A. Michael Knemeyer’s research while affiliated with The Ohio State University and other places

Purpose Despite over 30 years of focus on supply chain collaboration, companies continue to struggle to achieve collaborative advantage. To better understand why some companies are able to collaborate for competitive advantage and others can't, the authors explore how managerial commitment enables collaborative capabilities. Design/methodology/approach The authors employed a longitudinal inductive study, interviewing companies with reputations for intense supply chain collaboration at four different times over 20 years. Findings The authors identified managerial commitment as a super-ordinate enabler. They describe the dynamics of commitment development and explore three types of commitment: instrumental, normative and transformative. The authors document key antecedents and outcomes of each type of commitment. Research limitations/implications Theory regarding the antecedents to commitment to collaborative capability is underdeveloped. The authors elaborate these antecedents and the dynamics that enable or undermine the commitment necessary to build effective collaboration capabilities. Practical implications The authors provide insight (i.e. a practical and actionable roadmap) into the process companies use to cultivate commitment to collaboration and value co-creation. Originality/value Collaboration is critical to value co-creation, including effective supply chain risk mitigation and lasting sustainability efforts. The authors elaborate a theory of commitment dynamics that explains why most companies never go beyond basic levels of collaboration. At the same time, the authors provide a roadmap for deep, transformative collaboration.

Purpose This study follows the tenets of the resource dependence theory (RDT) to investigate the effects of four dimensions of industry-level environmental uncertainty – munificence, dynamism, complexity and innovative intensity – on a shipper's cross-buying (i.e. outsourcing across multiple service categories) in logistics outsourcing arrangements. Design/methodology/approach Negative binomial regression was used to test the hypotheses with a sample of US manufacturers. Measures were developed through information acquired from a proprietary database of 3PL companies obtained through Armstrong and Associates, Inc. and publicly available industry measures from the US Manufacturing Census and Compustat. Findings The findings indicate that individual dimensions of environmental uncertainty exhibit distinct influences on shippers' cross-buying in their logistics outsourcing arrangements. Specifically, the growth and initial innovative intensity of shippers' industries lead to an increased number of logistics service categories outsourced to 3PLs, while industry dynamism and exceptionally high innovative intensity drive the opposite effect. Practical implications These findings provide valuable guidance to 3PLs with respect to decisions related to the acquisition of specialized transportation, storage, information systems and personnel assets to serve specific industries. The findings highlight industry conditions that are more likely to lead shippers to outsource across a wider array of logistics service categories and, as a result, potentially yield higher customer retention and profit margins. Originality/value While extant 3PL literature posits that shippers' individual strategic orientations and capabilities impact their outsourcing strategy, this study contributes to the literature by providing a theoretical-based empirical examination of the industry-level influencers of such behavior.

Increased volume, velocity, and variety of data provides new opportunities for businesses to take advantage of data science techniques, predictive analytics, and big data. However, firms are struggling to make use of their disjointed and unintegrated data streams. Despite this, academics with the analytic tools and training to pursue such research often face difficulty gaining access to corporate data. We explore the divergent goals of practitioners and academics and how the gap that exists between the communities can be overcome to derive mutual value from big data. We describe a practical roadmap for collaboration between academics and practitioners pursuing big data research. Then we detail a case example of how, by following this roadmap, researchers can provide insight to a firm on a specific supply chain problem while developing a replicable template for effective analysis of big data. In our case study, we demonstrate the value of effectively pairing management theory with big data exploration, describe unique challenges involved in big data research, and develop a novel and replicable hierarchical regression‐based process for analyzing big data.

We analyze the direct and indirect effects of two critical-component supply-disruption attributes (CONTROLLABILITY and RESPONSIBILITY) on supplier non-retention post disruption. Using a scenario-based role-playing experiment with 253 purchasing professionals, we find that the likelihood that a recovery lead (i.e., the individual assigned to the disruption-recovery task) recommends non-retention of an incumbent critical-component supplier post disruption is higher when the recovery lead perceives that the supplier, rather than nature, had control over the supply disruption. Moreover, this direct effect is partially explained by the amount of ANGER that the recovery lead feels due to the supply disruption. Neither the direct nor the indirect effect of RESPONSIBILITY on supplier non-retention post disruption is, however, detected. This paper is among the first to offer theoretical and empirical evidence that supplier non-retention in a supply-disruption context is a function of who had control over the supply disruption. Furthermore, this paper considers the effects of emotions and illustrates that supply-management decisions are not based solely on rational (i.e., cognitive) processes but also on emotional processes. Finally, this paper challenges conceptual arguments about the association between supplier selection and retention, at least in the supply-disruption context and with regard to the individual participating in both tasks. Our findings also have several managerial implications for supplying and buying firms.

Purpose – Regulatory pressure, consumer awareness, and the quest for competitive advantage place sustainable products in today’s decision-making spotlight. The purpose of this paper is to explore supply chain dynamics as they relate to sustainable product programs and to empirically develop a framework to align efforts across the supply chain to bring sustainable products to market. Design/methodology/approach – Grounded in systems design, stakeholder theory, and the theory of planned behavior, the authors conduct an inductive empirical study of 28 European and US companies. Findings – The authors make three contributions. First, the authors identify six dimensions of product sustainability, which map to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol’s sustainability scope model. Second, the authors model relational dynamics using systems diagrams to provide a framework that: first, communicates a common understanding of product sustainability; and second, facilitates tradeoff analysis. Third, the authors elaborate behaviors needed to reduce ambiguity and compliance costs. Practical implications – Managers can use the framework to assess product sustainability and evaluate tradeoffs across product dimensions and supply chain participants. Using this insight, managers can design sustainable product programs that engage supply chain participants. Social implications – By identifying dimensions, defining costs, and uncovering tradeoffs, managers can more effectively implement sustainable product programs. Originality/value – The framework provides a much needed source of clarity to mitigate role ambiguity, reduce compliance costs, and promote collaborative behavior in bringing sustainable products to market.

Why has so much focus been placed on the topic of integration both within firms as well as across the supply chain? The answer is that the business world is recognizing the importance of integration as a means of achieving success in today’s highly competitive environment. Short product life cycles, the implementation of supply chain processes and the increasingly global nature of competition require coordinated actions involving several business functions. Practitioners and academics alike are recognizing the benefits of integration both within and outside the firm, benefits that include better customer service, better management of inventory levels, higher forecast accuracy, and greater customer and employee satisfaction. Despite this recognized importance and increased, integration remains an illusive goal in today’s competitive market for many companies. The division of labor into areas of functional expertise, while necessary to understand market and product complexity, has also created several challenges for the firm. Specifically, scholars have identified differences between functions as a potential barrier to the interdepartmental integration needed for efforts such as technology adoption and supply chain process implementation. While the functional differences between marketing and R&D has been studied by several scholars with respect to new product development the individual differences between the functions of marketing and logistics has received only limited attention. This paper seeks to fill this gap in the integration literature by proposing the application of a previously developed model of integration to the study the functional differences between logistics and marketing. Additionally, the proposed study extends the model as a method to understand the impact that functional differences has upon firm performance.

Responding to calls for replication research in the supply chain management literature, the current article reports the results of a replication study that looked at the performance of logistics outsourcing relationships among German logistics managers. More specifically, this article investigates the performance of logistics outsourcing relationships among Brazilian logistics managers and tests the same hypotheses as the focal study. The results indicate that the Brazilian replication is consistent with the focal study on five of the seven hypotheses. With respect to inconsistencies, the focal study found significant positive relationships between proactive improvement and logistics performance outcomes whereas the Brazilian replication did not find significant relationships between proactive improvement and logistics performance outcomes, which reflects the relevant effect of contextual differences between Germany and Brazil. The article offers both managerial and research implications along with suggestions for future research. Copyright

Despite sustained interest in relational capabilities, researchers know relatively little about the process through which companies instill collaborative capabilities to achieve differential performance. Collaboration is essential since many resources and routines including knowledge, technology, and innovation reside outside the firm. The firm’s network is thus an essential source of differentiation. Extant research, however, indicates firms struggle to build relational capital and achieve relational advantage. To provide insight into how firms inculcate a relational capability to access dispersed skills and accomplish strategic goals, we pursued a two-stage inductive study, interviewing 49 companies in Period 1 and 58 companies six years later in Period 2. Analysis of the interview data reveals the pivotal influence of managerial commitment to the transformation process. We present a cognizance-commitment-capability perspective to explain why some companies make the collaborative transformation and others do not.