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This research empirically analyzes gaps in performance among development stages of integration in supply chain management (SCM). The used variables are integration such as internal and external and performance such as cost and service. The population is international freight forwarders in the Republic of Korea and the sample frame is the membership list of the Korean International Freight Forwarders Association. The used methodology in this research is various: Cronbach’s alpha, factor analysis, cluster analysis, analysis of variance and post hoc analysis. It is important to ascertain the position in which they are included and the position is concerned with internal integration and external integration because the aim of this research is to ascertain where the forwarders are in development stages of integration. According to prior research, development stages of integration are regarded as the flow from internal to external. However, this research suggests that development stages of integration do not explain the flow of the stages but explain the strategic choice concerned with their current decision-making.

There are three aims of this research. One is to verify the mutual effects between internal collaboration and external collaboration, another is to prove performance improvement among different levels of supply chain collaboration, and the third is to analyze gaps between the two viewpoints. The population is Korean FDI firms in China and 208 data are used in the analysis. The data are treated with various methods: exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, SEM, cluster analysis, ANOVA, MANOVA and post hoc analysis. The results are as follows. First, external collaboration and internal collaboration have positive effects on each other, which have a positive effect on performance. This means that efficiency of internal processes is the cause of promoting connection with external processes and information generated from the market is the basis of a variance of internal processes, followed by high performance. Second, service performance improvement is more definite than cost performance improvement among different levels of supply chain collaboration. Firms can achieve more definite results in service performance when they perform supply chain collaboration. Third, this research verifies both the viewpoint of directions of supply chain collaboration and the strategic choice viewpoint of supply chain collaboration to better understand supply chain collaboration. Both viewpoints approach supply chain collaboration from different viewpoints but they do explain the methods for performance improvement.

Social relationships play an important role in organizational entrepreneurship. They are crucial to entrepreneurs’ decisions because, despite the bleeding-edge technological advancements observed nowadays, entrepreneurs as human beings will always strive to be social. During the COVID-19 pandemic many companies moved activities into the virtual world and as a result offline Social relationships became rarer, but as it turns out, even more valuable, likewise, the inter-organizational cooperation enabling many companies to survive.

This chapter aims to develop knowledge about entrepreneurs’ SR and their links with inter-organizational cooperation. The results of an integrative systematic literature review show that the concept of Social relationships, although often investigated, lacks a clear definition, conceptualization, and operationalization. This chapter revealed a great diversity of definitions for Social relationships, including different scopes of meaning and levels of analysis. The authors identify 10 building blocks and nine sources of entrepreneurs’ Social relationships. The authors offer an original typology of Social relationships using 12 criteria. Interestingly, with regard to building blocks, besides those frequently considered such as trust, reciprocity and commitment, the authors also point to others more rarely and narrowly discussed, such as gratitude, satisfaction and affection. Similarly, the authors discuss the varied scope of sources, including workplace, family/friendship, past relationships, and ethnic or religious bonds. The findings of this study point to a variety of links between Social relationships and inter-organizational cooperation, including their positive and negative influences on one another. These links appear to be extremely dynamic, bi-directional and highly complex.

The purpose of this paper is to apply the aspects of decision theory (DT) to performance measurement and management (PMM), thereby enabling the theoretical elaboration of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity in the business environment, which are identified as barriers to effective PMM.

A review of decision theory and PMM literature establishes the Cynefin framework as the basis for extending the performance alignment matrix. Case research with seven companies explores the relationship between two concepts under-examined in the performance alignment matrix – internal dominant logic (DL) as the attribute of organisational culture affecting decision making, and the external environment – in line with the concept of alignment or fit in PMM. A focus area is PMM related to sustainable operations and sustainable supply chain management.

Alignment between DL, external environment and PMM is found, as are instances of misalignment. The Cynefin framework offers a deeper theoretical explanation about the nature of this alignment. Other findings consider the nature of organisational ownership on DL.

The cases are exploratory not exhaustive, and limited in number. Organisations showing contested logic were excluded.

Some organisations have cultures of predictability and control; others have cultures that recognise their external environment as fundamentally unpredictable, and hence there is a need for responsive, decentralised PMM. Some have sought to change their culture and PMM. Being attentive to how cultural logic affects decision making can help reduce the misalignment in PMM.

A novel contribution is made by applying decision theory to PMM, extending the theoretical depth of the subject.

Critical infrastructures (CIs) for essential services such as water supply and electricity delivery are notoriously vulnerable to disruptions. While extant literature offers important insights into the resilience of CIs following large-scale disasters, our understanding of CI resilience to the more typical disruptions that affect CIs on a day-to-day basis remains limited. The present study investigates how the interorganizational (supply) network that uses and manages the CI can mitigate the adverse consequences of day-to-day disruptions.

Longitudinal archival data on 277 day-to-day disruptions within the Dutch national railway CI were collected and analyzed using generalized estimating equations.

The empirical results largely support the study’s predictions that day-to-day disruptions have greater adverse effects if they co-occur or are relatively unprecedented. The findings further show that the involved interorganizational network can enhance CI resilience to these disruptions, in particular, by increasing the overall level of cross-boundary information exchange between organizations inside the network.

This study helps managers to make well-informed choices regarding the target and intensity of their cross-boundary information-exchange efforts when dealing with day-to-day disruptions affecting their CI. The findings illustrate the importance of targeting cross-boundary information exchange at the complete interorganizational network responsible for the CI and to increase the intensity of such efforts when CI disruptions co-occur and/or are unprecedented.

This study contributes to our academic understanding of how network-level processes (i.e. cross-boundary information exchange) can be managed to ensure interorganizational (supply) networks’ resilience to day-to-day disruptions in a CI context. Subsequent research may draw from the conceptual framework advanced in the present study for examining additional supply network-level processes that can influence the effectiveness of entire supply networks. As such, the present research may assist scholars to move beyond a simple dyadic context and toward examining complete supply networks

Logistics and supply chain management has been elevated to a strategic level whereby firms can simultaneously achieve differentiation and low cost for sustained competitive advantage. Empirical studies have often concentrated on logistics management in developed Western countries, displaying a bias towards the USA. This study applies the competency approach to explore logistics in Taiwan. A survey of 1,200 manufacturing firms was undertaken in order to examine the relationships between logistics competency, logistics performance, and financial performance, using exploratory factor analysis and the structural equation modelling technique. Four logistics competencies, namely, integration and knowledge competency, customer focused logistics competency, measurement competency, and agility competency were identified. The research findings revealed that (1) logistics competency was significantly related to logistics performance but not significantly associated with financial performance, and (2) logistics performance was positively associated with financial performance. These findings also implied that logistics competency has an indirect effect on financial performance through logistics performance. This finding confirmed the “world-class” logistics competencies (i.e. positioning, integration, agility, and measurement) as identified by MSUGLRT (1995). In addition, it suggests that logistics competency in a huge geographic area such as America can have the same effect in a smaller geographic area such as Taiwan.

Drawing on the theoretical concept of organisational fit, this paper questions the relevance of employees' participation in the link between continuous improvement (CI) and operational performance. The literature has long emphasised that to be successful, CI implementation needs to rely on employees' involvement as soon as its inception. This paper argues that this approach is not generalisable.

Based on a database of 330 firms across 15 countries, regression analyses were used to hypothesise that the fit between CI and employee participation is positively associated with operational performance, and that the fit between CI and centralisation of authority is negatively associated with operational performance. The authors also ran a robustness check with polynomial regression analyses and the response surface methodology.

CI–employee participation fit is positively associated with operational performance, suggesting that there is less need for employees to be involved when a firm has scarcely developed CI. Employee participation becomes gradually more relevant as CI progresses. Moreover, the results demonstrate that the CI–centralisation of authority fit is negatively associated with operational performance, suggesting that a top-down management approach with centralised authority is preferable when CI is low, whereas a bottom-up management approach is helpful when a firm has extensively developed CI.

This research draws on the concept of organisational fit to explore the relationships between internal practices in the operations management literature. The authors suggest that managers should dynamically balance the practices of employee participation and centralisation of authority as CI improves. This study highlights that CI has different evolutionary levels that require different managerial approaches and practices.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the business model and the strategic intent to adopt an open collaboration initiative influence the perceived quality of collaboration outcomes.

This paper presents a framework to analyze the role of the strategic dimension and the operational dimension in open collaboration initiatives through multiple case studies in three companies to understand how the open collaboration initiative was deployed and how was the level of the alignment between these two dimensions.

The studied cases revealed that when an open collaboration initiative starts in the strategic dimension and there is an alignment between the organizational dimension and operational dimension, the collaboration outcomes are clearer and more traceable.

The study highlights the need to consider the involvement and the internal alignment between strategic and operational dimensions when deploying an open collaboration activity if they want to achieve all the benefits.

The presented framework can help managers to evaluate and understand how open collaboration activities are deployed within the company.

The study shows that when an open collaboration initiative is planned, its results and benefits can be extended to local communities by developing them.

This study aims to analyze the open collaboration initiative’s contribution to the overall organizational performance through the alignment between the organizational dimension and operational dimension perspective.

Earlier studies have generally shown a positive relationship between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and the overall performance of the firm. The purpose of this paper is to understand in more detail how EO influences firm performance. It adds to the literature by distinguishing performances of different functions in a firm and by exploring how the dimensions of EO influence these functional performances and, in turn, overall firm performance.

This study examined the relationship between three dimensions of EO (innovativeness, proactiveness, risk-taking), three types of functional performances of firms (R&D performance, production performance, marketing and sales performance) and the overall performance of firms. The data are collected from 279 high-tech small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) using a postal survey. The proposed hypotheses are tested using structural equation modeling (SEM).

The results indicate that the dimensions of (EO) are related in different ways to the performance of functions in a firm. A positive relationship is observed between innovativeness and R&D performance and between proactiveness and marketing and sales performance. A negative relationship exists between risk-taking and production performance. The results also show a sequential positive relationship from R&D via production and marketing and sales to overall performance of firms. Therefore, it is concluded that the R&D, production and marketing and sales functions reinforce each other in a logic order and are complementary in their effect on overall firm performance.

The results imply that the three functions, R&D, production and marketing and sales, in a firm play different roles, both in the firm’s EO and in their contribution to overall performance. Managers can use the findings to monitor and influence the performance of different functions in a firm to increase overall firm performance.

The first contribution of this study is that it unravels (i) which dimensions of EO have an effect on the performance of separate functions in a firm, indicating that functions contribute in different ways to entrepreneurial orientation of the firm. A second contribution is assessing how the performance of these functions influence the firm’s overall performance. This paper fills a gap in the literature by exploring internal firm variables mediating the relationship between EO and overall firm performance and contributes to the discussion on the contradictory results regarding the relationship between risk-taking and firm performance.

The paper aims to investigate the difference in total factor productivity (TFP) among those firms with and without outsourcing in a developing country like Vietnam. Also, it explores the effect of outsourcing activities on total factor productivity with a specified concentration on the Vietnamese small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

The panel data set of SMEs used in this study was originated from biannual surveys conducted under the collaboration between educational organizations and government agencies: Stockholm School of Economics (SSE), Department of Economics – the University of Copenhagen, the Institution of Labor Studies and Social Affairs (ILSSA) in the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA). In this study, the model is developed based on the production function in accordance with the model of Girma and Görg (2004). The firms’ TFP is the difference between the actual and the predicted output as with the approach by Levinsohn and Petrin (2003).

This study finds out that firms with outsourcing have higher total factor productivity than those without outsourcing activities. In addition, the more firms spend on outsourcing, the higher total factor productivity they can gain. Outsourcing to SMEs in a developing country can significantly increase its TFP by means of either maintaining core competencies or searching external resources in conducting some internal activities.

Although outsourcing has been widely applied by large firms, the research studying its impact on productivity at firm level is limited. Especially, this study can shed light on the impact for the case of SMEs in a developing economy.