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This study aims to explore how manufacturing firms master customer lock-in through value creation by servitization innovation strategies from the perspective of asset specificity.

A multiple case study with triangulation fashion is adopted to identify servitization innovation strategies. Several manufacturing firms were investigated, which are distributed in different positions of the value chain. Content analysis and abductive approaches are adopted to analyze the data. Moreover, an in-depth interview and participatory observation were conducted to refine the analysis results.

This study identified four different focusing points of servitization operations. Based on these, the paper further induces an innovative servitization strategy matrix of customer lock-in, concerning communion, intellectual, existential and insubstantial strategies. Furthermore, a conceptual model of customer lock-in by servitization innovation from the perspective of asset specificity is elaborated. It is suggested that companies can use tangible or intangible resources by sharing or storing operations to create servitization value.

This study theoretically proposes a conceptual model to extend servitization innovation as an intangible asset and adopt the new perspective of asset specificity to illustrate the value creation in servitization to generate customer lock-in.

This study investigates how asset specificity, relational governance and firm adaptability relate with supply chain integration (SCI), considering selected food processing firms (FPFs) in Uganda.

This study applies a quantitative research methodology. This research draws on a sample of 103 FPFs that have been selected from a population of 345 FPFs located in Kampala district. Hypothesis testing was done using Smart PLS version 3.

Asset specificity has a significant positive relationship with SCI, and firm adaptability partially mediates this relationship. Also, there is a full mediation impact of firm adaptability on the relationship between relational governance and SCI.

This study focused on perceptual measures to get responses from managers on the level of integration with key suppliers and customers, yet firms deal with a number of suppliers and customers.

This study contributes to existing literature on SCI by applying the transaction cost theory. The study focuses on the influence of asset specificity, relational governance and firm adaptability on SCI in the food processing sector. Literature on relational governance in supply chain using the transaction cost theory remains scanty. Few studies have also focused on firm adaptability as a mediator in the FPS with specific focus on Uganda, yet the sector is highly faced with uncertain events. The uncertain events in the sector and in developing countries call for adaptive strategies. Additionally, this study is the first to use firm adaptability to mediate the influence of asset specificity and relational governance on SCI more so in a developing country like Uganda where the FPS is one of the most important in the economy.

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.

Grounded in contingency theory and strategic fit theory, the goal for this research was to determine if managers differentiate in terms of the degree of partnership when allocating resources for planning, joint operating controls, communication and other management components to relationships and if this differentiation is based on the Partnership Model (Lambert et al., 1996).

In total, 381 managers representing 31 relationships participated in one-and-a-half-day partnership meetings, and the authors analyzed how the management components were implemented in each relationship compared to the recommendations in the Partnership Model.

Managers did not differentiate types of partnerships which led to over-resourcing relationships with low potential and under-resourcing those with the highest potential for creating value. The principles of contingency theory and strategic fit were not used for managing relationships.

Contingency theory combined with the relationship view suggests that management components should not be implemented at the same level for all relationships, but in the 31 relationships studied different partnership types were not managed based on their potential.

The research reinforces the need for a formal structure like the Partnership Model to establish joint goals for a relationship and guide management in implementation.

Effective supply chain management depends on the ability of managers to differentiate among partnership types and fit relational mechanisms that are appropriate. However, researchers tend to generalize their findings to all partnerships regardless of potential. The authors found support for the Partnership Model published in IJLM in 1996 as a method to resource different types of partnerships following the contingency perspective and strategic fit theory.

As corporate sustainability is systemic, it cannot be achieved without effective involvement of suppliers. This study aims to examine the drivers of supplier companies’ resource allocation to a sustainability issue that affects customer companies and society at large.

Supplier companies’ resource allocation for a sustainability issue is explained from variables at the levels of the institutional, supply chain and internal environments of a supplier company. The framework is tested with a moderated regression model on 102 supplier companies in animal-based supply chains, focussing on their resource allocation for farm animal welfare.

The findings show that supply chain factors have the strongest influence on suppliers’ resource allocation, including a strong effect of investment specificity and a U-shaped effect of chain integration. Also, significant effects from institutional variables, namely, the pressure on consumer companies, and an inverted U-shaped effect of sustainability competition are found. The innovativeness, referring to the internal environment of supplier companies, appears as another important factor for the allocation of resources to animal welfare, as a sustainability issue.

The results have implications for consumer market companies to deal with sustainability issues that require involvement of their suppliers, for supplier companies to increase their competitive positions and strengthen their relationships within the supply chain, and for policymakers seeking solutions for sustainability issues in the market domain.

While existing literature focusses mostly on the corporate sustainability of highly visible and large consumer companies, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine the drivers of supplier companies’ resource allocation for a sustainability issue, namely, animal welfare. It provides insights on what drives supplier companies, usually operating outside the spotlight, to become part of a sustainability transition.

This paper aims to present the vertical integration state-of-the-art and propose an expansion of the operations and supply chain management (OSCM) field by identifying gaps and bottlenecks.

This paper uses a systematic literature review based on a sample of 173 OSCM field articles, collected from Scopus and Web of Science databases.

There are no single factors, such as future costs, structures or skills development, in the decision to vertically integrate operations. It is necessary to combine the vision of production costs with the perspective of governance and transaction costs. In addition, it is essential to consider the competency perspective and its impact on capability building.

Few studies have attempted to understand how vertical integration is used in terms of OSCM research themes and theories. Vertical integration can help companies face challenges and serve as a potential solution for achieving better prices, demand control and quality management.

The significant role of vertical integration mechanisms in supply chains is crucial for managers evaluating a firm's reconfiguration with more vertical operations. Policymakers interested in supporting the smoothness of vertical integration decisions in regulatory agencies play a key role as contingencies.

In times of global challenges, vertical integration is a strategy known to be more effective for firms to obtain a competitive advantage, making them more resilient.

This paper addresses gaps in the vertical integration theme and provides insights for future research development.

Green supplier selection (GSS) is acknowledged as important governance in green supply chain management (GSCM). However, this paper argues that GSS is not a stand-alone GSCM governance mode that determines manufacturers' environmental performance but rather one that needs to be aligned with contractual governance, particularly contractual control and adaptation, to promote environmental performance effects. This paper adopts GSS as ex ante governance and introduces behavior and outcome controls as ex post contractual control and adaptation, respectively. Thus, this paper addresses how GSS affects environmental performance directly and indirectly through behavior and outcome controls within transaction cost economics (TCE) theory.

This research model was tested on 300 Chinese manufacturing firms, and multiple regression analysis was used to validate our hypotheses.

A direct relationship was observed between GSS and environmental performance. This direct relationship is positively mediated by behavior and outcome controls.

This paper develops and elucidates an integrative green supply chain process proceeding from the implementation of ex ante GSS and ex post contractual governance to the realization of environmental performance. Furthermore, this paper considers two different forms of contractual governance, specifically contractual control and adaptation, and explains how they can be implemented using behavior and outcome controls from the perspective of TCE theory.

The understanding of how to mitigate opportunism in construction projects is still limited and conflicting. The complexity of causalities and interdependence among antecedents of opportunism (transaction characteristics and governance mechanisms) is the major obstacle to current research. This study takes a holistic perspective to explore the different combinations of conditions that lead to high opportunism and low opportunism in project management.

Through 2 phases of the interview and questionnaire survey, the 91 valid survey data were collected from the buyer–seller relationships in construction projects and analyzed by adopting fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis.

A single transaction characteristic is rarely sufficient to explain opportunism, and combinations of different transaction characteristics and governance mechanisms (performance ambiguity, asset specificity, buyer's requirement certainty, informal control, and formal control) have different effects on opportunism. In the case of extremely unsatisfactory transaction characteristics, even the combination of formal and informal control cannot prevent high opportunism. The combination including low-formal control and high-asset specificity easily leads to high opportunism. Besides, performance ambiguity is a vital factor in mitigating high opportunism or achieving low opportunism.

Previous studies have always addressed the role of one or some factors independently and separately. This study is one of the first to explore the different combinations of conditions that result in high opportunism and low opportunism in project management based on transaction costs economics and agency theory.

Research on the relationship between customer bargaining power and supplier performance in supplier–customer relationships has flourished in recent decades. This study aims to empirically investigate whether product market overlap (PMO) in a supply chain moderates the effect of customer bargaining power on supplier profitability.

This study uses large-scale secondary data from multiple databases. Econometric panel data techniques are used to test the hypotheses.

The results show that PMO in a supplier–customer relationship and PMO in supplier–supplier relationships both exacerbate the negative effect of the bargaining power of customers on supplier profitability.

This study contributes to the field of supply chain management. This study brings new insights into the ongoing debate surrounding the relationship between customer bargaining power and supplier profitability. The study also contributes to the literature on supply chain networks by showing the impact of indirect supply chain relationships.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of two typical relationship management approaches (trust relationship with suppliers and reciprocity) on manufacturer resilience in the context of the COVID-19 crisis. Moreover, this paper aims to deepen the understanding of environmental uncertainty's moderating effect on the association between the trust relationship with suppliers (TRS) and reciprocity.

Structural equation modeling has been used to test the hypotheses on 361 Chinese manufacturing firms' managers and independent directors during the COVID-19 crisis.

The results reveal that reciprocity positively enhances three dimensions of manufacturer resilience, namely, preparedness, responsiveness and recovery capability. Reciprocity positively mediates the relationships between TRS and preparedness, responsiveness and recovery capability. Moreover, environmental uncertainty moderates the association between TRS and reciprocity.

This study highlights the critical role of reciprocity, the relational governance approach, in enhancing manufacturer resilience in practice. This paper suggests that during emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic, managers should adopt trust and reciprocity in supplier relationship governance to strengthen the resilience of manufacturing companies and adapt effective strategies according to the environment.

This study is unique in developing new scales of manufacturer resilience through interviews and surveys with Chinese manufacturers and theoretical research. Based on the social capital theory and social exchange theory, this study shed light on the role of trust and reciprocity. It also bridges relational governance theory with the literature on manufacturing firm resilience literature to help manufacturers better understand the transdisciplinary links between relationship management and resilient operations in emergencies.