Search results

This paper aims to adopt a resource-based view (RBV) to investigate the link between marketing (MRKT)–supply chain management (SCM) alignment, supply chain resilience (SCR) and firm performance. It aims to cover two gaps in the SCM literature: the missing links between MRKT–SCM alignment and the performance of a firm, mediated by the SCR, and the role of absorptive capacity (AC) in shaping such links.

After the identification of a key capability in SCM, i.e. firms’ ability to align their’ MRKT–SCM processes and the role of AC, the relationships with performance are empirically tested in a sample of 133 firms in the fast-moving consumer goods industry in Saudi Arabia. The data was analyzed using SPSS 27 through hierarchal multiple regression and the PROCESS macro.

First, MRKT–SCM alignment capabilities provide a significant direct effect on SCR, and in turn, SCR also had a significant indirect effect on firm performance. Second, there is a significant mediating effect of SCR on the MRKT –SCM alignment and firm performance relationship. Third, a novel finding shows a statistically significant interaction effect and the interaction pattern supported that absorptive capacity would substitute the positive effect of SCR on firm performance, which implies that in the absence of SCR, AC can substitute the role of SCR. Finally, the results suggest a significant moderation and mediation effect for the overall model.

The investigation is based on a self-reported cross-sectional analysis, and it is specific to a single economy. Nonetheless, it suggests a number of interesting implications. Achieving excellence in SCR requires the development of a distinct set of capabilities because the management of core supply chain activities and the alignment of MRKT with the supply chain are not mutually exclusive, rather they are complementary. Contrary to common expectations, an alignment of MRKT–SCM processes leads to improved interfunctional coordination.

In the postCOVID-19 world firms should develop and integrate their AC to capitalize on their MRKT–SCM alignment to pursue better performance. Investment in AC is required to develop, maintain and use it. It can play an important role against uncertainties in the long run.

This paper is unique in that it employs the RBV – to unpack the mechanisms through which MRKT–SCM activities contribute to SCR, and firm performance. It represents a first response to the call for research into the use of such theoretical frameworks which has recently been made in the SCM literature because of the COVID-19 pandemic. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper also offers the first empirical test of how the MRKT–SCM interacts with existing capabilities to create SCR, providing clear guidance on how to exploit its often undervalued potential.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of triple-A supply chain and marketing strategy alignment on the performance by collecting and analyzing data from the textile industry in Egypt.

A research model is proposed which describes the impact marketing strategy alignment, triple-A supply chain on supply chain performance and organizational performance. The proposed research model and hypotheses were tested using correlation analysis and structural equation modeling based on data collected from 153 companies working in the Egyptian textile industry.

The results of the study support that organizational performance is positively associated supply chain performance. Also supply chain performance is directly affected by triple-A supply chain and marketing strategy alignment.

The data used in this study were collected from 153 companies working in the Egyptian textile industry. The generalization of the study results may be limited by the size of the sample.

This study provides a useful working model in the textile industry. The results suggest successful implementation of triple-A supply chain and marketing strategy alignment will help in improving the supply chain performance, which in turn improves organizational performance.

Scholars have recently begun to empirically evaluate the triple-A supply chain, which emphasizes concurrent capabilities in agility, adaptability and alignment across the supply chain to develop sustainable competitive advantage. Complexity theory suggests however that other combinations of triple-A capabilities may be equally effective, especially given a firm's strategic orientation relative to its market and its supply chain. Our research objective was to examine what combinations of these capabilities lead to the same outcome (i.e. high firm performance).

We collected 182 survey responses from a global sample of supply chain managers. Qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) was employed to assess effective recipes of agility, adaptability, alignment, supply chain orientation, and market orientation.

Our results revealed four distinct “recipes” (i.e. combinations of agility, adaptability, alignment, supply chain orientation and market orientation) that lead to high levels of firm performance.

Our results indicate that firms currently do not necessarily have to concomitantly develop capabilities across all triple-A components. Considering the costs associated with developing each of these capabilities, the findings allow us to derive several theoretical and managerial insights.

In this paper, a conceptual and methodological framework based on empirical evidence derived from the case of the Colombian Cape gooseberry (CG) supply chain is presented. Using this case study, this paper aims to contribute to the extant literature on the internationalization of food supply chains by explicitly considering the alignment of quality attributes and supply chain complexity as key elements to understand the process.

This research has been designed to be qualitative, inductive and exploratory, thus involving multiple data gathering methods and tools. More specifically, during the first stage of the empirical analysis, this study has mapped and analysed preferences and perceptions of product quality at both the consumer and supply chain levels. Then, this paper has analysed the degree of alignment and complexity in the supply chain and finally, this study has derived scenarios for the internationalization of the supply chain.

The results indicate tensions between supply chain actors related to quality attribute alignment and complexity, which have the potentials to impact the internationalization scenarios of the CG supply chain. Particularly the findings highlight how alignment and complexity of sourcing and product quality attributes can affect supply chain design strategies in different internationalization pathways of a niche food commodity.

The findings have implications in terms of supply chain design perspectives. In fact, while an approach, which would consider only a transactional or governance perspective would have tackled the problems of misalignment – for example, between farmers and wholesalers or wholesalers and international traders/retailers – it would have ignored the problem of alignment caused at the retailing and consumption stage. In the attempt to internationalize the CG supply chain, farmers, processors and traders are misaligned in relation to the preferences of the targeted final consumers, Dutch/Western European consumers in the case.

Given the misalignment issues, this paper identifies a step by step approach as the most suitable pathway to design an internationalized supply chain because it allows the CG commodity supply chain to develop the potential market of credence quality-attribute by supporting the health-promoting compounds of the fruit. In this way, the CG supply chain could also progressively scale up and work on solving its misalignment issues by building a coordination structure of the chain, with quality control and logistics likely led by large retailers.

The study indicates that a process of internalization related to a scenario of a “globalized commodity” can only emerge through processes of coordination and integration at the production level, likely led by forms of producers (farmers) associations or a network of producers and traders, leading to strong marketing activities and scale up in terms of volumes. This has profound social implications and calls for rethinking how this study designs the internationalization of niche commodity supply chains.

Through the application of a mixed methodology approach, in which conceptual, qualitative and quantitative methods have been combined, this paper has been able to identify alternative scenarios to the internationalization and the scale-up of a niche food commodity supply chain, with implications for its design and governance. More specifically in the conceptual model, the different scenarios have been related to the risk of misalignment. The model also identifies alternative pathways of internationalization which may or may not arise according to the way complexity unfolds. In the approach, this study has unpacked complexity by looking into two key dimensions: transactional complexity and quality-attribute complexity.

In 2004 Lee proposed that successful supply chains must be agile, adaptable, and aligned and described those chains as “Triple‐A” supply chains. The purpose of this paper is to theorize a Triple‐A supply chain performance model that incorporates Triple‐A supply chain status as antecedent to supply chain performance and supply chain performance as antecedent to organizational performance.

Using data from a national sample of 132 supply chain professionals collected in partnership with APICS, the authors develop scales based on descriptive items listed by Lee for the Triple‐A supply chain strategy dimensions of agility, adaptability, and alignment and assess the complete model using a structural equation methodology.

Results indicate that Triple‐A supply chain strategy positively impacts supply chain performance and that, in turn, supply chain performance positively impacts organizational performance. Supply chain performance is more strongly related to the marketing performance than to the financial performance of the organization. Additionally, marketing performance positively impacts financial performance.

The major limitation is that only one person in each organization was surveyed with regards to both organizational and supply chain performance. Future research can be aimed at multiple respondents per organization.

Based on the results of this study, the authors argue that organizational success depends on the agility, adaptability, and alignment of supply chains.

This is the first research which has empirically tested Lee's suggestions; his propositions were based on his extensive supply chain research and experience and reported in the Harvard Business Review. The paper's findings are valuable to both practitioners and academic researchers.

To expand beyond existing research on the integration of supply chain and new product development that has a limited focused on the need to pre‐inform supply chain before product launch, the need for new product development to consider the impact of product design on supply chain operations and research has focused on ensuring product availability at the product launch.

This research note suggests avenues forward and areas for practice and research to progress.

The existing and limited focus on involving supply chain in new product development overlooks several central issues and opportunities that companies are beginning to explore and that can be supported by research. In particular the opportunity to focus on leveraging supply chain in new product development, for greater market impact and revenue growth.

Addressing the path forward, beyond limited approaches requires greater alignment between new product development and supply chain, it requires a focus that goes beyond just ensuring product availability and it requires alignment much further upstream in the new product development process. Examples of early progress in companies are provided.

In addition to summarizing existing research, new avenues for research and practice are offered that can tremendously improve alignment and the contribution of supply chain on new product development, for the good of the company as a whole. Specific research areas are suggest to enable research to support the realization of the path forward in this area.

The importance of supply chain alignment has been discussed since the birth of supply chain management (SCM). Yet it remains a major challenge for supply chains. This paper aims to systematically review the cross disciplinary literature on supply chain alignment in order to identify, and develop constructs for enablers to alignment, and an associated set of hypotheses.

A systematic approach has been taken to the literature review, which ensures it is auditable and repeatable. The selection criteria are clearly aligned with the review question ensuring all literature pertinent to the question is identified and reviewed. Relevant information is extracted from the selected papers and synthesised into a set of hypotheses.

Six main constructs for the enablers of alignment are identified and defined: organisational structure, internal relational behaviour, customer relational behaviour, top management support, information sharing and business performance measurement system. While the literature is disparate, across different disciplines there is good support for these enablers. The relationships between supply chain alignment and shareholder and customer value are also argued with the support of the literature. Although each of the enablers is argued to positively affect shareholder and customer value, their interactions with one another are not well supported in the literature, either theoretically or empirically, and therefore this could be an area for further research.

While the hypotheses remain theoretical, it is now possible to test them and understand the relative significance of the various enablers to alignment.

The significance of shareholder and customer alignment on the delivery of shareholder and customer value can be examined, thus moving towards a theory of supply chain alignment. This is needed since in practice companies are struggling with supply chain alignment.

The existing literature on supply chain alignment is disparate and multi‐disciplinary as this descriptive analysis shows, with 72 papers published in 43 different journals. Moreover, most of the papers focus on particular enablers, while this paper brings together six key enablers from the literature to produce a set of hypotheses.

This study aims to explain how supply chain alignment, which remains a major challenge for supply chains, can be achieved and its implications for business performance (BP) by testing the strengths of the relationships between previously identified enablers, supply chain alignment and BP.

A literature review develops hypotheses on the relationships between enablers, alignment and BP. A survey of medium-to-large UK manufacturing companies was conducted where the sample comprised 151 randomly selected companies, and the response rate was 56 per cent. Partial least square regression was used to test the hypothesis.

Two types of supply chain alignment are defined – shareholder and customer – but only customer alignment (CA) has a direct positive impact on BP, while shareholder alignment (SA) is its antecedent. Top management support was shown to be an enabler of both shareholder and CA, while organisation structure, information sharing and performance measurement system enabled SA, while internal relational behaviour enabled CA.

Supply chain management research lacks knowledge on exactly how supply chain alignment can be achieved and what BP implications it has. This research provides a tested conceptual model to address this gap.

The refined conceptual model provides precise guidance to practitioners on how to improve BP through supply chain alignment.

Whilst the strategic management literature emphasizes the importance of SA, this study reveals another crucial alignment – CA – and shows its direct positive impact on BP.

Limited research examines the triple-A supply chain of agility, adaptability and alignment. The purpose of this paper is to draw on extant literature under the lens of resource orchestration theory to develop a comprehensive framework of antecedents and consequences of triple-A supply chains, allowing both scholars and practitioners to benchmark and prioritize triple-A capabilities.

A systematic literature review focusing on four supply chain journals is conducted to integrate the distinct bodies of knowledge on supply chain agility, adaptability and alignment.

The integration of this literature identifies common and distinct antecedents and consequences of each, developing a comprehensive model of triple-A supply chains as well as proposing opportunities for further study.

Limited studies to date have an integrated agility, adaptability and alignment, thus lacking a comprehensive framework of triple-A supply chains. Managers can use the findings to determine actions needed to deploy triple-A capabilities and better understand the resulting potential benefits.

The purpose of this study is to advance the understanding of resource orchestration in inter-firm partnerships that appropriately configure and align strategic cross-firm supply chain resources and capabilities generating synergies to deliver superior performance.

Applying the resource orchestration logic, supported by the relational view of competitive advantage, the study draws from an empirical analysis of survey data from 152 top-level executives of US manufacturing firms to investigate the effect of leveraging and coherently combining cross-firm supply chain resources with capabilities on operational performance.

The study underscores the view that appropriately orchestrated combinations of key partnership resources and capabilities as mechanisms for marketing strategy implementation, enhance performance. Specifically, research results suggest that complementary inter-firm resources and lean align, and similarly idiosyncratic resources and agility align synergistically to deliver superior operational performance outcomes. The results also accent partnership responses to intense competition, enabling enhanced operational performance. The findings thus enrich the understanding of the resource orchestration logic and strategy, making important theoretical contributions.

As is typical in marketing and strategy research, the study research design has a cross-sectional framework, thus limiting insights on the resource orchestration dynamics that can otherwise be generated using a longitudinal design. Also, the resource orchestration stream is still nascent. Further research is needed to delineate the orchestration mechanisms that deliver on performance outcomes, especially in supply chains.

A key insight for supply chain and marketing managers is that close-knit inter-firm partnerships are critical for accessing idiosyncratic and complementary resources that can be configured and symbiotically aligned with market-facing agility and lean capabilities, respectively, to deliver market value. Proactive partnerships, especially in highly competitive and disruptive environments, enable mobilizing cross-firm resources and building appropriate matching combinations with capabilities to deliver on operational performance.

The study, guided by theory, advances the understanding of how key cross-firm resources and capabilities deliver performance gains. The key to competitive advantage and enhanced performance outcomes may lie in acquiring, leveraging and deploying appropriately matched resource-capability combinations. The present study investigates this proposition within the context of supply chain partnerships, focusing on cross-firm resources and capabilities.