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1 – 10 of over 1000Kati Marttinen and Anni-Kaisa Kähkönen
A firm's ability to cascade sustainability requirements further down to lower-tier suppliers might be affected by inter-firm power relations. This study aimed to identify the…
Abstract
Purpose
A firm's ability to cascade sustainability requirements further down to lower-tier suppliers might be affected by inter-firm power relations. This study aimed to identify the power sources of focal firms and first- and lower-tier suppliers and to investigate how they may affect their ability to cascade sustainability requirements along multi-tier supply chains.
Design/methodology/approach
A multiple case study of 24 companies was conducted to investigate the sources of power in multi-tier supply chains. In total, 42 informants from five focal companies, ten first-tier suppliers and nine lower-tier suppliers were interviewed.
Findings
Differences were found between the sources from which focal firms and first- and lower-tier suppliers drew power. Findings revealed that firms' power sources may increase or impair their ability to cascade sustainability requirements to lower supply chain tiers. Furthermore, multi-tier supply chain-level power sources constitute a significant determinant of firms' ability to disseminate sustainability requirements to lower-tier suppliers.
Practical implications
The results can help companies and purchasing managers understand how their own and suppliers' power may affect their ability to cascade sustainability agendas to lower-tier suppliers. In particular, the results can be useful for supplier selection and the development of supplier relationship management strategies for fostering sustainability in multi-tier supply chains.
Originality/value
This study places traditional power perspectives in the context of multi-tier sustainable supply chain management, broadening the view beyond dyadic relationships that have traditionally been the focus of the supply management literature.
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Adegboyega Oyedijo, Simonov Kusi-Sarpong, Muhammad Shujaat Mubarik, Sharfuddin Ahmed Khan and Kome Utulu
Implementing sustainable practices in multi-tier supply chains (MTSCs) is a difficult task. This study aims to investigate why such endeavours fail and how MTSC partners can…
Abstract
Purpose
Implementing sustainable practices in multi-tier supply chains (MTSCs) is a difficult task. This study aims to investigate why such endeavours fail and how MTSC partners can address them.
Design/methodology/approach
A single-case study of a global food retail company was used in this study. Semi-structured interviews with the case firm and its first- and second-tier suppliers were used to collect data, which were then qualitatively analysed using thematic analysis.
Findings
Major barriers impeding the implementation of sustainability in multi-tier food supply chains were revealed such as the cost of sustainability, knowledge gap, lack of infrastructure and supply chain complexity. Furthermore, the findings reveal five possible solutions such as multi-tier collaboration and partnership, diffusion of innovation along the chain, supply chain mapping, sustainability performance measurement and capacity building, all of which can aid in the improvement of sustainability practices.
Research limitations/implications
Future research should investigate how specific barriers and drivers affect specific aspects of sustainability, pointing practitioners to specific links between the variables that can aid in tailoring sustainability oriented investment.
Practical implications
This research supports managerial comprehension of MTSC sustainability, pointing out ways to improve sustainability performance despite the complex multi-tier system of food supply chains.
Originality/value
The research on MTSC sustainability is still growing, and this research contributes to the debate about how MTSCs can become more sustainable from the perspective of the triple bottom line, particularly food supply chains which face significant sustainability challenges.
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Shobod Deba Nath and Gabriel Eweje
The purpose of this study is to examine how multi-tier suppliers respond to the institutional pressures for the implementation of sustainable supply management (SSM) practices in…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine how multi-tier suppliers respond to the institutional pressures for the implementation of sustainable supply management (SSM) practices in supply chains, and what institutional logics allow them to do so.
Design/methodology/approach
This study employs a qualitative research design, drawing on data from semi-structured interviews with 46 owners and managers of multi-tier suppliers and 18 key informants of diverse stakeholders. Following an abductive approach, institutional theory conceptually guides the analytical iteration processes between theory and interview data.
Findings
The findings demonstrate two kinds of thematic responses to institutional pressures – coupling (good side) and decoupling (dark side) of the supply chain – used by the factory management of multi-tier suppliers. This paper also identifies multiple institutional logics – market-led logic, values-led logic and holistic sustainability logic – that are perceived to conflict (trade-offs) and complement (synergies) the SSM implementation.
Research limitations/implications
By investigating the perspectives of the factory management of upstream apparel suppliers, this study enhances the understanding of the connection between (de)coupling responses and institutional logics inside the multi-tier supplier firms. Further research would be required to include more downstream tiers including the ultimate users.
Practical implications
The findings may be of particular attention to brand-owning apparel retailers, industry leaders and policymakers who are seeking to understand multi-tier suppliers' challenges, conflicts and (de)coupling responses, and become aware of how they can be dealt with.
Originality/value
This study contributes to and expands the embryonic research stream of sustainable multi-tier supply chain management by connecting it to the wider application of institutional theory.
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Yu Gong, Fu Jia, Steve Brown and Lenny Koh
The purpose of this paper is to explore how multinational corporations (MNCs) orchestrate internal and external resources to help their multi-tier supply chains learn…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore how multinational corporations (MNCs) orchestrate internal and external resources to help their multi-tier supply chains learn sustainability-related knowledge.
Design/methodology/approach
An exploratory multiple case study approach was adopted and three MNCs’ sustainable initiatives in China were examined. The data were primarily collected through 43 semi-structured interviews with managers of focal companies and their multi-tier suppliers.
Findings
The authors found that in order to facilitate their supply chains to learn sustainability, MNCs tend to orchestrate in breadth by internally setting up new functional departments and externally working with third parties, and orchestrate in depth working directly with their extreme upstream suppliers adopting varied governance mechanisms on lower-tier suppliers along the project lifecycle. The resource orchestration in breadth and depth and along the project lifecycle results in changes of supply chain structure.
Practical implications
The proposed conceptual model provides an overall framework for companies to design and implement their multi-tier sustainable initiatives. Companies could learn from the suggested learning stages and the best practices of case companies.
Originality/value
The authors extend and enrich resource orchestration perspective (ROP), which is internally focused, to a supply chain level, and answer a theoretical question of how MNCs orchestrate their internal and external resources to help their supply chains to learn sustainability. The extension of ROP refutes the resource dependence theory, which adopts a passive approach of relying on external suppliers and proposes that MNCs should proactively work with internal and external stakeholders to learn sustainability.
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Shobod Deba Nath, Gabriel Eweje and Suborna Barua
The purpose of this paper is to investigate why multi-tier apparel suppliers integrate social sustainability practices into their supply chains and what barriers these suppliers…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate why multi-tier apparel suppliers integrate social sustainability practices into their supply chains and what barriers these suppliers encounter while embedding social sustainability practices.
Design/methodology/approach
This study employs a qualitative research design, drawing on data from semi-structured interviews with 46 owners and managers from 33 multi-tier apparel suppliers in Bangladesh, an important outsourcing hub for the global apparel industry. To corroborate research findings, the views of owners and managers were triangulated by further interviewing 11 key representatives of institutional actors such as third-party auditors, a donor agency, industry associations, regulatory agencies and a non-governmental organisation (NGO).
Findings
The authors' findings suggest a range of divergent institutional drivers and barriers – coercive, mimetic and normative – that determine the implementation of multi-tier suppliers' social sustainability practices. The key reported drivers were buyers' requirements, external stakeholders' expectations, top management commitment and competition. Conversely, cost and resource concerns and gaps in the regulatory framework were identified as key social sustainability implementation barriers. In particular, owners and managers of second-tier and third-tier supplier firms experienced more internal barriers such as cost and resource concerns than external barriers such as gaps in values, learning and commitment (i.e. compromise for mutual benefit and non-disclosure of non-compliance) that impeded effective social sustainability implementation.
Research limitations/implications
Social sustainability in supply chain management has received significant attention from academics, business practitioners, governments, NGOs and supranational organisations. However, limited attention has been paid to investigating the drivers and barriers for social sustainability implementation from a developing country's multi-tier supplier perspective. The authors' research has addressed this knowledge gap.
Practical implications
The evidence from the authors' study provides robust support for key assumptions of institutional theory and has useful implications for both managers and policy-makers.
Originality/value
The authors' study contributes to the embryonic research stream of socially sustainable multi-tier supply chain management by connecting it to the application of institutional theory in a challenging institutional context.
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Caroline Emberson, Silvia Maria Pinheiro and Alexander Trautrims
The purpose of this paper is to examine how first-tier suppliers in multi-tier supply chains adapt their vertical and horizontal relationships to reduce the risk of slavery-like…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine how first-tier suppliers in multi-tier supply chains adapt their vertical and horizontal relationships to reduce the risk of slavery-like practices.
Design/methodology/approach
Using Archer’s morphogenetic theory as an analytical lens, this paper presents case analyses adduced from primary and secondary data related to the development of relational anti-slavery supply capabilities in Brazilian–UK beef and timber supply chains.
Findings
Four distinct types of adaptation were found among first-tier suppliers: horizontal systemisation, vertical systemisation, horizontal transformation and vertical differentiation.
Research limitations/implications
This study draws attention to the socially situated nature of corporate action, moving beyond the rationalistic discourse that underpins existing research studies of multi-tier, socially sustainable, supply chain management. Cross-sector comparison highlights sub-country and intra-sectoral differences in both institutional setting and the approaches and outcomes of individual corporate actors’ initiatives. Sustainable supply chain management theorists would do well to seek out those institutional entrepreneurs who actively reshape the institutional conditions within which they find themselves situated.
Practical implications
Practitioners may benefit from adopting a structured approach to the analysis of the necessary or contingent complementarities between their, primarily economic, objectives and the social sustainability goals of other, potential, organizational partners.
Social implications
A range of interventions that may serve to reduce the risk of slavery-like practices in global commodity chains are presented.
Originality/value
This paper presents a novel analysis of qualitative empirical data and extends understanding of the agential role played by first-tier suppliers in global, multi-tier, commodity, supply chains.
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Shoufeng Cao, Kim Bryceson and Damian Hine
The aim of this paper is to explore the value of collaborative risk management in a decentralised multi-tier global fresh produce supply chain.
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to explore the value of collaborative risk management in a decentralised multi-tier global fresh produce supply chain.
Design/methodology/approach
This study utilised a mixed methods approach. A qualitative field study was conducted to examine the need for collaborative risk management. The simulation experiments with industry datasets were conducted to assess whether risk-sharing contracts work in mitigating joint risks in parts of and across the supply chain.
Findings
The qualitative field study revealed risk propagation and the inefficiency of company-specific risk management strategies in value delivery. The simulation results indicated that risk-sharing contracts can incentivise various actors to absorb interrelated risks for value creation.
Research limitations/implications
The research is limited to risks relevant to supply chain processes in the Australia–China table grrape supply chain and does not consider product-related risks and the risk-taking behaviours of supply chain actors.
Practical implications
Collaborative risk management can be deployed to mitigate systematic risks that disrupt global fresh produce supply chains. The results offer evidence-based knowledge to supply chain professionals in understanding the value of collaborative risk assessment and management and provide insights on how to conduct collaborative risk management for effective risk management.
Originality/value
The results contribute to the supply chain risk management literature by new collaborative forms for effective risk management and strategic competition of “supply chain to supply chain” in multi-tier food supply chains.
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Sangho Chae, Benn Lawson, Thomas J. Kull and Thomas Choi
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the behavioral tendencies of supply managers when they are faced with uncertainty in making multi-tier sourcing decisions.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the behavioral tendencies of supply managers when they are faced with uncertainty in making multi-tier sourcing decisions.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses the literature on multi-tier supply chains and behavioral decision making to develop a theoretical framework for examining factors influencing a supply manager’s decision to retain control over sourcing in the multi-tier context. An experimental vignette methodology is used to gather data from 259 supply managers.
Findings
Results suggest that supply managers choose to exert less multi-tier control when they have high levels of interpersonal trust in the tier-1 supplier’s sales representative. This effect is accentuated by a high level of familiarity with potential lower-tier suppliers. Under high levels of familiarity with potential lower-tier suppliers, supply managers will exert greater levels of multi-tier sourcing control as the behavioral uncertainty of the tier-1 supplier increases.
Practical implications
Buying firms can enhance their understanding of supply managers’ multi-tier sourcing decision making and the potential biases associated with it. Suggestions for a more effective use of multi-tier sourcing are provided in the Discussion section.
Originality/value
Multi-tier sourcing is an increasingly important area of research, and this paper is the first to examine individual supply managers’ behavioral decision making in the multi-tier context. This paper also contributes to the outsourcing literature by investigating behavioral factors influencing the outsourcing of sourcing activities.
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Karina A. Santos, Minelle E. Silva and Susana Carla Farias Pereira
Although the number of studies that investigate supply chain sustainability learning has increased, little is known about the way sub-suppliers build knowledge and learn…
Abstract
Purpose
Although the number of studies that investigate supply chain sustainability learning has increased, little is known about the way sub-suppliers build knowledge and learn sustainability practices. Thus, moving beyond merely investigating the accumulation of knowledge, this research explores sub-suppliers’ knowing that supports the learning of sustainability practices in a multi-tiered food supply chain.
Design/methodology/approach
In the conduct of this interpretive research in South Brazil, two ethnographies were completed during 74 days of observations to understand similarities and differences between certified and non-certified sub-suppliers with respect to sustainability practices. As part of our research conducted in the context of poultry production, secondary data and data gathered through semi-structured interviews with representatives of the buyer and first-tier supplier firms were used to provide a better comprehension of the multi-tiered supply chain context. Then, we executed an interpretive textual analysis.
Findings
Our investigation explored six vignettes to reveal ways of learning sustainability practices in terms of waste management, biosecurity and animal welfare. Although the buyer firm requested these practices, we noted that the first-tier supplier was responsible for translating the practices to sub-suppliers. Moreover, we found that sustainability learning was shaped by the sub-supplier context embodied in knowledge through knowing. The ways of learning were related to sharing knowledge between experts and novices with the support of material practices; however, knowledge was also gained by unlearning some knowledge shared by the supplier. Sustainability practice learning, thus, was performed in a space of learning via knowledge creation among practitioners.
Practical implications
Recognising how sustainability learning happens in a multi-tiered supply chain context can help managers to develop plans to implement sustainability practices that will broaden their sustainability knowledge.
Originality/value
Unlike previous studies on supply chain sustainability learning, we reveal ways that sustainability practices emerge from knowledge that results from sub-suppliers’ knowing. We also explain how unlearning can consciously occur in several situations of sustainability learning.
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Liyuan Wang-Mlynek and Kai Foerstl
Multi-tier supply chain risk management (MSCRM) is an evolving and dynamic field, as any defaults or glitches in supply chains can potentially harm the efficiency and…
Abstract
Purpose
Multi-tier supply chain risk management (MSCRM) is an evolving and dynamic field, as any defaults or glitches in supply chains can potentially harm the efficiency and competitiveness of the entire supply chain. This study aims to investigate barriers to MSCRM in the automotive and civil aircraft industries.
Design/methodology/approach
This study adopts an inductive case study research design. The case analysis includes two parts. First, the within-case analysis develops case profiles and identifies critical categories. Second, the cross-case analysis compares MSCRM patterns across the cases.
Findings
This study argues that narrow information sharing and communication covering only the immediate supply chain partners obstruct the efficiency of MSCRM. Similarly, high dependency on strategic alliances with suppliers hinders efficient MSCRM. Additionally, relying on information and communication technologies (ICT) increases companies' exposure to risks and poses another barrier to efficient MSCRM.
Research limitations/implications
Further research should be pursued to expand generalizability and test the validity of the findings using other forms of data collection and methodologies, such as large-scale surveys, experiments or secondary data across different sectors and typical supply networks.
Practical implications
This study provides empirical evidence on the obstacles faced by companies during the process of MSCRM. These findings can guide practitioners in developing initiatives to overcome these challenges.
Originality/value
This study is among the first to investigate the barriers to MSCRM in the automotive and civil aircraft industries using in-depth case studies across three tiers of the supply chain.
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