achieve strategic goals [9]. In fact, the matching between people and posts usually needs to effectively integrate the personal characteristics of employees with the overall characteristics of posts, so as to achieve the most ideal human resource management effect. ...
Under the modern environment, the reconstruction of enterprise’s core competitiveness depends not only on capital and technical strength, but also on the overall strength of its human resources. At the same time, effective allocation and rational use of talents are needed to create good performance for enterprises. Enterprise human resource management is the key part of the whole enterprise management. At the same time, it is also a necessary preparation for the continuous development and innovation of enterprises. In the whole process of human resource management, the core work is person-post matching. Only by promoting the reasonable implementation of person-post matching can other management work be carried out smoothly. This paper expounds two major elements in human resource management, namely, the concept and measurement of person-post matching and the principle of person-post matching. And the factors in the matching of people and posts are analyzed. This paper probes into the implementation of person-post matching in enterprise human resource management. Based on this, this paper puts forward a depth model of accurate matching between people and posts based on ability perception. On the basis of studying the optimization of human resource scheduling, this paper takes into account three factors: resource constraints, heterogeneity of employee efficiency and time sequence relationship, and uses integer linear programming theory to model the system with the shortest construction period as the goal. The research shows that the accuracy of this algorithm can reach about 94%, which is about 8% higher than the traditional algorithm. It has certain superior performance. This will provide some reference for related researchers.
... This work followed a systematic literature review (Tranfield et al., 2003) to draw inferences from the analysis and summarization of data. For achieving the study objectives, the study followed the methodology suggested by Hohenstein et al. (2014), Rashman et al. (2009), andRosenthal (1995) in the right earnest. The approach involved four specific steps, as presented below: ...
Sustaining sustainability is now a matter of deep interest among academics and social scientists. There is an emerging opinion that there is a definite need to add spirituality as the fourth dimension to sustainability. The current meta-analytic study examined this aspect. The study used meta-analysis to examine the relationship between spirituality and sustainability. The research conducted using R-program has meticulously followed all the established protocols and rules of thumb regarding meta-analysis. The analysis was based on 34 studies identified from a preliminary search that yielded 1131 records retrieved from various databases. The study results show that spirituality has the potential to sustain sustainability. Further research could be carried out using more studies, as literature is only emerging in this area. It is expected that the present work will trigger further research on this exciting and fecund topic.
... The conceptual model adopted in this study is mainly grounded within RBV which was developed by Barney (1991), whereby it acknowledges that relying on the resources alone may not bring any benefit. However, the advantage of the competitor may be consequential from the collaboration mechanism of numerous resources (Barney 2001;Hohenstein et al. 2014). On top of that, these features were also found in GHRM which is considered as a vital approach in disseminating environmental standards and ideologies as well as producing talented and committed employees through the implementation of environmental ideologies within the firm in order to improve its performance (Chiappetta et al. 2017;Jackson and Seo 2010;Lengnick-Hall et al. 2013). ...
Although wide ranges of studies are available on manufacturing sustainable performance issues, literature on green human resources management (GHRM) practices and their impact on manufacturers’ sustainable and operational performances is scarce. This study aims at identifying GHRM practices and assessing their impact on sustainable and operational performance. This current study adopted systematic literature and a content analysis approach for the development of a conceptual model. It has been found that the most influencing GHRM practices are green recruitment and selection, green training, green performance evaluation, and a green reward system. The uniqueness of this study is the evaluation of the GHRM practices with sustainable and operational performance in a single study. Moreover, the paper highlights that manufacturing organizations must focus on GHRM practices to deliver enhanced sustainable performance besides operational performance to achieve competitive advantage. For future studies, there is a need to empirically verify the proposed conceptual model presented in this paper. This study adds to the literature in the area of GHRM by advocation to tackle environmental challenges across the globe.
... A significant evolution of PSM roles and tasks over the last two decades, seen in the move from operationally focused clerical activities towards strategic supply chain management (SCM) ones (Kraljic, 1983), requires a different set of KSAOs, which have been studied in various ways. For example, Hohenstein et al. (2014) provide a comprehensive literature overview of human resource management in SCM. More specifically, the most cited papers in the PSM area are shown in Table 1. ...
This paper contributes to a growing trajectory of research on
purchasing and supply management skills and requirements and uses job advertisements as a novel source of data and research perspective. Our findings broadly corroborate the extant literature in showing which skills are required across different hierarchical organisational levels. Our analysis also identified the key and hitherto underexplored personality traits required by PSM
professionals. At a holistic level, the findings show that employers have a clear and consistent view of PSM personality: being conscientious and able to work independently, willing to travel, flexible, proactive and stress-resistant. However, traits generally associated with innovativeness, such as intellectual curiosity, boundary spanning, sociability or teamwork and cooperation, were not found in the data. Although advertisements for junior buyers featured less combined skills, a higher number of advertisements than those for more senior jobs featured at least one personality trait and they were more heavily
emphasised.
... Human skills are classified as non-physical strategic resources for businesses that are difficult to replicate by competitors. Human resource capabilities can assist in determining the most appropriate supply chain strategy (Hohenstein et al., 2014). Similarly, information technology adoption is a valuable resource that can assist in overcoming, eliminating, or minimising risks and disruptions encountered during supply chain activities. ...
The goal of the study is to see how human resource capabilities, supply chain coordination, and supply chain responsiveness affect supply chain resilience. IT advancement has been studied as a moderating variable. The study collected data from food and beverages firms by conducting a field survey. A questionnaire-based on previous studies was used as a data collection tool. The collected data were analysed using SPSS software Process Macro. Human resource capabilities, supply chain coordination, and supply chain responsiveness all have a substantial impact on supply chain resilience, according to the findings. In the relationship between human resource skills, supply chain coordination, and supply chain resilience, the moderating influence of IT advancement has been verified. However, its impact on the relationship between supply chain responsiveness and supply chain resilience was not proven. These findings will help supply chain managers in developing human resource capabilities, supply chain capabilities, and coordination in the presence of IT advancement to build the resilient supply chain of the firm. In conclusion, the framework used in this study provides a comprehensive way to consider the capabilities factors that can help firms in formulating and aligning various supply chain management resilient strategies.
... Third, in response to the call made by K.C. Tan et al. (2002) and Hohenstein et al. (2014) for further research to explore the impact of SCM practices on organizational performance by including other areas of the organization and their perspective, this study investigates SCM practices under competitive strategies on organizational performance. In this way, the results open the "black box" of the link between SCM practices and competitive strategy. ...
A perusal of the literature shows that a broad frame of references for organizational success is not adequately developed. Therefore, by taking an interdisciplinary approach with a relational perspective, this study takes an integrative and fresh approach toward illuminating the moderate role of competitive strategy in realizing the potential influence of supply chain management (SCM) practices on organizational performance of the manufacture organizations. Using the gathered data of 157 manufacturing organizations that operate in Kosovo, this study boosts the margins of the existing literature. The findings indicate a positive influence of SCM practices and competitive strategy on organizational performance. In addition, the findings also show that competitive strategy moderate the relationship between SCM practices and organizational performance. It highlights that differentiation strategy is necessary to increase the actual value of SCM practices and makes the organization flourish.
... An analysis of search chains in previous studies (e.g. Hohenstein et al., 2014;Novais et al., 2019) and a brainstorming session conducted by the authors helped to identify the search keywords related to cloud computing and HRM. A search string using simple operators, including truncated characters (e.g. ...
This study aims to provide an overview of what characterizes the current state of research in the field of Cloud Computing use in Human Resource Management (HRM) with the identification, analysis, and classification of the existing literature and lines of research addressed, and to provide guidance for future research.
The Systematic Literature Review (SLR) technique has been used to identify, select, analyze, and evaluate the existing publications on Cloud Computing and HRM. A total of 35 papers published up to December 2020 have been obtained from the Web of Science (WoS) scientific database.
The research design has allowed us to determine what characterizes the current state of research on the use of Cloud Computing in HRM and obtain a novel classification of the literature that identifies four lines of research and the contributions in each line and has allowed us to define the future research agenda.
The four groups into which the papers on the Cloud Computing - HRM relationship have been classified are: (1) studies focused on the development of Cloud platforms for HRM that highlight technical aspects; (2) papers that focus on the concept of Human Resource elasticity; (3) papers on the adoption and/or implantation of Cloud platforms for HRM, and (4) studies that highlight the effects or implications of Cloud platforms for HRM.
This paper proposes some new opportunities for future research and presents some helpful implications from the theoretical and management perspectives.
This study uses only scientific articles in the Web of Science database with a Journal Citation Report (JCR) or SCImago Journal Rank (SJR).
... The importance of these concepts is increasing. The history of human resource and supply change management has different roots but they are linked together in the organizational environment [4]. This research paper contributes in the way that the relation between HR management and supply chain is improved by over viewing the capabilities possessed in successful systems of supply chain. ...
The prime objective of the current study is to examine the individual, network, and collaborative competencies, and investment in strategic partnership as antecedents of the overall performance of a supply chain network. Additionally, the study has examined the mediating role of collaborative awareness. In this research, the influence of competencies at individual and organizational level has been identified on the practices and performance of supply chain management. The current study has expanded the competencies by studying it at firm level in the management of supply chain. It has been revealed through research findings that collaborative awareness is positively influenced by organizational awareness, which is the individual level competency. The study is among the pioneering studies on the issues. So, current study has used SEM-PLS as statistical tool to answer the research questions raised in this study and research objectives envisaged in the current study. The findings of the current study have provided support to with the hypothesized results. This study will be helpful for policymakers and researchers in examining the link the individual, network, and collaborative competencies, and investment in strategic partnership as antecedents of the overall performance of a supply chain network.
... The current paper endorses the systematic review method for investigating, encapsulating and drawing conclusions [19] from the existing works on Green HRM. Moreover, the technique adopted is lying on [20][21][22] line of work which includes four sections, time boundary, selecting the appropriate data base, choosing and categorizing articles. ...
The theme of green human resource management (GHRM) has got immense attention among researchers and professionals due to its potential to pacify environmental needs and simultaneously allowing firms to have win-win situation, hence achieving sustainable competitive edge over their rivals. In this context, a systematic review of 70 articles from the past 12 years (2008-2020) on green human resource management was conducted based on Scopus database in terms of (1) the reflections of green HRM, (2) execution of green HRM, (3) factors of green HRM, (4), Effects of green HRM. Results demonstrated that Green HRM is still in developing phase and a multidimensional paradigm with green training as an important element along with teamwork, management support, green organizational culture are the pioneer factors in ensuring sustainable development both at firm and individual level. Finally, this paper highlights the past, current and future endeavors in green HRM paradigm, sustainable development and serves as a guide for researchers who are new to this novel concept; it will also intensity their understanding about the productive journals, appropriate methodology, underpinning theories, sustainable development and substantial knowledge gaps.
Adequate supplier evaluations reduce the cost of projects. Therefore, inadequate supplier monitoring can lead to high costs, non-performance risks, and poor quality of the deliverables. The study examined the influence of supplier evaluation management practices on the supply chain performance of selected Kenyan county governments in Nyanza Region. The study used a number of methods, first utilising a descriptive and correlational research design. The study targeted 112 staff in the procurement department as well as nine lead prequalified suppliers. Data was collected using closed-ended questionnaires and an interview schedule. For data analysis, descriptive and inferential statistics were used. The study utilised both descriptive and inferential statistics. Supplier evaluation management practice had a positive and significant effect on supply chain performance (t = 5.789, p<0.05). The study recommends that devolved units in Kenya should evaluate suppliers to ensure that effectiveness, efficiency, customer satisfaction, and a shortened lead time are realized. This can be achieved through quality commitments, distributions, and delivery strategies and evaluating the cost, thus leading to improved performance of the supply chain of devolved units.
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Over the past two decades, researchers have investigated buyer-supplier relationships (BSRs) to foster supply chain decarbonization as a countermeasure to the effects of climate change. However, the academic intellectual foundation is still far from maturing, not only because of its novelty but also because scholars have focused on narrow topics and theoretical lenses. Thus, this paper aims to understand the present intellectual structure of BSRs in low-carbon supply chains (LCSCs) while showing the lack of knowledge and the need to investigate research topics through multiple theoretical lenses. In this study, a literature review was conducted by collecting data without date restriction in July 2023 and analyzing 804 peer-reviewed articles from top-ranked academic journals. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were applied for the paper's content analysis, including a multiple correspondence analysis and a homogeneity analysis of variance by means of alternating least squares (HOMALS) to map the data. The results show a high degree of fragmentation within the present theoretical foundation of BSRs in LCSCs, including a limited application of theoretical lenses and the need for a balanced research agenda. Based on the assessment of the existent literature, 29 research propositions are presented and they are categorized under eight theoretical lenses that constitute the interpretive framework. This study contributes to building theoretical knowledge of supply chain management 1) by analyzing the present intellectual foundation while mapping investigated research topics and theories in a two-dimensional graph and 2) by proposing a balanced research agenda with 29 research propositions to develop the field of BSRs in LCSCs. In addition to the method's originality in the mentioned field, this review highlights emerging research topics.
PURPOSE OF THE STUDY: This article examines the impact of human capital on supply chain management in state-owned enterprises in South Africa DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: A survey was conducted among members of South Africa's State-Owned Entities Procurement Forum to gather data for this article. Structured questionnaires were used to collect the data, and descriptive analysis was performed using SPSS software FINDINGS: The findings revealed that human capital positively and significantly impacts supply chain management performance in state-owned entities. Three variables concerning human capital practices were practised, namely, organisational structure, skills and competence, and training and development. Based on the findings, supply chain management skills and competence were the strongest and highest predictors of supply chain performance in such entities RECOMMENDATIONS/VALUE: It is recommended that effective human capital practices be aligned with supply chain management practices to enhance supply chain management performance. Moreover, the recommendation made here is that the head of supply chain management in a state-owned entity report directly to the accounting officer. Additionally, the head of supply chain management should be represented within various executive structures and the board of directors for this division to be strategic MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS: For supply chain management performance to improve and increase in state-owned entities, organisations must hire employees with the appropriate skills and competencies. State-owned entities should also invest in upskilling their supply chain management teams through continuous training and development. For such training and development to be effective, a skills gap analysis exercise must be undertaken, and all existing gaps must be addressed through practical career development plans JEL CLASSIFICATION: J4
Purpose
The present study seeks to explore the relationships among human resource management (HRM) practices, supply chain management (SCM) implementation and small and medium-sized enterprises' (SMEs) performance in Australia. It also investigates whether HRM practices have any mediating effect on such relationships.
Design/methodology/approach
In line with the research objective, a quantitative model was applied and a multi-item survey questionnaire was developed to collect primary data. Cross-sectional surveys of a sample of 216 SMEs from different industries were undertaken to collect data, and factor analysis and structural equation modelling (SEM) were used to analyse data and test hypotheses.
Findings
The statistical results inform that SCM implementation and HRM practices improve SMEs' performance in Australia. SCM implementation is also found to be positively linked to HRM practices and has a significant indirect effect on organisational performance when the HRM practices are mediating. HRM practices are, thus, found in this study to mediate the relationship between SCM implementation and Australia's SMEs performance.
Originality/value
The concurrent effects of SCM and HRM practices on SMEs' performance and how businesses' internal management such as HRM practices mediate and affect SCM and SMEs' performances have not been addressed previously in the Australian business context. This study, hence, addresses the gap in the literature concerning the effect of SCM on SMEs by integrating HRM practices as a significant behavioural support system to SCM implementation in Australia's SMEs.
This study aims to analyze the relationship between supply chain resilience (SCR) practices and operational performance and the moderating role of digital technologies in Jordanian manufacturing firms. A descriptive-analytical approach was adopted using a questionnaire based on the study model and previous related literature. Four hundred supply chain (SC)-related managers within seventy-one firms were reached to collect the needed data; three hundred and seventy-two complete questionnaires were analyzed. The results revealed that the level of SCR practices and operational performance was high; SCR (with its sub-dimensions: SC agility (SCA), SC flexibility (SCF), and SC collaboration (SCC)) had a significant positive relationship with operational performance; and the appropriate use of digital technologies had a significant moderating impact on the aggregate level of the SCR–operational performance relationship. Finally, research limitations, practical implications, and future research conclude this study.
Megatrends, such as digitalization, globalization, and demographic shifts, are creating an organizational environment that is more volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous than ever before (Stiehm & Townsend, 2002). In addition to geopolitical changes, the technological innovations of digitalization promote the speed of industrial change and introduced the digital age (Kremer, 1993). The resulting digital technologies, such as AI, Big Data, or Robotics, as well as their economical applications, are crucial for the innovativeness and future viability of organizations. They are revolutionizing the way of working in almost any discipline and across most industries. For example, digital connectivity alone can lead to process adaptations through increased data variety, a focus on customer relationships, independence of time and place, the blurring of hierarchy, and incremental production automation. Despite the manifold opportunities created by the adaptation of new technologies, it is an intensive, long-term process, especially for industrial companies which produce mainly material goods and whose business models predate the digital age (Mertens et al., 2017; van der Schaft et al., 2020; Voigt, 2008). As a result of comparing the existing and ideal levels of digitization within companies, adaptations vary from process optimization and strengthening of business models to the redefinition of products or complete restructuring of organizations (Wessel et al., 2021). Especially for traditional companies, this results in a highly scaled, multidimensional transformation process that extends over several years and to many areas of the company, such as strategy, products, processes, employees, culture, and collaboration (Fenlon & McEneaney, 2018; Porfirio et al., 2020). The study by LaClair and Rao (2002) analyzes the success rate of such holistic organizational initiatives. They compare the change initiatives of 40 organizations in different industries and show that 58% of organizations failed to achieve their goals and another 20% only partially achieved their goals. A review of the common success factors of organizations with high levels of goal achievement showed the constant involvement of leaders at all levels (LaClair & Rao, 2002). Leadership theory was able to deduce decades ago that the involvement and capability of leaders are decisive components of the success of transformation projects. Independent studies, such as the by Hambrick and Mason (1984), who introduced macro-organizational theory, or by change luminary Peter Drucker (1999), created the basis for further analyses and recommendations on conducive leadership behaviors, styles, and characteristics (Schoemaker & Day, 2021; Gilley et al., 2009). If we examine the specific change process of digital transformation, a survey from 2015 illustrates that 90% of CEOs consider digitalization have a significant impact on their industry, although only 25% surveyed are prepared for the changes as part of an implementation concept (Taylor, 2015). This is also reflected in the academic community, which reached a consensus on the coherence between the effectiveness of digital transformation and the influence of leaders. However, few academically based analyses on the influences of specific characteristics exist, such as leadership behavior or leadership style, and their practical implications (Porfirio et al., 2021). Given this background, it is of entrepreneurial relevance to resolve the uncertainties and identify the potentials of successful leadership in the digital age, which may stand for the continued existence of companies, especially traditional companies in German industry. The dissertation is dedicated to this highly relevant set of topics, and it examines the mechanisms of leadership in the digital age from different research perspectives with the aim of creating a profound theoretical basis and thus contributing to the further development of theoretical and entrepreneurial understanding. To achieve this goal, this thesis presents three articles that examine empirical data obtained either by the author or through published scholarly articles. The first article reviews the state of research in the topic area through a systematic literature review and identifies the characteristics of effective leadership behavior in the digital age based on theoretical findings. Papers two and three provide a scientific evaluation of empirical data collected by the author herself. Paper two addresses the identification of leadership trends in the digital age. Since paper one and two conclude that “digital collaboration” in the leadership context is highly relevant from the perspectives of theory and practice, the third paper is devoted to this topic exclusively within the framework of a qualitative survey of leaders and experts. In addition, it is combined with an analysis of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on this regard. A brief overview of these essays is provided as follows. Article 1: Effective Leadership Behavior in the Digital Age: A Review and Research Agenda The first article presents the current state of the discussion and research on the emerging topic of leadership behavior in the digital age. In recent years, the number of publications on this topic has increased, but a systematic review of the literature is still lacking. The article addresses this circumstance, and it aims to identify the manifold theoretical contributions, to summarize the results in a structured way, and to derive implications for business and future research proposals. The results of the articles are based on 49 selected scientific articles which present eight leadership behaviors that are rated as conducive to dealing with digital transformation. These are categorized according to Fiedler’s (1966) effectiveness model into task- and relationship-related criteria. To employ the identified behaviors, it is additionally deduced that leaders require awareness, willingness and readiness concerning the opportunities and risks of digitalization. Article 2: New Ways of Leadership in the Digital Age: These Trends are Forcing Leaders to Rethink their Existing Leadership Styles To achieve a holistic and generic understanding of future leadership challenges in the context of digitalization, the next article focuses on examining leadership trends. To identify these seminal implications, the methodology used is a combination of an in-depth expert workshop and a systematic literature review. By selecting the chosen exploratory research design, it is possible to compare leadership trends from theory and practice and identify 21 trends. These are assigned to the following derived, superordinate trends: change of leadership role (individual level), change of collaboration (team level), and change of organizational environment (organizational level). The article thus answers the research question of identifying and characterizing current leadership trends and contributes to the decuviation of common focal areas, as well as differences in leadership trends according to the current state of science and practice. Article 3: Successful Collaboration in the Digital Age and the Potential Effects Caused by COVID- 19 in this Regard Building on the findings of the first and second articles, the leadership topic of “digital collaboration” is addressed separately due to its identified relevance to both economics and science. The author applies a qualitative–explorative research design to obtain a detailed picture of the aspects of digital collaboration. For this purpose, after a systematic literature review, experts and leaders in German industry are interviewed about the success factors and challenges of digital collaboration. Because the survey period took place after the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, the resulting effects for digital collaboration had to be considered. After analyzing the qualitative interviews and processing the obtained data, seven key factors for digital collaboration were identified, which are divided among the individual, team, and organizational levels. From a practical perspective, the study shows the need for HR support to professionalize systematically this leadership tool and hence empower leaders. The theoretical contribution consists of the analysis and description of the fundamental factors of collaboration in the digital age.
Supply chain management is very critical for organizations and national economic development. Researchers and practitioners need to assess where nations are in terms of their supply chain management maturity level by identifying gaps in both practices and research. This paper aims to analyze the supply chain body of knowledge in the Indonesian context to contribute to the collection of knowledge of supply chain management in Indonesia. A structured content analysis was used to assess research papers published in English and Indonesian in peer-reviewed and accredited journals. The results proved the lack of research in the Supply chain management area within the Indonesian context. Future research guidelines were also presented as a result of this study.
This article sets out to study the associations between strategic human resources management (SHRM) practices, supply chain management (SCM) implementation, and small to medium enterprise (SME) firm performance in Palestine. An instrument was constructed, followed by detailed research confirmed by human resources management (HRM) and SCM experts’ viewpoints. Several SMEs in Palestine conducted cross-sectional surveys that included both direct and postal questionnaires. Three hundred two usable surveys were returned. SEM was used to study the results. These data show that SHRM practices indirectly aid small and medium-sized businesses by implementing SCM. SCM implementation further explores if it mediates such interaction. It showed that SCM implementation has a total effect on the performance of SMEs. These data indicate that if SHRM standards are not in place, SCM won’t boost SME performance. This study found the vacuum in SCM research by observing that SMEs lack SCM knowledge and incorporate SHRM practices into SCM implementation in SMEs. SCM adoption mediates the influence of SHRM practices on SMEs’ company performance.KeywordsStrategic human resources managementSupply chain managementFirm performanceSmall- and medium-sized enterprisesPalestine
Purpose
The authors share a real-world case study of a multiple-year adoption process of robotic process automation (RPA) in procurement to add to the limited empirical research base on RPA in supply chain management. The Maersk case offers hard evidence of the value of RPA that can be used as a benchmark for decision-making in companies and as a basis for further research in key areas such as change management and behavioral aspects as well as return on investment on RPA and the need for RPA capability development.
Design/methodology/approach
Together with the co-author from Maersk, the authors cover a multiple year RPA program in procurements, to capture lessons learned and develop research questions for the future. The authors consider 39 generic action principles for RPA adoption in a specific procurement context.
Findings
The authors find RPA for procurement to be an enabler of strategic progress and of advancing the concept of triple values (enterprise, customer and employee) in a supply chain setting. The authors offer RPA adoption scoping guidance and show how, with growth and maturity of the program, conditions such as predictability of volume become less relevant as a scoping criterium. The authors also find that RPA augments work rather than replace staff. Maersk utilizes staff time freed up by automation to focus employees on more strategic priorities. The authors consider 39 generic action principles for RPA adoption in a procurement-specific context and develop additional action principles based upon the Maersk case.
Originality/value
The authors study both a unique and rich case to complement limited empirical research on RPA in procurement and supply chain management and the limited research into RPA past early stage adoptions. The authors address Hofmann et al. 's (2019) questions about the change management involved in RPA and consider generic RPA action principles from literature in this specific procurement setting. The authors extend those action principles and develop a rich set of research opportunities.
Digitisation has placed existing business models to the test and also redefined existing business processes and logic hitherto. The evolution of digital supply chain management has reshaped current processes and the drive for innovative solutions to emerging business needs in Africa. Ample opportunities abound in Africa regarding the relevance of digitalisation of supply chain ecosystems due to the new capabilities offered by digital offerings and potentials within the supply chain community. Although, this trend portends a huge opportunity for value creation, ease of doing business along the various value chains, it has inherent challenges and barriers. For supply chain organisations in Africa, it has become imperative to leverage the innovative capability occasioned by digitalisation in providing unique solutions, and enhancing value-add to their customers. The discourse in this chapter entails a framework on digital supply chain, transformative aspects of the digital supply chain, emerging opportunities and barriers regarding impact and sustainability of digital supply chains in Africa, with particular emphasis on Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya and Tanzania.KeywordsDigital supply chainDigitalisationEcosystemSub-Saharan AfricaSustainable
Purpose
The enormous impact of the COVID-19 pandemic showcases the key role of supply chain risk management (SCRM) in achieving and maintaining business performance, competitiveness and survival in the “new normal”. The purpose of this paper is to explore what impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had and may yet have on supply chains (SCs), which SCRM approaches have proved successful and how logistics service providers (LSPs) have applied the knowledge they have gained to improve their SCRM practices and resilience so as to prepare better for the next major disruption.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper combines an extensive literature review with a multiple-case study of 10 internationally operating LSPs and how they have handled the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic so far. To bridge the research-practice gap, this study draws on the dynamic-capabilities view and provide insights that are valuable to both academia and practice.
Findings
This study provides empirical evidence on the severe impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on SCs, which has posed several challenges to LSPs. The study identifies eight factors that are critical to the adaptive capabilities of LSPs and, therefore, to their resilience in extreme conditions. The findings of this study show that these factors determine whether an SCRM system is robust and agile enough to allow an LSP to anticipate potential disruption and to respond fast enough when disruption occurs. Specifically, this study finds that robustness and agility demonstrably strengthen business performance, while learning from experience proves key to reconfiguring an SCRM design in response to acute disruption.
Originality/value
This paper is among the first to provide rich, empirical and practically applicable insights into the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on business in relation to SCRM. These novel insights offer inspiring opportunities for further research.
In this chapter, a multi-disciplinary approach for creating sustainable competitive advantage is examined. This is the integration of human resources management and supply chain management. The primary aim is to come up with a solution to the research question of ‘how do organizations create sustainable competitive advantage by integrating human resources and supply chain management?' In order to put forth the solutions, the resource-based approach is employed. A detailed literature review is given on the integration of two business functions to create sustainable competitive advantage. This chapter contributes to the literature, first by laying out the importance of resource-based view in both human resources and supply chain management, second by examining how do these two functions unite in order to obtain sustainable competitive advantage, and lastly, by enriching the limited number of studies so far on the integration of human resources and supply chain management with the help of a literature review.
Purpose
This paper aims to provide the results of a survey of courses dedicated to the field of supply chain management in higher education. This research is unique because it represents the first large-scale study of graduate supply chain management courses taught at universities globally.
Design/methodology/approach
Content analysis was performed on each syllabus to identify the actual course content: requirements, pedagogy and content emphasis. This aggregated information was used to compare historical research findings in this area, with the current skills identified as important for career success. This data provides input for a gap analysis between offerings in higher education and those needs identified by practitioners.
Findings
Data gathering efforts yielded a sample of 112 graduate courses representing 61 schools across the world. The aggregate number of topics covered in graduate courses totaled 114. The primary evaluation techniques include exams, projects and homework. Details regarding content and assessment techniques are provided along with a gap analysis between the supply chain management course content and the needs identified by APICS Supply Chain Manager Competency Model (2014).
Originality/value
The goal is to use this data as a means of continuous improvement in the quality and value of the educational experience on a longitudinal basis. The findings are designed to foster information sharing and provide data for benchmarking efforts in the development of supply chain management courses and curricula in academia, as well as training, development and recruitment efforts by professionals in the field of supply chain management.
Purpose
This paper aims to fill a void in existing research by focusing on in-company efforts to develop supply chain (SC) talent, with a specific focus on the role that executives can play in this process. This study uses the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm and theory of training motivation as theoretical background for the exploration. In addition to that, this paper provides meaningful information for executives aspiring to contribute to the development of supply chain management (SCM) talent including the primary drivers, benefits, barriers and bridges (Fawcett et al., 2008). Using this framework will lead to the development of a conceptual model to facilitate future research efforts.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper studies three case companies where there was an active executive engagement in the recruiting, on-boarding and ongoing development of SC talent.
Findings
In all three case companies’ executive engagement was high and the executives acted as champions of the SC talent development program including designing and stewardship of the program. They also got personally involved in recruiting, training and mentoring. In alignment with the RBV of the firm, all three case companies were strongly driven by a need to improve the competitive advantage of their firm through the SC competencies and capabilities. This strategic directive is driven by the executive suite and typically involved a combination of goals including improving functional capability development, internal stakeholder relationships and growth in business value contributions. This leads to the need for attracting new talent, due to talent shortages and developing more future-proof capabilities of the SC talent. Talent that is future-proof can effectively handle the current scope of work and successfully implement changes that the SCM strategy aspires to. Hence, the executive ownership is very much driven by a strategic imperative to improve the knowledge, skills and abilities and critical realization of the importance of talent recruitment and development. This study also finds that there are very specific SCM drivers, benefits, barriers and bridges in play making it important for SCM executives and teams to engage and not rely on generic human resource (HR) processes and frameworks only.
Research limitations/implications
We found that in the three case companies’ executive engagement in talent development had a positive impact. We also identified specific roles of the executives such as, the benefit of engagement across multiple hierarchical layers of the organization and, the risk of programs being shorter lived when focused on a narrower talent issue. Our research focus contributes to the existing supply chain literature involving talent management. It also suggests actions for supply chain executives, for the educational provision of universities and multiple research opportunities.
Originality/value
There is no evidence of prior research in fields of HR management, talent development or SCM related to the impact of executive engagement in this process. This paper studies three case companies where there was an active executive engagement in the recruiting, on-boarding and ongoing development of SC talent. Findings show the critical impact of personal and extended engagement of senior-level executives and their leadership teams, in SC talent development. This paper offers specific techniques and approaches, generates suggestions for further research, managerial action and university implications.
Purpose
Based on the human resource (HR) and supply chain integration (SCI) literature, this paper aims to argue that high-involvement human resource practices (HIHRP) work as a complementary capability for SCI, and thus, HIHRP moderates the relationship between SCI and firm productivity. This moderating role is analyzed through the following HIHRP dimensions, namely, ability-enhancing, motivation-enhancing and opportunity-enhancing practices framework.
Design/methodology/approach
Using empirical data collected from a survey of the agri-food sector (horticultural firms of southern Spain), the moderating effects of HIHRP on the relationship between supply chain external integrations (with customers and suppliers) and productivity are examined. Hierarchical regression analysis is used to test the proposed hypotheses.
Findings
The results support that HIHRP has a moderating effect on the SCI/productivity relationship. However, these results are only significant in the case of supplier integration.
Originality/value
This study analyzes HIHRP as a complementary asset in the context of SCI and makes both theoretical and managerial contributions to the SCI literature by empirically analyzing the role of HR practices in enhancing the relationship between SCI and performance.
The success of purchasing and supply management (PSM) largely depends on PSM professionals' skills levels. Past research assumed that one universal PSM professional type exists, and they have proposed one-size-fits-all PSM skillsets. However, PSM professionals have different objectives. Based on the data of an extensive survey conducted amongst European PSM professionals (n = 366), this study presents skillsets for seven objectives (reducing costs and improving delivery, quality, sustainability, strategic competitive advantage, supplier satisfaction and innovation). A differentiation is made between “necessary” and “sufficient” conditions for each objective's effectiveness. Within a new PSM-skills taxonomy, a hierarchy of skills is detected as one of the first categories that provide quantitative evidence that soft skills or personal skills are necessary conditions for carrying out hard skills or professional skills. Based on the proposed skillsets, university educators and firm trainers can draft teaching plans that support the intended outcome, while individual PSM professionals may get an orientation on how to develop their skills further.
As firms struggle to cope with an increasingly turbulent and uncertain economic environment there is widespread recognition of the importance of organisational learning. One option is to look at the potential of shared learning between firms, where common interests and interdependence provide motivation for experience sharing and other forms of synergy in learning. A particular version of inter-firm learning is the use of supply chains as a mechanism for upgrading and transferring “appropriate practice” and this article reports on exploratory research on this theme. It draws on a literature survey and a detailed study of six UK supply chains at various stages of implementing supply chain learning.
The need for multinational firms to be as competitive in the global marketplace as possible has increased dramatically over the past twenty years. For international human resource management this has meant many strategic opportunities to international human resource management. An excellent example of such an opportunity is that which exists regarding the management of talent. This opportunity began to develop in the late 1990s with the advent of the challenge of “global talent management.” During the past few years this opportunity has expanded to include challenges dealing with talent shortages, talent surpluses, locating and relocating talent, and compensation levels of talent. Together, these conditions are all “global talent challenges”. In this article we describe these several global talent challenges and the strategic opportunities they present to firms and propose the implications of these for firms and for the field of international human resource management.
Executive Overview
The economic landscape of the world is changing rapidly and becoming increasingly global. For virtually every medium-sized to large company in developed as well as developing economies, market opportunities, critical resources, cutting-edge ideas, and competitors lurk not just around the corner in the home market but increasingly in distant and often little-understood regions of the world as well. How successful a company is at exploiting emerging opportunities and tackling their accompanying challenges depends crucially on how intelligent it is at observing and interpreting the dynamic world in which it operates. Creating a global mindset is one of the central ingredients required for building such intelligence. In this article, we address the following issues: why mindset matters, what a global mindset is, the value of a global mindset, and finally, what companies can do to cultivate a global mindset.
We examine how UK universities view different topics within supply-chain management as seen in their research output and their postgraduate curricula and whether this view matches the relative emphasis on these aspects by UK-based employers when hiring. Using content analysis, we analysed: (1) UK-based supply-chain/logistics job advertisements, (2) abstracts of research articles by UK academics in supply-chain/logistics journals, and (3) the description of the postgraduate-level supply-chain/logistics degrees in UK universities. Our findings show that the overall research output of UK universities is broadly in line with employers’ needs with regards to the relative emphasis on different supply-chain topics. However, their relative emphasis on these topics in their teaching programmes is quite different. We suggest that universities need to look into their provision of academic programmes in relation to employers’ needs and need to look into how to leverage their research output better for this purpose.
The role of human capital as a source of competitive advantage has long been recognized; however, there has been little research into the competencies required in the supply chain management system. This paper strengthens the ties between supply chain and human resource management by examining the competencies inherent in successful supply chain management systems. Using structural equation modeling we assess the linkages between individual, network and inter-organizational competencies, investment in strategic partnership and firm performance. The findings reveal that both organizational awareness (competency at the individual level) and supply network competency (competency at the organizational level) have significant and positive effects on collaborative awareness. The importance of inter-organizational competencies is supported by the significant positive effect that collaborative awareness has on investment in strategic planning. Implications for human resource managers and supply chain managers are also provided.
Purpose
Motivated by a lack of studies in graduate level supply chain education, this research aims to explore trends in supply chain‐related graduate programmes in Europe and to propose a framework for designing such programmes.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors determine “knowledge” and “skills” areas applicable to supply chain management (SCM) education and analyse supply chain‐related graduate programmes published by the European Logistics Association in 2004. They revisit the same programmes in 2011 to determine the recent situation and the trends. The authors use cluster analysis to reveal the similarities and differences among these programmes.
Findings
The authors find two distinct clusters: focused and diversified. Focused programmes offer modules in knowledge and skills areas apart from SCM at a negligible level and place more emphasis on SCM in 2011 when compared to 2004. Diversified programmes show a similar increase in the emphasis on SCM with more variety in the knowledge and skills areas.
Research limitations/implications
The authors' findings are based on SCM programmes delivered in Europe and over two discrete time periods. Future research should seek to extend this analysis to other continents with larger samples and incorporate the industry perspective to determine the potential gap between what programmes offer and what industry requires.
Practical implications
SCM‐related graduate programmes continue to redefine themselves. Clustering predominantly serves the universities in re‐assessing and re‐engineering their programmes, helps prospective graduates in their selection process and assists managers in their recruitment practices.
Originality/value
This paper establishes a baseline for assessing SCM‐related graduate programmes with respect to the knowledge and skills they offer and introduces a framework that may serve as a starting point for the design and positioning of such programmes.
The authors address the growing call for research into the management of supply networks serving the public sector. Building on prior action research, this empirical paper focuses on the management of supply in interorganizational, health sector networks identifying the competence requirements (skills, knowledge, traits, and behavioural indicators) associated with effective team performance. Drawing on empirical data, the authors present a competence framework that aims to capture a team's tacit understanding of strategic supply management. Competence indicators are organized into six themes: network understanding; developing network position; relationship management; learning, knowledge and knowledge management; strategy formulation; strategy implementation. Finally, the relevance of the framework to boundary spanning personnel outside the purchasing function and to other organizations is considered.
Purpose
The purpose of the paper is to identify management and human resource (HR) practices that lead to satisfaction with the performance of an organization's supply chain as well as employee wellbeing, and to develop recommendations for practicing managers.
Design/methodology/approach
Adopting an empirical approach, a Delphi expert panel study was first carried out to identify the possible impact of supply chain integration, particularly with regard to human resource management (HRM) policies and practices. Then, using a survey of 228 supply chain professionals, hypotheses linking satisfaction with supply chain performance to non‐traditional HR practices, training, and team organization were tested.
Findings
The Delphi study identified specific HR practices, such as flexible job descriptions and teamwork training that would need to accompany successful supply chain integration. Regression results indicate that flexible job descriptions, team organization, teamwork training, and the use of performance metrics to determine rewards, are significantly related to satisfaction with supply chain performance.
Research limitations/implications
The Delphi results are subjective by nature and the cross‐sectional survey design limits inferences of causality.
Practical implications
This paper identifies management and HR practices that lead to satisfaction with supply chain performance, which is particularly relevant to modern industrial organizations where the trend is toward inter‐organizational networks in the form of integrated supply chains. Implications for employee wellbeing are also discussed.
Originality/value
This paper adopts an interdisciplinary approach and links HRM practice with supply chain management; two separate fields with their own research traditions.
Purpose – This research aims to provide a theoretical framework for exploring how firms can
respond to the growing threat of natural resource scarcity. Specifically, the role of closed-loop supply
chain management is examined as a means for creating resource advantages that can lead to
marketplace competitive advantages.
Design/methodology/approach – The research extends previous theoretical research, integrating
natural resource scarcity and closed-loop supply chain management for the first time.
Resource-advantage theory is employed as the theoretical lens for the research model and propositions.
Findings – The findings deepen understanding of the forces that create natural resource scarcity
conditions in the supply chain, and highlight the need for higher order closed-loop capabilities that
have the ability to mitigate natural resource scarcity.
Research limitations/implications – The theoretical model and six research propositions suggest
relationships between natural resource scarcity, closed-loop capabilities, and firm level performance
that need to be tested empirically. Future research opportunities and methodologies are suggested.
Practical implications – Growing natural resource scarcity is already having a major impact on
many firms and industries; therefore, this research has significant managerial implications due to
supply risks and potential disruptions caused by insufficient natural resources in current and future
supply chains.
Originality/value – This paper seeks to increase discussion about natural resource scarcity and
bring it into focus as a relevant supply chain topic related to closed-loop supply chain capabilities and
the internal firm level resources needed to ensure performance in a changing world.
Purpose
The purpose of this qualitative research study was to explore the requirements of leading in a global environment as perceived by the leaders participating in this study as well as the way these leaders learn and develop their global mindset.
Design/methodology/approach
The research methodology informed by social constructivism included in‐depth interviews with 24 global leaders that were analyzed using constant comparative and content analysis. The findings presented in this paper are part of a larger study on the meaning of global leadership and mindset. The framework for this research was guided by the Global Leadership Mindset (GLM) model developed by the authors and their colleagues.
Findings
Transcendence, plasticity of the mind (flexibility, thinking differently, rebalancing, openness, having multiple frames of reference), mindfulness, curiosity, and humility emerged as requirements of leading in the global environment. The global leaders' learning journeys were characterized by informal learning during everyday work and life experiences including learning from mistakes, and from and with others. Self‐reflection leading to the “self‐awareness of otherness” as well as reflection with others were at the core of learning and developing the global mindset of these leaders.
Practical implications
The findings of this study highlight the role of human resource development (HRD) professionals in facilitating self‐reflection and reflection with others – core processes for the learning and development of global mindset. HRD professionals are called to address both the “you don't know what you don't know” phenomenon by offering cross‐cultural training programs and experiential learning opportunities and the “you know what you don't know” daily challenges of global leaders and their team members. Initiatives that will incorporate self‐reflective and reflective processes will allow the participants to make meaning of their learning.
Originality/value
This is an initial attempt to explore the development of a global leadership mindset as informed by the GLM model with a focus on its learning component. The findings of this study could inform leaders preparing to work in global environments and HRD professionals called to develop learning environments and a learning culture in global workplaces.
Purpose
In the supply chain context, professionals manage various risks that have the potential to disrupt supplies. Surprisingly, one kind of risk is often overlooked: reputational risk. It is critical to recognise the risk potential that impacts on the reputation of the organisation. Furthermore, managers require an appropriate tool set to control it. The present paper aims to have a twin focus: first, it will lay out the basic premises behind corporate reputation, reputational risk, and corporate social responsibility (CSR). Second, the practical implications will be addressed that lead to a substantial teaching component.
Design/methodology/approach
The present paper is based on two research stages. Initially, the authors adopted the “reflective practitioner” philosophy that aimed at discovering the common beliefs in practice that explain working processes and management thought. In particular, they explored the foundation of CSR, reputation and risk management with specialists in dedicated workshops (electronics, energy, life sciences, telecommunications and defence industries, located at different stages of the supply chain). To gain more insight, the authors subsequently conducted in‐depth interviews in these topic areas with key informants. The combination allowed them methodological triangulation.
Findings
Reputation can be created and controlled as soon as its nature is fully understood (Reputational Owner). Interestingly, it is a transceiving business phenomenon that crosses organizational boundaries. Spillover effects can thus be observed at all stages of the supply chain by mere business association (Reputational Borrower). Reputation can range from positive to negative extremes and needs to be managed. The results of the authors' exploratory work are presented as quotations to provide the substance of the current and relevant subject.
Research limitations/implications
The present work is exploratory in nature. Quantitative research methods are now required to validate and substantiate the findings.
Practical implications
CSR is a contemporary foundation to mitigate reputational risk throughout the supply chain. The authors outline the reputational risk factors in this context and the ways of managing those.
Social implications
In the market place, reputation is a reflection of the supply chain offering (products, services), communication (promotion, PR), and action (behaviour and views expressed). Consumers adopt supply chain reputation as a yardstick when making purchase decisions. It is therefore critical to manage reputational risk in the supply chain and this paper outlines the cause and effect relationships that this topic entails in modern society.
Originality/value
This paper discusses the importance of reputational risk in the supply chain. It also explains the ways it can be mitigated via CSR. This is the management baseline that adds tremendous value for theory builders and present and future managers. Having the education of Master students in mind, the authors outline three specific teaching units that bring the conceptual underpinnings alive in an interactive learning environment.
The interest in strategic human resource management (HRM) has spawned a number of empirical research studies that investigated the impact of HRM practices on organizational performance. However, very little attention has been paid to address the impact of HRM practices on operations management and to generalize the findings across countries and industries. Success of some business decisions (e.g. globalization and merger and acquisition) necessitates recognition and reconciliation of the differences among HRM practices in different countries and industries. This study attempts to generalize the efficacy of seven HRM practices proposed by Pfeffer in the context of country and industry, focusing primarily on the effects of these practices on operations. The findings provide overall support for Pfeffer's seven HRM practices and empirically validate an ideal-type HRM system for manufacturing plants.
Theorists suggest that integrated manufacturing requires a compensation strategy that reinforces collective effort, professionalism, and flexibility. But several aspects of job design and organizational characteristics may mitigate a direct manufacturing-compensation relationship. Results of this study show virtually no direct effects of advanced technology, just-in-time inventory control, and total quality management on compensation practices. However, when integrated manufacturing is coupled with job characteristics that signal ''knowledge work,'' compensation systems tend to emphasize group-based incentives, salary, and seniority-based pay. Sources of organizational inertia moderate these relationships.
Purpose
Consultancies provide a beneficial teaching tool in linking industry with supply chain education. With the scarcity of supply chain talent and real life experience, there is a real interest in using consultancy modules to bring the two worlds closer. This research paper aims to explore the challenges faced by key stakeholders (clients, lecturers and students) who participate in a supply chain management (SCM) consultancy module.
Design/methodology/approach
Case study methodology is used to describe the challenges faced by the stakeholders in running a SCM consultancy module. Using the existing literature on consultancy module challenges as a point of departure, this paper explores these challenges within a SCM consultancy module. A triangulated research approach allowed capturing the views of the key stakeholders.
Findings
The findings confirmed that the case entailed all initial 13 challenges faced by key stakeholders, as well as four more challenges (health and safety risks; expertise assessment; depicting supply chain management boundaries; and SCM consultancy skills) which were relevant to the SCM field.
Research limitations/implications
The paper offers an insight into the challenges of teaching a supply chain management consultancy module and addresses the issues for academics to bridge the divide between theory and practice.
Practical implications
This paper assists supply chain educators in consultancy module development and helps companies willing to participate in such modules prepare for the challenges that they will encounter. It also contributes to debate on SCM difficulties in building business‐university collaboration.
Originality/value
Consultancy challenges observed in higher education have been based on individual cases and mainly covered in the marketing literature. This paper is the first case study that depicts all consultancy module challenges faced by key stakeholders and within the supply chain management subject; it highlights some subject relevant challenges for supply chain educators.
Purpose
This study attempts to list and rank the necessary skills required of a global logistics professional based on objective evaluations from industry.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper adopts a novel mixed‐methods approach using elements of concept mapping (brainstorming, multi‐dimensional scaling, cluster analysis), and link analysis. Concept mapping through repeated brainstorming by industry practitioners helps to summarize the key skill required of an effective global logistician. The multidimensional scaling method and cluster analysis support the classification and weighting of the capabilities into nine clusters. Link analysis helps to evaluate the significance of the results and addresses the gap between industry and academic perceptions of the existing global logistics curriculum in Taiwan.
Findings
In dealing with globalization, a logistician needs to be able to integrate, communicate, and analyze from an international perspective, perform financial analysis, maintain good industry and customer relations, exhibit strong people skills, stay healthy, and understand laws and regulations. Significant differences exist between industry practitioners and educators. The former believe that cross‐functional marketing skills are critical and emphasize the importance of risk and financial management. In contrast, logistics educators consider the traditional logistics management skills, such as demand forecasting, sourcing, planning, and system integration, as key priorities.
Research limitations/implications
There is room for research and theory on how to narrow the mismatch between the current logistics curricula in academia and practical requirements. Different pedagogical strategies and techniques can be further investigated to orchestrate an effective and balanced global logistics management course. One research limitation arises from the sample which is confined to Taiwan. Thus, the authors' findings may be constrained by local and cultural influences. Future research could extend to a large‐scale multi‐country data collection and analysis to reduce the possibility of cultural and context bias.
Practical implications
Arming students with such important but diverse global logistics skills presents a challenge for logistics educators who need to find the right balance between breadth and depth of the modules. Educators and practitioners need to work closely together to co‐design and adapt the logistics curricula for a rapidly changing global environment. This will help to shorten the last stage from the classroom to the workplace by keeping abreast of the changes in industry and produce relevant logisticians without compromising on rigour.
Originality/value
The results provide a reference for educators keen on blending logistics education course design with practitioner inputs, to better develop global logistics capabilities. It also provides a reference to help prioritize what skills are important to be taught jointly in a module.
Sustainable competitive advantage has proved elusive for companies in the 1990s. While making enormous investments in technology, research, and state-of-the-art marketing, many of today's managers continue to ignore the single most important factor in achieving and maintaining competitive success: people. Yet all evidence indicates that the source of competitive advantage is shifting from technology, patents, or strategic position to how a company manages its employees. In this excerpt from his newly published book, Competitive Advantage through People, Jeffrey Pfeffer describes how successful companies have overcome the barriers to change and offers a solid framework—with specific actions—for implementing these changes in any industry.
Recognizing that not all employees possess knowledge and skills that are of equal strategic importance, we draw on the resource-based view of the firm, human capital theory, and transaction cost economics to develop a human resource architecture of four different employment modes: internal development, acquisition, contracting, and alliance. We use this architecture to derive research questions for studying the relationships among employment modes, employment relationships, human resource configurations, and criteria for competitive advantage.
While there is little question that the logistician's role(s) and responsibilities have undergone dramatic change in recent years, managerial skills and knowledge remain the foundation of effective and efficient logistics management. With this in mind, this article uses Poist's (1984) BLM (Business, Logistics, Management) framework to compare skill requirements for senior-and entry-level logistics managers. The article reports findings from a survey of U.S.-based search firms that engage in the recruitment and placement of managers in logistics, transportation, supply chain management, and related fields. Consistent with previous research based on the BLM framework, results from the present study indicate that management skills are most important for both senior-and entry-level managers, followed in order by logistics skills and business skills. Having said this, the study finds strong differences between senior- and entry-level personnel within the business, logistics, and management components of the BLM framework.
In the prevalent rationalistic approaches, human competence at work is seen as constituted by a specific set of attributes, such as the knowledge and skills used in performing particular work. As an alternative to the rationalistic approaches, an interpretative approach, "phenomenography," is proposed and explored here. Findings suggest that the meaning work takes on for workers in their experience of it, rather than a specific set of attributes, constitutes competence. More specifically, the results demonstrate that the particular way of conceiving of work delimits certain attributes as essential and organizes them into a distinctive structure of competence at work.
Globalization of business has had a profound impact on organizations. The focus of management has shifted from a domestic one to a more complex understanding of how to compete effectively in the global marketplace. One element that has accentuated the need for managers to develop a global mindset is in the area of global supply-chain management. The need to modify and update the type of manager needed to manage global interorganizational relationships effectively has arrived. This theoretical research examines the growing importance of having the appropriate human resource management (HRM) processes to select, train, and retain competent global supply-chain managers. In addressing the human resource dimensions of successful global supply-chain management the growing importance of HRM in the management of supply chains is presented as a combination of resource-based (e.g. internal), market-based (e.g. external) and dynamic capabilities perspectives. In addition, selection, training and assessing the new ‘breed’ of global supply-chain managers is explored.
Supply chain management (SCM) plays a major role in creating (or destroying) shareholder value by influencing the three major drivers of firm financial performance: revenue, operating costs, and working capital. Yet, the relationship between SCM competency and firm financial performance is not well-established. Drawing on the resource-based view of the firm, this study assesses this relationship using Delphi-style opinion data from AMR Research’s Supply Chain Top 25 rankings to assess SCM competency and Altman’s (1968)Z-score statistic as the measure of financial success. The study findings show that firms recognized by industry experts for SCM competency have significantly higher Z-scores than their close competitors and industry averages.
Marketing efforts can offer firms a greater competitive advantage by overtly stimulating the impact of frontline logistics employees on customer value creation. In such a situation, internal marketing becomes the strategy of choice in both service and product support contexts. A broad marketing mix framework is introduced shifting the traditional application from marketing products to marketing the workplace to logistics distribution employees. Research findings support a multidimensional operationalization of internal marketing. Holistic tests indicate that internal marketing on an interpersonal level is associated with satisfied and higher performing distribution center employees and increased interdepartmental customer orientation.
Logistic skills are of importance for employment and career development, and prior research has highlighted differences in skill requirements for different logistics functions as well as for different groups of logisticians. However, the continuing incidence of natural disasters and complex emergencies and their associated challenges including the requirement to build relationships with diverse stakeholders, has increased the demand for humanitarian logisticians—but there is, as yet, little understanding of which skills are important in this context. This article develops a conceptual framework for skills in the field of humanitarian logistics, and evaluates the framework through a content analysis of job advertisements with a special focus on the 2010 Haiti earthquake. This analysis concludes that humanitarian logisticians need a broad spectrum of functional skills (such as procurement, and warehouse and transport management) that must often be held in some depth. In addition, however, humanitarian logisticians need “contextual” skills that reflect their particular field of employment (such as security management and a comprehensive knowledge of donor regulations). It is suggested that such contextual skills are likely to feature in other areas of logistic employment, and that further research to identify these would lead to improvements in training and education programs.
Purpose
This paper aims to provide the results of a large‐scale survey of courses dedicated to the field of logistics in higher education. This research is unique because it represents the first large‐scale study of both undergraduate and graduate logistics courses.
Design/methodology/approach
Content analysis was performed on each syllabus to identify the actual course coverage: requirements, pedagogy and content emphasis. Content analysis is a descriptive approach to categorize data and the results may be limited by the categorizations used in analysis. This aggregated information was utilized to compare historical research findings in this area with the current skills identified as important for career success. These data provide input for gap analysis between offerings in higher education and those needs identified by practitioners.
Findings
Data gathering efforts yielded a sample of 118 logistics courses representing 77 schools and six different countries. The aggregate number of topics covered in undergraduate courses totalled 95, while graduate courses covered 81 different topics. The primary evaluation techniques include the traditional exams, projects and homework. Details regarding learning objectives and grading schema are provided along with a gap analysis between the coverage of logistics courses and the needs identified by practitioners.
Originality/value
The goal is to use these data as a means of continuous improvement in the quality and value of the educational experience. The findings are designed to foster information sharing and provide data for benchmarking efforts in the development of logistics courses and curricula in academia as well as training and development by professionals in the field of logistics.
This paper reviews 726 academic research studies covering logistics and supply chain management (L&SCM) applications within a global context. Articles are analyzed according to their publication year and outlet, common themes, and countries or regions investigated. The sample was drawn from ABI/INFORM’s Global database which includes almost 1,800 journal titles. The review offers a starting point for any researcher, graduate student, faculty member or practitioner delving into the realm of international L&SCM applications. The article also serves as a motivation and inspiration to continue this exciting area of research, and draws attention to the wide array of global L&SCM studies conducted, their settings and viewpoints. This paper helps in the advancement of the field by highlighting some of the most interesting works and drawing attention to lesser-researched countries and regions of the world. The overview also provides an introduction for practitioners and managers to what academic research has covered in the area of global L&SCM. Practitioners can use this review as a starting point for the identification of relevant and useful references for their particular task.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to describe how to implement mixed methods research in supply chain management.
Design/methodology/approach
A review of past journal analyses on research methods used in supply chain management‐related disciplines is conducted to demonstrate the low incidence of mixed methods research in supply chain management. Drawing from literature on multiple and mixed methods research, the paper provides guidelines for designing and reporting such studies.
Findings
Knowledge development in logistics and supply chain management relies primarily on single‐method quantitative research designs, while mixed methods approaches are rarely used. Thus, there is a significant opportunity to advance the discipline through the rigorous application of mixed methods research.
Research limitations/implications
Supply chain management phenomena are complex and dynamic. Thus, the application of mixed methods research would serve the advancement of the discipline as these approaches provide richer understanding and more robust explanations of such phenomena.
Practical implications
If supply chain research is to keep up with the dynamic business environment, research methods must be applied with the capability to fully explain supply chain phenomena. The application of a single‐method research approach is not always adequate for this task.
Originality/value
This paper is the first to draw on research from various disciplines to investigate the use of mixed methods in logistics and supply chain management research. It examines its prevalence in the discipline, provides examples of its application from the supply chain management literature, prescribes how to implement mixed methods research, and describes the benefits and limitations of such designs.
Purpose
– There is an ongoing shortage of talented supply chain managers with the necessary skills and business-related competencies to manage increasingly complex and strategically important supply chain processes. The purpose of this paper is to propose that organizations can create and maintain competitive advantage by leveraging the expertise of human resource development (HRD) professionals to provide a range of developmental and change-oriented interventions related to critical supply chain manager skill sets that are currently in short supply.
Design/methodology/approach
– This is a conceptual paper.
Findings
– This is a conceptual paper.
Practical implications
– Supply chain management (SCM) decisions significantly influence financial performance since firms expend up to 75 percent of their revenue on supply chain activities. HRD professionals' intervention capabilities in training and development, organizational development and change management uniquely equip them to disseminate a deeper and broader understanding of the SCM concept within organizations, to help prioritize the development of supply chain managers and to address the complex interpersonal issues associated with helping people to work together collaboratively to foster operational innovation and make increasingly complex supply chain processes function effectively.
Originality/value
– The requisite skill sets for effective supply chain managers are described, linkages between HRD and SCM are highlighted, and areas of HRD professionals' expertise that can be exploited to better develop supply chain managers' skill sets and competencies are considered.
Purpose
– The purpose of this research is to investigate the dynamics and dimensions of behaviors of supply chain employees that may impede the success of supply chain relationships.
Design/methodology/approach
– A grounded theory qualitative method was used to explore the concept of counterproductive work behavior in a supply chain context.
Findings
– Through analysis and evaluation of the data, five key supply chain counterproductive work behaviors (avoiding, withholding, emoting, confounding, and shifting) emerged. Overall, these behaviors are associated with perceived contract breaches, which undermines trust within supply chain relationships.
Research limitations/implications
– This work provides a basis for researchers to explore counterproductive work behaviors within supply chain management and managers to consider these behaviors in relational exchange. Future research can build on the insights provided here by applying quantitative methods to exploring the phenomenon and investigating counterproductive behaviors from the actor's perspective.
Originality/value
– This research provides an overarching framework for relationship management behaviors that may detract from supply chain relationships. Research has previously explored these types of behaviors in a segmented fashion. This work takes a comprehensive look at behaviors and through evaluation of the data, relational and informational contract breaches emerge. The data suggests these contract breaches may undermine the trust within supply chain relationships.
Purpose
The purpose of this overview is to provide a brief introduction to the theme of the special issue, the expert commentary, and six papers included in the special issue. The authors conclude by articulating four avenues of future research that are likely to contribute significantly towards building work‐environments in which employees and organizations can flourish.
Design/methodology/approach
The International Journal of Manpower 's usual double blind review process was used to select the six papers from various parts of the world including Estonia, USA, Australia, Brazil, and Israel that focus on important aspects of the changing work environment and its influence on employee wellbeing. The papers represent a wide variety of research designs, methodologies, and analytic strategies used to investigate the influence of changing work environment on employee wellbeing. An expert commentary provides an overview of current scholarship on changes occurring in the work environment and its impact on employee wellbeing.
Findings
The findings of the studies included in this special issue provide insights into six specific work‐environmental issues influencing employee wellbeing, including workplace bullying; inter‐organizational networks; professional contractor well‐being; inter‐generational differences; commitment and intention to leave; and work‐engagement.
Practical implications
Each article includes practical implications with regard to promotion of employee wellbeing.
Originality/value
Taken as a collective, the six papers in this special issue highlight frontier issues in the relationship between changing work environment and employee wellbeing. The expert commentary provides an easy to access summary of the current scholarship in the area and specifies fruitful areas for future research.
