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The study sets out to demonstrate how a lifecycle perspective on complex, public-sector procurement projects can be used for making qualitative assessments of procurement policy and practice and reveal those procurement capabilities that are most impactful for operating effectively.

Agency theory, institutional theory and the lifecycle analysis technique are combined to abductively develop a framework to identify, analyse and compare complex procurement policies and practices in public sector organisations. Defence is the focal case and is compared with cases in the Nuclear, Local Government and Health sectors.

The study provides a framework for undertaking a lifecycle analysis to understand the challenges and capabilities of complex, public-sector buyers. Eighteen hierarchically-arranged themes are identified and used in conjunction with agency theory and institutional theory to explain complex procurement policy and practice variation in some of the UK’s highest-profile public buyers. The study findings provide a classification of complex buyers and offer valuable guidance for practitioners and researchers navigating complex procurement contexts.

The lifecycle approach proposed is a new research tool providing a bespoke application of theory by considering each lifecycle phase as an individual but related element that is governed by unique institutional pressures and principal-agent relationships.

In spite of growing research interest in cyber security, inter-firm based cyber risk studies are rare. Therefore, this study aims to investigate cyber risk management in supply chain contexts.

Adapting a systematic literature review process, papers from interdisciplinary areas published between 1990 and 2017 were selected. Different typologies, developed for conducting descriptive and thematic analysis, were established using data mining techniques to conduct a comprehensive, replicable and transparent review.

The review identifies multiple future research directions for cyber security/resilience in supply chains. A conceptual model is developed, which indicates a strong link between information technology, organisational and supply chain security systems. The human/behavioural elements within cyber security risk are found to be critical; however, behavioural risks have attracted less attention because of a perceived bias towards technical (data, application and network) risks. There is a need for raising risk awareness, standardised policies, collaborative strategies and empirical models for creating supply chain cyber-resilience.

Different types of cyber risks and their points of penetration, propagation levels, consequences and mitigation measures are identified. The conceptual model developed in this study drives an agenda for future research on supply chain cyber security/resilience.

A multi-perspective, systematic study provides a holistic guide for practitioners in understanding cyber-physical systems. The cyber risk challenges and the mitigation strategies identified support supply chain managers in making informed decisions.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first systematic literature review on managing cyber risks in supply chains. The review defines supply chain cyber risk and develops a conceptual model for supply chain cyber security systems and an agenda for future studies.

Social network analysis (SNA) seeks to manage the connections between entities through investigating and understanding behaviours and relationships. This study demonstrates the increasing relevance of social network approaches to solving contemporary and looming operations management (OM) and supply chain management (SCM) problems; including the coordination operations challenges raised by increased connectivity.

The systematic literature review approach adopted here examines 63 papers in OM and SCM published between 2000 and 2019. To-date OM reviews on SNA have focussed on discussing archetypal supply chains, what differentiates this study is the focus on how value was created in other forms of chains and operations.

This study reveals that current SNA adoption in OM is dominated by a manufacturing style focus on linear, sequential value creation, with a resulting focus only on sequential interdependence. SNA studies on reciprocally co-ordinated value creation (e.g. many service and network operations) are shown to have been neglected and are linked to a new agenda on contemporary management issues.

Beyond encouraging the use of SNA, this study seeks to re-orient SNA approaches towards how contemporary services and networks create value.

Through adopting a unique combination of approaches and frameworks, this study challenges extant work to offer a substantially revised agenda for SNA use in Operations and Supply Chain Management.

The purpose of this paper is to find a sustainable facility location solution for a closed-loop distribution network in the uncertain environment created by of high levels of product returns from online retailing coupled with growing pressure to reduce carbon emissions.

A case study approach attempts to optimize the distribution centre (DC) location decision for single and double hub scenarios. A hybrid approach combining centre of gravity and mixed integer programming is established for the un-capacitated multiple allocation facility location problem. Empirical data from a major national UK retail distributor network is used to validate the model.

The paper develops a contemporary model that can take into account multiple factors (e.g. operational and transportation costs and supply chain (SC) risks) while improving performance on environmental sustainability.

Based on varying product return rates, SC managers can decide whether to choose a single or a double hub solution to meet their needs. The study recommends a two hub facility location approach to mitigate emergent SC risks and disruptions.

A two-stage hybrid approach outlines a unique technique to generate candidate locations under twenty-first century conditions for new DCs.

The aim of the paper is to identify and review the impact and challenges of new contractual arrangements on UK military procurement and other limited or oligopolistic markets.

The unit of analysis is the large-scale procurement programme. Two cases of major military platforms (naval and air defence) examine through-life maintenance or “contracting for availability” and build theory on procuring complex performance (PCP). Propositions are developed from the literature then tested and extended from the case analysis, supported by 35 interviews from buyer and supplier representatives.

Examining UK military platform procurement reveals a perspective not present in fast moving high volume supply chains. In oligopolistic markets such as defence, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) represents a market of one, seeking ambitious and non-incremental innovation from the prime contractor during the procurement process. The new contractual arrangements show an increasing shift in responsibility to the prime contractor who coordinates service support and supply chain incentivisation over extended, often multi-decade platform lifecycles.

The cases were conducted separately and later compared. Whilst based on defence sources, the paper concludes with general recommendations for all public-private complex procurements and seeks to explore other industry sectors as part of further research into PCP.

Examined from a theoretical and practical perspective, the cases reveal the challenges facing procurement in major public-private projects. The changing role identified reflects extended timescales and the quasi-market military procurement environment, compounded by current economic and politically charged conditions. Procurement by default increasingly plays a new shaping role in large-scale programme management driven by outcome-based contracting. Customers such as the MOD must re-evaluate their role under these new contractual arrangements, providing leadership and engaging with future contracting capability and innovation.

This paper investigates how symmetrical learning activity is, between the public client and the private contractor in the contracting and operation of complex, long-term infrastructure projects. Drawing on empirical material from two United Kingdom (UK) private finance initiative (PFI) cases, the paper analyses differences in the absorptive capacity and learning capability between parties. It suggests the private contractor appears to be better equipped to acquire, embed and renew their learning. These findings reflect less than 5 years of a 30-year contract, suggesting a skewed (imbalanced) relationship, where the contractor gains more learning capabilities than the client. The paper concludes with implications for management practice and suggestions for future research directions.

Supply chain management has been defined as ‘the concept of strategically co‐ordinating supply chains made up of businesses owned and run by different people, each with his or her own business objectives’ (Slack, Chambers, Harland, Harrison and Johnston, 1995, p.532) or ‘close, shared destiny relations with suppliers’ (Oliver, Delbridge, Jones, Lowe, 1995, p.54). These and other definitions stress the role of supply chain management as managing value across organisational boundaries, and this mandates new forms of (and new ways of managing) inter firm relationships.

The paper aims to empirically validate a recently developed typology to demonstrate that services that are similar in terms of technical content, but different with regard to how they are used by the buying company, require different buyer-supplier interaction processes.

The paper conducts an embedded case study based on dyadic data collection to investigate the purchase of cleaning services by Netherlands Railways (NS) from two suppliers. These services differ with regard to how they are used by NS: as part of the value-proposition to customers (train and station cleaning) or as part of the support processes for NS (office cleaning).

The paper finds that for a technically homogenous service, fundamental differences in required interaction arise as a result of different usage situations. These differences are reflected in the sourcing decision and the design of the service delivery management process.

Besides the general limits of single case studies regarding external validity, a specific limitation of the study is the limited number of supplier interviews conducted.

In order to develop appropriate sourcing and service delivery management strategies, practitioners need to consider the use of the service purchased and how it relates to their value proposition. This research shows that pooling volume for services that are used differently may enable immediate price reduction but could reduce supplier performance and ultimately customer satisfaction.

The case study and the validated typology complement the limited literature on the procurement of services transferred to the next level of customers in the supply chain.