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The purpose of this paper is to define the “fast evolving industry” (FEI) and its supply chain management (SCM) challenges. The authors review and structure the literature regarding integration strategies and implementation methods to develop a strategic decision-making framework for SCM in the FEI.

The authors conduct a review of SCM literature, including supply chain strategy, supply chain integration (SCI), agile and responsive supply chain and SCM for innovative and fast-changing industries. The authors develop a conceptual model and a decision-making framework and use four mini cases to provide support for the model and framework.

The FEI, characterised by a high level of innovation and differentiation, short products/services lifecycle and high variety, is yet to be fully defined. Inherent uncertainty in FEI supply systems makes SCM in these industries a complex but strategic task for their managers. The framework and the model offered in this study, which employ a core competency concept and provide risk management strategies, offer a strategic tool for managers and scholars in the field to optimise their integration strategies and to operationalise integration decisions.

Little research has been published on transferable and cross-industrial SCM in FEIs. This paper defines the FEI and its resource-related concerns and then offers a conceptual model and a strategic decision-making framework for SCI in FEIs.

This paper aims to examine the relationship between supply integration and firm performance by first, investigating the mediating effects of manufacturing flexibility and mass customization; and second, exploring the moderating role of innovation orientation on the link between internal capabilities and performance.

Resource orchestration and contingency theories are used to address the mediating and moderating effects. A cross-sectional data set on 242 Swedish manufacturers is used to test for the hypotheses using structural equation modeling.

The findings provide support for the mediating roles of manufacturing flexibility and mass customization in the relationship between supply integration and firm performance. However, the results point to contrasting contingent effects of innovation orientation. While innovation orientation positively moderates the association between mass customization and firm performance, it shows a negative impact on the link between flexibility and performance.

The study contributes to the literature on the integrative activities with upstream supply chain actors. Specifically, the authors highlight how specific capability configurations comprising of supply integration, manufacturing flexibility and mass customization lead to firm performance. Moreover, the authors provide insights on the contingency role of innovation, especially if firms consider flexibility or customization capabilities.

While the individual impacts of flexibility and customization on performance have been addressed previously, there is a paucity of research on how these two capabilities are integrated with supply integration. Moreover, there is little known regarding the role of innovation orientation on these integrated relationships.

The purpose of this study is to follw the process perspective approach in post-M&A (mergers and acquisitions) integration studies, with a focus on human resource function, to make the research literature relevant to HR integration process up to date.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, limited systematic literature review and study in this interface has previously been published.

Therefore, this conceptual study filled in the research gap by pointing out a clear framework on HR integration in cross-border post-acquisitions, reviewing both the content and process of HR integration. This paper contributes to future research on the HR integration process perspective in theoretical directions.

It addresses the gap in research and opens the avenues for M&A researchers to consider HR as the strategic partner during M&As and to study HR aspects in an integrated process perspective view. This approach complements socialized reviews and it suggests a process perspective on how to dispersed themes and interrelate topics. It provide a clear process perspective helps to develop a concurrent research agenda, which can guide future work in the field.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and characterize knowledge integration approaches for integrating external knowledge of suppliers into new product development projects.

This paper is based on a multiple, in-depth case study of six product development projects at three knowledge-intensive manufacturing firms.

Firms make purposeful choices to devise knowledge integration approaches when working in collaborative buyer – supplier projects. The knowledge characteristics of the supplier input guide the choice of either coupling knowledge sharing and combining across firms or decoupling knowledge sharing (across firms) and knowledge combining (within firms).

This study relies on a limited number of case studies and considers only one supplier relationship in each project. Further studies could examine the challenge of knowledge integration in buyer – supplier relationships in different contexts, i.e. in relation to innovation complexity and uncertainty.

Managers need to make choices when designing knowledge integration approaches in collaborative product development projects. The use of coupled and decoupled approaches can help balance requirements in terms of joint problem-solving across firms, the efficiency of knowledge integration and the risks of knowledge leakage.

The conceptualization of knowledge integration as knowledge sharing and knowledge combining extends existing perspectives on knowledge integration as either a transfer of knowledge or as revealing the presence of pertinent knowledge without entirely transmitting it. The findings point to the complexity of knowledge integration as a process influenced by knowledge characteristics, perspectives on knowledge, openness of firm boundaries and elements of knowledge sharing and combining.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss how enterprises can effectively perceive and use the digital opportunities brought about by digital technologies and dynamic environments and how they can enhance their capabilities to realize digital transformation and adapt to the development of the digital economy era.

Based on the windows of opportunity theory and strategic cognition theory, this paper conducts an empirical analysis of the questionnaire data of 268 enterprises and discusses the influence of external windows of opportunity and internal windows of opportunity on the digital transformation of enterprises, as well as the action mechanism of strategic cognition and entrepreneurship.

The results show that both the external windows of opportunity and the internal windows of opportunity have significant positive effects on the digital transformation of enterprises. Strategic cognition plays a partial mediating role in the external windows of opportunity and the internal windows of opportunity influencing the enterprise digital transformation process. Entrepreneurship plays a positive regulatory role in the process of external windows of opportunity and internal windows of opportunity influencing strategic cognition.

This paper deepens the relationship between internal and external windows of opportunity and enterprise digital transformation and contributes a new theoretical cognition. This paper integrates the strategic cognition theory to clarify the complex process mechanism of digital transformation using external situational opportunities and internal capabilities. This paper introduces entrepreneurship into the path mechanism of digital transformation and expands the characteristics of the study of digital transformation antecedents to the individual level within the enterprise.

The main objective of this study is to investigate an impact of organizational culture on supply chain risk and strategic sourcing. It also examines the relationship between organizational culture and strategic sourcing. By collecting 159 survey responses from supply, executives and managers of U.S. manufacturing firms, it provides empirical evidence that organizational culture and strategic sourcing mitigate supply chain risks. Organizational culture also makes a positive impact on the implementation of strategic sourcing. This study emphasizes the importance of cultural impacts to supply executives and managers in supply chain risk management.

This paper aims to propose a framework investigating the diffusion and adoption process of big data (BD) in the supply chain (SC) as a tool to manage process innovation at technological, operational and strategical levels.

A comprehensive systematic literature methodology is used to develop the theoretical conceptual framework, which comprehensively describes and captures the innovative stages of BD technology adoption process in SC with a multilevel perspective.

Results show that BD has modified the supply network concept, starting from the dyadic relationships, triads up to the creation of a streamlined and integrated network. These changes are reflected in a novel integrated vision including both benefits and barriers.

The proposed framework supports companies in redesigning the processes affected by the adoption of BD, helping them in identifying the critical elements, barriers, benefits and expected performance. One limitation is the focus of the study on the analysis of the processes of adoption of BD technology in the SC considering a particular structure of SC characterized by only two levels of supply and by a reduced number of members.

Although the role of BD in supply chain operations management (SCOM) is well acknowledged in the literature, its adoption and diffusion process from an interorganizational perspective is still missing. Specifically, the adoption stages of BD in SC have been defined at a strategic level, and successively the SC operations and technological perspective have been integrated to depict the operationalization of BD implementation and diffusion.