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Sustainability approaches across product supply chains are well-known, while similar knowledge on transport supply chains (TSC) is limited. The purpose of this paper is to explore sustainability approaches and managerial challenges in extending sustainability across a TSC.

This paper presents a case study of a TSC with a shipper, a third-party logistics firm and a hauler. Each actor’s views on sustainability-related communication and relations with other TSC actors are analyzed through the lens of agency theory.

Each dyad in the TSC reveals different, more or less collaboration-based approaches. Challenges are revealed, including the lack of shipper understanding for the TSC context and the use of immature contracts, which disincentivizes sustainability compliance. The multi-tier study object reveals the silencing of distant actors and the need for actors to take on mediating roles to bridge information asymmetries.

Combining literature perspectives (relations, communication and agency theory) provides a deeper understanding of the approaches applied and identifies different challenges. The inclusion of agency theory reveals principal problems such as information asymmetries between agents and less-informed principals and suggests complementary labels of supply chain actors.

Practical contributions include the highlighting of managerial challenges, which can aid managers in extending sustainability across TCSs.

The case study method offers insights into collaboratively improving sustainability in supply chains (such as using contracts), thus having social and environmental implications.

The paper narrows knowledge gaps about managing sustainability among logistics service providers and analyzes data from multi-tier actors.

The literature on supply chain management has focused on the benefits of frequent and strategic communication in supply chains. However, it has paid much less attention to the difficulties and conflicts associated with day‐to‐day communications in supply chains. This discrepancy is surprising because operational communications play a crucial role in supply chain management. In this paper, the aim is to investigate when operational, day‐to‐day communications in supply chains become linked with conflicts and how these conflicts can be prevented.

The authors surveyed respondents from the partner firms of 81 different supply chains. The data from 380 surveys were examined with moderated regression analyses.

The findings indicate that operational communications are linked with conflicts if upstream parties in supply chains do not recognise the importance that their downstream partners attach to certain performance objectives.

First, the paper goes beyond the benefits of communication and demonstrates that communication in supply chains can also have drawbacks. Moreover, the paper shows how upstream goal recognition helps parties avoid conflicts in their day‐to‐day communications.

The study points to the importance of developing upstream goal recognition in supply chains and provides several suggestions to promote upstream goal recognition.

The paper contributes to supply chain communication research by going beyond the benefits of communication and highlighting the difficulties that can accompany day‐to‐day operational communications. Moreover, it provides an explanation for the conditions under which operational communications are associated with conflict.

This study empirically examines a model that describes the direct path from perceived understanding of supply chain integration (PUSCI) to perceived understanding of supply chain responsiveness (PUSCR) to leverage supply chain manager's communication and teamwork competencies. This study also examines whether knowledge and task skill and proficiency mediate the relationship between PUSCI and PUSCR to improve the communication and teamwork competency of a supply chain manager.

The data were collected using a survey questionnaire that was mailed to the 413 supply chain managers of global manufacturing companies in Indonesia.

The result from model testing shows that PUSCR significantly and positively affected the communication and teamwork competency of supply chain manager and knowledge, task skill and proficiency as mediating variables improved communication and teamwork competency. The results found that PUSCI was related to supply chain manager's competency.

Supply chain managers are advised to focus on PUSCI and consistently improve effective communication and teamwork competency.

This study will extend the literature by utilizing the competency-based theory to investigate the perceived understanding and communication capabilities of supply chain managers.

The purpose of this paper is to present a collaborative communications model developed during the conduct of a recent academic research study and provide information to healthcare supply chain managers and administrators.

Using data collected from a case study involving healthcare supply chain managers in the United States Army, this work examines how collaborative communications is linked to healthcare supply chain management. The findings associated with this study may have many transferable applications to institutions beyond a military health services context.

This paper presents the findings and conclusions ascertained during a case study of collaborative communications. Five emerging themes were identified and a management model was developed for the enhancement of healthcare supply chain operations. Emerging themes included synergy among organizations, stakeholders working together, enhancements in supply chain operations, a continuance of training for supply chain leaders, and commonalities among disparate levels of management.

Healthcare is a continually evolving industry. Supply chain efficiency can be linked to potential cost savings and more efficient operations within healthcare organizations. By understanding a model related to communicating collaboratively, leaders begin to understand the need for partnering among internal and external stakeholders and creating more efficient practices and processes. While this discussion is directed specifically toward healthcare management, the principles are applicable across a wide array of industries.

Communicating effectively is never easy for any healthcare organization or staff. Whether isolated to key individuals or throughout the entire organization, leaders have an inherent responsibility to share information and set conditions for organizational success. Arguably, the critical path to success involves effective, collaborative communications across multiple echelons of management responsibilities.

While there is a dearth of literature examining communications and collaboration among various industries, little information is directed specifically toward the management of healthcare organizations or supply chain operations. In an applied sense, this model provides healthcare supply chain managers with concepts related to communicating more effectively at both the individual and organizational levels.

Research has extensively focused on the cultural differences in supply chain collaboration while neglecting the importance of cultural similarities and compatible goals among supply chain members. With the rise of global supply chain network, the choice of supply chain orientation is critical. This study argues that performance differences between these configurations highlight managerial implications for sustainable development.

Drawing from uncertainty reduction and cognitive social capital theories, this study developed a taxonomy of manufacturing firms based on process alignment between cultural compatibility and supply chain communication. The empirical data used in this study were drawn from the Global Manufacturing Research Group (GMRG) survey project, with data collected from 680 manufacturing companies, across various industry sectors and countries.

There appeared to be consistent three major configurations: the Proactive, the Initiative and the Reactive. Manufacturers distanced themselves based mainly on communication with customers on events and proprietary information. Communication-cultural compatibility taxonomies influence differently on operations and financial performance. The Initiative, who excelled in communication practices gained significant improvement in efficiency and delivery measures. While Reactive lagged, Proactive aligned in both capabilities to experience higher payoffs in operational and financial measures. The findings offer a step-by-step approach where manufacturers intensify communication with partners for better efficiency and delivery measures, then align cultural practices to obtain financial, quality and innovation performance.

It will be fruitful for future research to examine the evolution of longitudinally. A comparison between developed and developing economies will be of interest.

The findings provide a step-by-step decision-making process for supply chain communication and offer guidance especially for global supply chain managers.

This study adds greater comprehensiveness and richness to the information exchange literature on performance by process aligning to enhance cultural compatibility.

The aim of this paper is to analyse simplified traditional fashion clothing supply chain models between the UK and China to identify the key issues in quality and communication management.

Qualitative research utilising key informant interviews was used. A total of nine full interviews were undertaken from three simplified supply chains. A content analysis approach was used to analyse the data based on recurring themes. The focus was on the management of quality and communication including design development, sample development and approval, fabric/trims order and approval, bulk production management and shipping/warehouse management.

The research suggested that for fashion supply chain organisation and management between the UK and China attention should be focused on improvement of three common aspects capable of inhibiting performance: deficiencies in design specification, language barriers, and cultural/human barriers.

The objective of this paper is to examine the influence of interorganizational relationships on the adoption of e‐business in the supply chain of Malaysian small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

A questionnaire was distributed to 200 Malaysian SMEs with a response rate of 68 percent. Data were analyzed by employing multiple regression analysis.

Interorganizational relationships such as communication, collaboration and information sharing were found to be significant in affecting Malaysian SMEs' decision to adopt e‐business in their supply chain. Contrary to existing literatures, this research found that trust and trading partners' power have no significant influence on the adoption of e‐business in the supply chain of Malaysian SMEs.

Organizations that would like to adopt e‐business in their supply chain with their trading partners will be able to apply strategies based on the findings from this research. Based on these finding, organizations that would like to implement e‐business with their trading partners in Malaysia should focus on improving interorganizational relationships such as communication, collaboration and information sharing.

The findings created an understanding of what attributes of interorganizational relationships influence the adoption of e‐business in the supply chain. In terms of theoretical contributions, this study has extended previous researches conducted in Western countries and provides great potential by advancing the understanding between the association of adoption factors and e‐business adoption in Malaysian SMEs. SMEs planning to adopt e‐business in their supply chain would be able to applied strategies based on the findings from this research.

How might an organization swiftly resolve supplier problems such that the issue does not reoccur? The purpose of this study seeks to understand the impact of different knowledge-sharing routines on measures of effective problem resolution.

Data are collected from an automotive manufacturer's (buyer) database. A hierarchical linear model analyzes dyadic data collected from 155 problems across 24 suppliers.

This study reveals that different ways of communicating have differing impact on measures of effective problem-solving. Communication involving face-to-face interaction slows the process, whereas frequent communication can lead to swift resolution. Furthermore, management teams are more likely to lead to a “better” fix in that these teams are more likely to implement changes in the process or product.

The data are for a tier-one automotive supplier. Hence, the findings are limited by the extent to which other organizations may differ.

The results provide insights for managers experiencing supply issues. Some forms of communication should be encouraged as they enhance the process. Moreover, the findings suggest there are consequences to pressuring a supplier to resolve a complaint quickly.

Very few researchers can claim to have investigated observed collaborative mechanisms that occur between a buyer and its suppliers when resolving a problem. This research adds to the literature on the relational view theory as it applies to supply chain management and problem resolution.

The paper explores the notion of worker voice in terms of its implications for supply chain justice. The paper proposes the value of the recognition perspective on social justice for framing workers’ experiences in global supply chains and identifies opportunities for the advancement of the worker voice agenda with recognition justice in mind.

The paper adopts a conceptual approach to explore the notion of worker voice in supply chains in terms of the recognition perspective on social justice.

Sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) scholarship has considered worker voice in terms of two key paradigms, which we term communication and representation. To address recognition justice for workers in global supply chains, the worker voice agenda must consider designing worker voice mechanisms to close recognition gaps for workers with marginalised identities; the shared responsibilities of supply chain actors to listen alongside the expectation of workers to use their voice; and the expansion of the concept of worker voice to cut across home-work boundaries.

The paper offers conceptual clarity on the emerging notion of worker voice in SSCM and is the first to interrogate the implications of recognition justice for the emergent worker voice agenda. It articulates key opportunities for future research to further operationalise worker voice upon a recognition foundation.

The purpose of this paper is to fill the research and cognitive gap by comparative analyzing of the cluster supply chain (CSC) and supply chains not belonging to the clusters to examine the relational embeddedness as the differentiator of supply chains operating in the clusters.

The conceptual model was tested with data collected from 475 industrial companies cooperating with their partners within supply chains, including 135 CSC. To identify the livraisons between different indicators, the correspondence analysis was applied.

The division of enterprises participating in this study into groups allows for the determination of relatively clear boundaries between enterprises belonging to the cluster and those that do not declare such affiliation. The obtained results confirmed that the relational embeddedness is the differentiator of the CSC collaboration.

The main limitations are referred to as the static character of the data.

The paper contains implications for cluster facilitators, as well as for cluster policy decision makers, to better design support for cluster organizations.

This research is a contribution to the literature on inter-organizational structures, such as clusters and supply chains, and in particular, contributes to the creation of the scientific ground of SCS theory. The research allowed to better understand the nature of collaboration taking into consideration the fact of the relational embeddedness of the companies operating within supply chains located in clusters. It proves the existence of a new type of inter-organizational form that is CSC.