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Abstract—In order to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic, many
companies face numerous strategic decisions of utmost
importance for their future. Being aware of one`s objectives is a
prerequisite for sound decision making. However, decision and
policy makers are often not aware of their objectives when facing
important decisions in “normal” times. In addition, specific
objectives have to be identified in times of crisis such as the
Covid-19 pandemic. In this paper, we provide guidelines for
managers that illustrate (i) how to identify company objectives,
(ii) how to align them within their supply chains and with
governmental objectives of policy makers and (iii) how to adjust
objectives during and after the Covid-19 pandemic.
Furthermore, we suggest comprehensive sets of relevant
objectives and propose an iterative process to define, align and
adjust objectives. The study may help practitioners from business
and public administration when making decisions and policies.
Researchers may be inspired by the outlined viewpoints on
decision-making processes and the addressed perspectives for
future research.
Keywords— CEO Decision-Making, Decision Analysis,
Objectives, Supply Chain, Covid-19 Pandemic
I. INTRODUCTION
HE Covid-19 pandemic has dramatic consequences for
individuals, companies and societies. Many firms are
affected not only directly by the pandemic but also indirectly
by management decisions of their supply chain partners and
by changes in the business environment resulting from
decisions taken by policy makers (Xu et al., 2020; Dewick et
al., 2020). In business segments such as the hospitality and
tourism sector or the entertainment industry, companies may
even not be able to continue their operations and will have to
substantially adapt their business model due to the Covid-19
pandemic (Gurbuz and Ozkan, 2020; Rebillard, 2020; Richter,
2020; Suresh et al., 2020).
The paper was submitted for review on 17-June-2020 and resubmitted after
revision on 5-October-2020.
J. U. Siebert is professor at Management Center Innsbruck, Department
Business and Management, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria.
M. Brandenburg is professor at Flensburg University of Applied Sciences,
School of Business, Kanzleistr. 91-93, 24943 Flensburg, Germany (e-mail:
marcus.brandenburg@ hs-flensburg.de) and adjunct professor at University of
Kassel, Chair of Supply Chain Management, Kleine Rosenstr. 1-3, 34117
Kassel, Germany.
J. Siebert is professor at Palacky University Olomouc, Faculty of Arts,
Department of Applied Economics, 779 00 Olomouc, Czech Republic
In order to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic, decisions have
to be made on the micro level of a single firm and aligned on
the meso level of the supply network as well as on the macro
level of the political environment. Management decisions on
the micro level of a single firm are related to what and how
much shall be produced and if the product assortment shall
substantially be changed. Examples include car manufacturers
and textile companies that begin to produce face masks or
ventilators, respectively (Naughton and Stein, 2020; Nicola,
2020). Management decisions on the meso level of a supply
chain aim at ensuring continuous component supply and
product delivery or focus on adapting the supply network
(Ivanov, 2020a; Okorie et al., 2020; Queiroz et al., 2020; Xu
et al., 2020). Some of the related strategic decisions are
irreversible and, thus, will shape the future of companies and
their supply networks (Ishida, 2020). On the macro level,
decisions made on the micro and meso level are
complemented (and often complicated) by political decisions
of policy makers that affect the economy and the business
environment of companies and their value chains (Gosavi and
Marley, 2020). Being confronted with substantial threats of
the population, legal authorities and governments (need to)
make decisions that change demands, restrict material flows
and limit manufacturing, logistics and service operations.
Examples range from social distancing regulations for
manufacturers (GMB, 2020) and work from home (Dixit et al.,
2020) over transport restrictions within the European Union
(European Commission, 2020b) to governments ordering
personal protection equipment in large amounts (Armour,
2020; DW 2020). Other political decisions motivate, urge or
even oblige firms to expand their production capacity and to
adapt their manufacturing technology in order to fabricate
medical devices (BMWi, 2020; Leary, 2020) during public
supply shortages (Ranney et al., 2020).
In reaction to these new challenges, consulting services
offer decision support to managers in companies of global
value chains (Alicke et al., 2020; Lund et al., 2020) while
policy makers of supernational institutions and organizations
provide guidelines for trade procedures and border
management in order to maintain trade and material flows and
to ensure the availability of goods and services (European
Commission, 2020; World Bank Group, 2020). However, such
measures hardly reduce the risk and the complexity of the
decision situations during the pandemic crisis which in turn
Defining and aligning supply chain objectives
before, during and after the COVID-19
pandemic
Johannes Ulrich Siebert, Marcus Brandenburg, Jana Siebert
T
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lets managers as well as policy makers struggle with decision
making. These difficulties are amplified by suboptimal
reactive and backwards-oriented thinking of the decision
makers (Keeney, 1992).
Many decision or policy makers are reactive in their
decisions and usually choose the default alternative to change
nothing until they have to do something (Tversky and
Kahneman, 1974). A decision or policy maker who has to deal
with a decision problem quickly identifies the obvious
alternatives and then spends substantial effort in evaluating
them. Due to this so-called alternative-focused thinking, the
best options may not be identified and therewith cannot be
implemented (Siebert and Keeney, 2015). Instead, Keeney
(1992) recommends identifying the values first, translating
them into objectives, and then using these to create more and
better options. Recent empirical studies provide evidence
which suggest that prompting with objectives leads to more
and better options (Siebert and Keeney, 2015; Siebert, 2016).
Especially in times of a crisis, strategies of reactive
alternative-focused thinking and decision-making lead to
suboptimal results (Siebert and Keeney, 2020). Even in
“normal” times, many decision and policy makers are not
aware of all possible objectives when facing an important
decision situation (Bond et al. 2008). In times of an
unforeseen crisis, the set of objectives is even more likely to
be incomplete. Hence, decision makers should apply value-
focused thinking to maintain or ideally strengthen their firm’s
position during the crisis.
In this paper, we outline approaches to identify objectives
for a company and to harmonize them within the supply chain
and with governmental (politico-economic) objectives.
Furthermore, we propose a set of objectives that might be
useful when making high-quality decisions. We also suggest a
procedure to adjust objectives in times of a crisis such as the
Covid-19 pandemic. Based on these approaches, we develop
an iterative process of defining, aligning and adjusting
objectives.
The remainder of this paper is structured as follows. The
next section informs about the background of this study and
the applied research methods. Sect. III elaborates on
identifying objectives in supply chains, while Sect. IV puts a
focus on the Covid-19 pandemic. Concluding remarks are
given in Sect. V.
II. INFORMATION ON BACKGROUND AND METHODS
A. Background
The particularities of the specific (long- or short-term)
decision situation need to be considered when defining
objectives within an organization (Keeney, 1992). However,
managers often stick to general objectives instead of defining
specific ones, just like the phenomenon observed at the use of
a generic scorecard. Kaplan and Norton (1996) designed a
merely generic balanced scorecard and strongly recommended
substantially modifying this template according to special
requirements in order to reveal the full potential. However,
most companies simply use the generic scorecard template or
just a slightly adjusted version.
Nowadays, it is not sufficient to focus only on the own
organization. Objectives need to be aligned across the supply
chain (Oliva and Watson, 2011), but this is often complicated
by information updating (Shen et al., 2019) and information
asymmetries (Vosooghidizaji et al., 2020). Moreover, the
behavior of different supply chain actors is motivated by local
management control systems in such a way that it is not
congruent to the overall supply chain objectives (van Veen-
Dirks and Verdaasdonk, 2009). Further complexity is added
by the need for aligning objectives between supply chain
members and with legal authorities. Such an alignment is
needed when intentions of policy makers influence or modify
the business environment, e.g. when government interventions
meet supply chain governance systems (Vermeulen and Kok,
2012) or when governmental subsidies affect formation and
operation of supply networks (Ma et al., 2013). However,
structured approaches for the alignment or adjustment of
objectives are seldom found in scientific research.
Effective decision-making and thus appropriate goal setting
is required in general and even more during periods of a crisis
such as the Covid-19 pandemic. Restarting and successfully
recovering an organization from a major disaster without
missteps that prolong the recovery phase is a challenge for
managers (Trybula and Newberry, 2020). Thus, leadership is
important to accomplish the required organizational
transformation to the “next” or “new” normal after a pandemic
or crisis (Pozner, 2020). Radical transformation and a quick
reshape of the management control system are critical success
factors for organizational transformation during the Covid-19
pandemic (Gil, 2020). In order to survive during a challenging
and threatening period of change, a supply chain should be
able to simultaneously maximize profitability, restore system
operations and performance, maintain the supply chain
existence and secure the provision of products or services to
the society (Ivanov, 2020b). However, the direction of change
and transformation depends on the specific setting and
strongly differs between various industries. For example,
during the Covid-19 pandemic, the automotive industry shifts
towards centralized management models while personal
computer manufacturers take advantage of their global supply
chains and the home furnishing sector requires tighter vertical
integration (Ishida, 2020). Consequently, context-specific
objectives have to be defined and aligned. In addition, it must
be noted that an objective that is appropriate for one
organization is not necessarily suitable for the other.
These insights illustrate that managers need to be aware of
and focus on appropriate objectives in order to successfully
lead their organizations through a crisis period and reshape
them afterwards. However, literature on the ability to create a
complete and comprehensive set of objectives for
organizations is scarce. A notable exception is Keeney (1999)
who interviewed decision makers at Seagate Technology
1
and
identified 39 distinct objectives in 8 categories and
1
In the 1990s, Seagate Technology was the world’s largest manufacturer
of disc drives and components.
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furthermore revealed that, on average, one individual
identified only about one third of the objectives. These results
are confirmed by a more recent, yet unpublished study
conducted by Johannes Siebert and his colleagues with 20 key
decision makers of a large energy supplier in Europe. In a
series of three studies, Bond et al. (2008) detected that
decision makers were able to identify only about half of the
objectives they subsequently assessed as relevant and that the
objectives identified with and without help were of similar
importance to the decision makers. Keeney (1994, p. 798)
pointed out that “the most obvious way to identify objectives
is to discuss the decision situation with decision-makers” and
recommended several techniques to identify objectives.
Applying these techniques, Kunz et al. (2016) identified 698
distinct objectives for a medium-sized media company.
Identifying objectives is even more important when a joint
and cooperative setting is not in place. Keeney and von
Winterfeldt (2010) developed an approach to identify
objectives of enemies or terrorist groups based on available
primary sources, such as direct statements by terrorist leaders
and observed actions by terrorist groups, and secondary
sources including reports on and interpretations of terrorist
statements and actions. Siebert et al. (2016) extended this
method by a review of structured expert interviews and
applied it to elicit fundamental and strategic objectives of
leaders and followers of the ISIL terrorist group.
B. Application Context
The background information given in Subsect. 2.A
illustrates that research is required on the question how to
identify, align and adjust objectives before, during and after
times of crisis within an organization and across the supply
chain. Rather than providing comprehensive answers to this
question, we provide starting points for further discussion,
scientific research and management action. The decision-
making approach proposed in this paper is inspired by and
based on Keeney’s (1992) idea of value-focused thinking.
Since decision makers “benefit greatly from a ‘master list’
that provides an abundance of potential decision objectives”
(Bond et al., 2008, p. 69), we create such master lists to inspire
practitioners as well as researchers who deal with decision
making in times of Covid-19. Most of these objectives for
decision situations during the Covid-19 pandemic are derived
from scientific literature and complemented by practitioners’
reports. Additional objectives are identified by semi-structured
interviews conducted with leading experts from scientific
research and executives from management practice. Based on
these insights, the proposed conceptual framework is designed
in theoretical desk research.
III. IDENTIFICATION OF OBJECTIVES IN SUPPLY CHAINS
A. Identifying intra-organizational objectives
Although identifying objectives is of utmost importance for
business success, many decision makers are not always fully
aware of all relevant objectives in important decision
situations (Bond et al., 2008). Objectives need to reflect the
specific business environment of a firm, in particular its
competitors and supply chain partners. However, many
decisions are made based on generic objectives. Such a set of
generic objectives surely may serve as a starting point.
Nevertheless, decision makers should necessarily identify a
comprehensive set of objectives that are relevant to their
specific decision problem and the business context of their
organization.
In practice, many companies consider only the obvious
generic objectives such as minimize costs, maximize quality,
minimize delivery time or maximize resilience. There are two
reasons for this behavior. First, managers often behave
reactively in their decision making (Siebert and Kunz, 2016)
and have become accustomed to considering the objectives
they considered in similar decision situations in the past
(Keeney, 1992). Instead of framing their decisions
strategically from a bird’s-eye view and considering other
decisions proactively and in a future-oriented manner, many
decision makers deal with challenges reactively and
operatively in isolation from other decisions and with the
limited sight from a worm’s-eye view (Siebert and Kunz,
2016). Second, although decisions makers might be willing to
think broadly and identify additional relevant objectives in
times of disruptive changes or a crisis such as the Covid-19
pandemic, they often lack the knowledge, expertise or
experience about the new decision context. For example,
many people did not even know which objectives they should
consider in their personal decisions concerning Covid-19
before spring 2020. The same applies for organizational
decision makers, especially in case of many organizational
entities.
Any decision should be driven by values which can be
specified with objectives. In case of individual decision
making it is obvious who should be asked to identify the
values and objectives. However, in practice, many decisions
involve multiple stakeholders and decision makers. Therefore,
it is often unclear who is supposed to articulate the values and
objectives, especially in a large or complex organization.
Particularly in terms of complex decision problems, it is not
clear a priori who holds responsibility because many
departments may be affected by the decision. Moreover,
decision processes often evolve over a period of time, during
which additional decision makers may be consulted.
Consequently, interested individuals with a knowledgeable
background should identify the objectives for a decision
situation (Keeney, 1992). In practice, it is therefore
recommended to gather objectives from a sufficiently large
and diverse group of decision makers that encompasses all
possible concerned management levels (Bond et al., 2008).
A simple wish list in which the decision-makers articulate
what they value or want to achieve often is a good starting
point to identify objectives. Thinking about alternatives,
problems and shortcomings, consequences, goals, constraints
and guidelines can further stimulate the identification of
objectives. Another technique is to address the problem from
different perspectives, e.g. the future concerns of competitors.
Furthermore, categorizing objectives as strategic, fundamental
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or means, as well as structuring and quantifying them, can
stimulate thinking and help identifying additional objectives
(Keeney, 1992). Mind-probing methods as listed in Table 1
can be applied to identify objectives if the decision makers are
accessible and willing to contribute. This is usually the case
when the decision situation concerns decision makers’
organization.
The standard approach to identifying objectives involves
interviews with organizational leaders, decision makers and
stakeholders. In a first step, the decision makers are
interviewed individually and initial lists with the objectives of
each decision maker are created. In the second step, these
initial lists are aggregated to a comprehensive master list. In
the third step, additional objectives are identified based on the
master list in a group discussion. If an organization is not
willing or able to spend this effort, it can be very useful to
consult a master list of objectives which was created for a
similar decision problem.
It needs to be clarified how many objectives should be
identified in an organization, because too many objectives are
not helpful in practice. The master list of objectives should
contain about 30 to 50 objectives covering the areas of all
strategic decisions to provide a sound basis for choosing the
relevant objectives in a certain decision situation (Keeney,
1999). Table 2 shows a list of 33 possible company objectives
for present and future times that resulted from expert
interviews, workshops and literature research conducted by
the authors. In accordance with Brandenburg (2018), we
recommend using four to seven fundamental objectives when
evaluating alternatives and up to a dozen objectives when
using objectives as prompts to create alternatives.
Studies on the balanced scorecard (see, e.g., Kaplan and
Norton, 1996; Figge et al., 2002) show that objectives should
be grouped into different categories. Hence, we suggest five
different categories for illustrative purposes: foundations of
current success, operating business and output as well as
future strategic opportunities and foundations of future
success. Some of these objectives, e.g. time-based or financial
ones, can easily be quantified and measured by key
performance indicators (Bishop, 2018). Others represent
qualitative targets which can be measured and steered by an
adequate proxy. For example, “minimize environmental
degradation” could be measured with the carbon footprint
based on the assumption that there is a causal relationship
between carbon footprint and environmental degradation. For
many other objectives, it is not so easy to derive a numerical
measurement, e.g., there is no obvious numerical scale to
measure the objectives “maximize decision readiness”,
“maximize flexibility”, or “survive and flourish”. For such
qualitative objectives, the decision maker can construct
linguistic scales, apply Likert scales or use school grades
(Siebert and von Nitzsch, 2018, 2020). In any case, the
interdependencies between interrelated objectives need to be
considered when quantifying or measuring the objectives by
metrics or proxies and when controlling and steering the
business (see, e.g., Brandenburg, 2018, for the management of
conflictive and complementary objectives).
TABLE I
MIND-PROBING METHODS TO IDENTIFY ORGANIZATION’S OBJECTIVES
(BASED ON KEENEY, 1992)
A wish list
What do you want? What do you value? What should
you want?
Alternatives
What is a perfect alternative, a terrible alternative,
some reasonable alternative? What is good or bad
about each?
Problems and
shortcomings
What is wrong or right with your organization? What
needs fixing?
Consequences
What has occurred that was good or bad? What might
occur what you care about?
Goals,
constraints and
guidelines
What are your aspirations? What limitations are
placed upon you?
Different
perspectives
What would your competitors, customers, or your
electorate be concerned about?
Strategic
objectives
What are your organization’s ultimate objectives?
What are your values that are fundamental?
Generic
objectives
What environmental, social, economic or safety
objectives are important?
Structuring
objectives
Follow means-end relationships: why is that objective
important, how can you achieve it?
Use specification: What do you mean by this
objective?
Quantification of
objectives
How would you measure achievement of an
objective?
Master list of
objectives
Which objective from the provided master list is
relevant for the decision problem?
TABLE II
EXAMPLES OF OBJECTIVES OF A COMPANY IN PRESENT AND FUTURE TIMES
Objectives for present times
Future-oriented objectives
Foundations of current success
• Maximize employees`
satisfaction
• Provide quality leadership
• Develop a high-quality
workforce
• Have a good work
environment
• Make high-quality decisions
Future strategic opportunities
• Gain competitive edge
• Become technology, cost, or
quality leader
• Identify and invest in trends
early
• Identify new business models
Operating business
• Minimize costs
• Minimize cost of capital
• Maximize market share
• Gain new customers
• Maximize quality
• Minimize time
• Minimize environmental
degradation
• Minimize negative social
impacts
• Operate effectively
• Operate efficiently
• Maximize customer
experience
Foundations of future success
• Maximize flexibility
• Maximize resilience
• Maximize agility
• Minimize risks
• Maximize responsiveness
• Maximize innovativeness
• Maximize decision readiness
• Balance product/service
portfolio
Output
• Maximize profit
• Maximize shareholder value
• Survive and flourish
• Create value
• Provide benefits to
stakeholders
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To sum up, five recommendations serve as guidelines for
the identification of intra-organizational objectives on the
micro level:
1. Define specific objectives.
2. Involve an informed group of knowledgeable experts.
3. Conduct expert interviews and apply mind-probing
methods.
4. Select 4 to 7 fundamental objectives from a master list
of 30 to 50 objectives and group them into different
categories.
5. Measure objectives by metrics or proxies and consider
interdependencies between interrelated objectives.
B. Identifying and harmonizing objectives on the inter-
organizational level
The identification of intra-organizational objectives can
only be the starting point. Aligning objectives on the meso
level across the supply chain and on the macro level with
governmental policy makers is required. On the meso level of
supply networks, managers should ensure that all individual
objectives of each supply chain member are harmonized. This
is required to prevent unsynchronized and heterogeneous
objectives that would result in unclear directions and
misleading decisions when managing the whole network.
Company objectives need to be aligned across the supply
chain, because competition is shifted from single firms to
supply chains (Christopher, 2005). In the alignment process, it
is possible to identify and align objectives of many supply
chain members in interviews or in joint workshops with the
help of the mind-probing methods listed in Table 1.
Unfortunately, it may not be possible to involve all supply
chain members into the process of aligning objectives. Given
the fact that most supply networks comprise hundreds of
cooperating firms ranging across many different tiers, the
group of supply chain actors who are actively involved into
objective alignment process may deliberately be limited to key
customers and suppliers due to complexity reasons.
Furthermore, power asymmetries may prevent larger
companies from getting involved into alignment processes
initiated by smaller firms in their network. If a supply chain
member does not actively participate in the alignment process,
the methods listed in Table 1 are not suitable for the
identification of objectives. However, it is possible to identify
also the (main) objectives of supply chain members who do
not actively participate in the alignment process. Every
organization informs about its values and objectives, either
voluntarily (e.g., to show that they are “green” to gain new
customers or investors) or obligatorily (e.g., to comply with
reporting regulations). Thus, primary and secondary sources of
not actively involved supply chain members may inform about
their main objectives. If there is no direct access to supply
chain members, we recommend studying open source
material. This approach, which was successfully tested to
identify objectives of (uncooperative) terrorist groups (Keeney
and von Winterfeldt, 2010; Siebert et al., 2016), can be
applied to identify objectives of supply chain members who
are not actively involved in the alignment process. The ones
who are willing but not able to participate in the alignment
process may help compiling related material and complement
it by providing confidential information.
Inter-organizational objectives need to reflect process
orientation and collaboration that characterizes every supply
chain. They may serve as constraints for intra-organizational
objectives of individual supply chain members. For example,
if a firm that strives for carbon footprint minimization operates
in a supply chain that aims at accelerating the material flow,
the single firm must still achieve a pre-defined threshold for
material flow speed when reducing carbon emissions. Such
thresholds as well as supply chain objectives can be defined
jointly and fixed by contracts or agreements between the
supply chain partners.
A set of process- and collaboration-oriented supply chain
objectives is listed in Table 3. The process-oriented objectives
are in line with Stock & Boyer (2009) who distinguish
between three types of flows by which companies are linked
in supply chains. The collaboration-oriented objectives reflect
the idea of value-creation, value-capture and value-sharing in
the supply chain (Yücesan, 2007; Brandenburg, 2013).
To sum up, five recommendations serve as guidelines for
the inter-organizational alignment of objectives across the
supply chain:
1. Conduct interviews or joint workshops with supply
chain partners to identify and align objectives.
2. Use information material to identify objectives of
supply chain members who are not willing or able to
actively participate in the alignment process.
3. Reflect process orientation and collaboration in the
supply chain objectives.
4. Supply chain objectives may serve as constraints for
intra-organizational objectives of single firms.
5. Fix supply chain objectives and thresholds in
agreements or contracts.
In addition to the supply chain-wide alignment of objectives
on the meso level, all supply chain members need to
harmonize their objectives on macro level with the ones of
policy makers from governments and legal authorities.
Governmental objectives may represent constraints or
guidelines for supply chain management, just like the
harmonized supply chain objectives may serve as constraints
for objectives of single firms. Only if business objectives are
in accordance with governmental ones, firms can benefit from
governmental incentives (subsidies, etc.) and minimize
TABLE III
EXAMPLES OF SUPPLY CHAIN OBJECTIVES
Process-oriented objectives
Collaboration-oriented objectives
• Improve flow of information
• Improve flow of money
• Improve flow of goods
• Maximize commitment to
supply chain partners
• Intensify collaboration within
the supply chain
• Distribute profit fairly across
the supply chain
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governmental penalties (fees, surcharges, additional taxes,
etc.). For the alignment process on the macro level, similar
approaches apply as for the meso level alignment of objectives
across the supply chain. If policy makers are able and willing
to actively participate in the alignment process, they may be
interviewed by supply chain managers or involved in
workshops. Else, it is possible to identify objectives of policy
makers who are not willing or able to be involved in the
alignment process (just like for supply chain members who do
not participate in the alignment process): Managers may
extract information on (socio-economic) objectives of legal
authorities from governmental publications, announcements,
laws and regulations or other accessible sources.
A formal process to align objectives between firms, supply
chains and legal authorities is not always required to ensure or
maximize business success. In “normal” times with politically
stable contexts, the (socio-economic) objectives of policy
makers are represented by laws and regulations which firms
must follow and by subsidies and other governmental
incentives which companies may want to gain. However, in
times of instability, fundamental changes or crises, this
regulatory mechanism may not work efficiently or fast
enough. In such cases, the continuous alignment of objectives
on macro level is recommended (maybe even required) to
ensure that the objectives of all involved parties are met (or at
least not substantially missed).
To sum up, five recommendations serve as guidelines for
the inter-organizational alignment of objectives with policy
makers:
1. Supply chain objectives must be in accordance with
governmental objectives.
2. Methods similar to those suggested for individual
companies help aligning objectives with policy makers
and across the supply chain.
3. Governmental objectives may represent constraints or
guidelines for the supply chain and each of its
members.
4. In “normal” times, a formal process is not required to
align governmental and business objectives.
5. In “exceptional” times of change or crisis, a formal
process may help aligning the objectives efficiently.
IV. 4 HOW TO REFLECT THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC BY
APPROPRIATE OBJECTIVES
For several reasons, it is likely that company and supply chain
objectives need to be changed in the Covid-19 pandemic or a
similar crisis. First, the business itself most likely is affected,
e.g. by changing requirements of demand markets or supply
disruptions. Second, it is very likely that the crisis also affects
the supply chain and the whole business environment. Third,
policy makers probably change or adapt legal and regulatory
conditions under which companies and supply chains are
operated.
The crisis situation needs to be analyzed and reflected by
decision makers from management and business
administration as well as by policy makers from government
and public administration. This analysis needs to reveal which
changes and adaptations are required and how the objectives
have to be adjusted in order to cope with the new situation
caused by the pandemic. Recent studies show that objectives
substantially changed as a reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic.
On the intra-organizational level, car producers strived for
centralized management models while computer
manufacturers tried to take advantage of their global supply
networks (Ishida, 2020). Supply chains and their members
may complement their main objective to maximize profit by
additional objectives to restore systems operations and
performance and to secure the society with product supply
(Ivanov, 2020b). Objectives of governments and policy
makers also changed and, in addition, differed between
countries and varied over time. For example, in the early
phase of the Covid-19 pandemic the legal authorities in
Germany were very reluctant to set up containment measures
and later implemented a lockdown as a ‘curve flattening’
measure which was much stricter than the measures taken by
the Swedish government which aimed at achieving herd
immunity and widely relied on the common sense of the
people as a collective (Jung et al., 2020; Orlowski and
Goldsmith, 2020). The U.K. government first followed a herd
immunity strategy and strived for getting 60% of the
population recovered from infection before they substantially
changed the strategy and tried to reduce the number of
infections by a lockdown which was much stricter than the
one in Germany (Hunter, 2020). Large differences between
the objectives of different governments as well as considerable
and rapid changes in the strategy and the objectives of legal
authorities are apparent. Clearly, the governmental reactions to
the Covid-19 pandemic strongly affected companies and
supply chains as illustrated by, e.g., lockdown impacts on
manufacturing firms (Rapaccini et al., 2020) or the Defense
Production Act invocated by Trump administration and its
resulting implications for the U. S. industry in general and
American car manufacturers in particular (Cecire and Peters,
2020; Leary, 2020). Hence, it is recommended that supply
chain managers adjust their objectives and align them (as good
as possible) with governmental strategies and objectives of
policy makers.
In Table 4, we propose in total thirteen business objectives
for companies and supply chains and seven governmental
objectives for policy makers to deal with the Covid-19
pandemic. These objectives are inspired by the ongoing
political debate and business adjustment observed during the
time of the crisis. We recommend decision makers to consult
the list, because this may help them identifying objectives
which they were not aware of before.
Decision making requires defining priorities and making
tradeoffs, e.g. between financial and non-financial objectives
(Brandenburg, 2018). Such tradeoffs may change in times of
crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic. For example, the price
may had been the dominant objective for supplier selection
before the pandemic, while ensuring raw material supply
capacity may have become most important during the
pandemic. Therefore, we recommend that decision makers in
companies carefully analyze current developments, anticipate
future trends and, if necessary, adjust their priorities and
tradeoffs to ensure high-quality decision making.
EMR-20-0119
7
Moreover, the business objectives need to be defined under
consideration of and aligned with governmental objectives. In
times of crisis, a continuous communication between
managers and policy makers, ideally complemented by
workshops or task forces, is recommended to ensure the
alignment of objectives. Such a collaboration is beneficial for
managers and politicians, because both aim at the same target
group of individuals which the ones call customers or
consumers and the others citizens.
It is noteworthy that a set of objectives of a company can
never be final. Companies have to continuously adapt to their
environment in order to survive and prosper. Pedersen et al.
(2020) segmented the Covid-19 pandemic into three phases of
crisis (emergence, occurrence and aftermath) which are
framed by the pre-crisis and post-crisis phases. For most
organizations the relevant objectives probably differ between
all these phases. Therefore, we suggest that companies, after
they have identified and defined their set of initial objectives,
should adapt their objectives on a regular basis. Figure 1
illustrates the respective iterative process of defining, aligning
and adjusting objectives.
V. CONCLUSIONS
Although a clear set of objectives is the fundamental
prerequisite of effective decision making, many managers are
not fully aware of all relevant objectives of their company.
The question whether an objective is relevant or not depends
on the values and the strategy of an organization. Choosing the
relevant objectives is an important task with substantial
consequences that must not be underestimated. We therefore
recommend decision makers to spend effort to identify a
comprehensive set of objectives of their firms and to align
them across their supply chain(s) and with their
government(s).
Motivated by these circumstances and the Covid-19
pandemic, we developed approaches for defining and aligning
objectives for decision making. In the study at hand, we
provided simple guidelines for decision makers how to
identify intra-organizational objectives and how to align them
across the supply chain and with policy makers. Furthermore,
we provided examples of intra- and inter-organizational
objectives for normal times and for times of a crisis. In
addition, we outlined an iterative procedure how to update the
objectives on a regular basis.
The contribution of our study is threefold. First, we
emphasized the need to broaden the perspective of decision
making from the intra- and inter-organizational level of firms
and their supply chains to the alignment with objectives
defined by the policy makers from the socio-political
environment. Second, we proposed procedures for
identification and alignment of objectives on micro, meso and
macro level under consideration of Keeney’s (1992) idea of
value-focused thinking. Third, we outlined a procedure to
adjust the set of objectives during and after a crisis. We
illustrate this procedure at the example of the Covid19
pandemic and develop an iterative process of defining,
aligning and adjusting objectives.
Like any scientific study, the presented one has its
limitations. Processes for identification and alignment of intra-
and inter-organizational objectives were outlined, but aspects
of operationalization of these objectives in a firm or a supply
chain were deliberately omitted. For this important aspect of
decision making and management control, we refer to earlier
studies (e.g. Brandenburg, 2018).
Researchers often take optimization criteria or objective
functions for granted. The list of objectives relevant to supply
chain decision making before, during and after the Covid-19
pandemic could inspire researchers to include additional
objectives in their optimization models. Moreover, identifying
and harmonizing objectives on intra- and inter-organizational
level is an important field for further research because the
TABLE IV
EXAMPLES OF BUSINESS AND GOVERNMENTAL OBJECTIVES IN TIMES OF THE
COVID-19 PANDEMIC
Business objectives
Governmental objectives
• Minimize the probability of
being affected by a crisis
• Minimize the negative impact of
crisis
• Recognize potential crises early
• Strengthen position during the
crisis
• Consider potential crises in non-
crises-times in decision making
(e.g. producing in Europe, local,
etc.)
• Maximize health of employees
and customers
• Minimize health impact on
society
• Improve reputation
• Find the best partners for the
supply chain of the future
• Anticipate and consider
potential changes in
consumption
• Maximize cleanliness
• Ensure delivery capacity
• Maximize resilience
• Save as many lives as
possible
• Save as many live-years as
possible
• Prevent the public health
system from collapsing
• Achieve herd immunity as
soon as possible
• Minimize costs
• Minimize economic
damage
• Maximize quality of life of
citizens
Fig. 1. Iterative process of defining, aligning and adjusting objectives.
EMR-20-0119
8
objectives provide the basis for decision making which
ultimately shapes the supply chains. Thus, we address the
following questions for future research:
1. How can a dynamic process for identifying objectives
be implemented on an intra-organizational level?
Which instruments can foster such a process?
2. How can intra- and inter-organizational objectives be
harmonized transparently, fairly and effectively?
3. How can policy makers identify and evaluate adequate
counter measures under consideration of different
perspectives in times of crisis?
Overall, we can say that defining and aligning objectives
within a single firm, across the supply chain and with the
socio-political business environment is crucial for business
success before, during and after times of a crisis or pandemic.
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