Search results

Financing remains a serious concern for firms and is considered the main hurdle in the growth and development of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Recently, a new stream of financing (SCF; supply chain finance) has emerged to meet the financing issues of SMEs. Therefore, measuring SCF is essential to support SMEs’ operations. This study aims to develop and validate the SCF scale based on extant literature.

Using a mixed-method approach, this study recruited different samples of SME entrepreneurs to confirm the internal consistency, assess construct validity and check the item structure of the SCF scale in AMOS.

The outcomes of confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated the six factors of SCF (inventory financing, working capital optimization, reverse financing, fixed assets financing, logistics financing and order cycle financing) spread over 21 items. An interitem solid structure of the SCF scale offers invaluable contributions to the supply chain management literature.

This research supports SME entrepreneurs to obtain secure financing at the best cost, mitigating the risk of default, supporting the buyers’ payment terms, providing early payment to suppliers and strengthening the firm’s value chains. SMEs can obtain financing per their requirements to support their operational business processes. Moreover, SMEs can plan, manage and control finance-related transactional activities by correctly identifying financing solutions.

The present study contributes to SCM literature by developing and validating the SCF scale. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study that redefined SCF and identified its six dimensions.

Based on signaling theory, this paper aims to explore the impact of supply chain transparency (SCT) on firms' bank loan (BL) and supply chain financing (SCF) in the context of voluntary disclosure of supplier and customer lists.

Based on panel data collected from Chinese-listed firms between 2012 and 2021, fixed-effect models and a series of robustness checks are used to test the predictions.

First, improving SCT by disclosing major suppliers and customers promotes BL but inhibits SCF. Specifically, customer transparency (CT) is more influential in SCF than supplier transparency (ST). Second, supplier concentration (SC) weakens SCT’s positive impact on BL while reducing its negative impact on SCF. Third, customer concentration (CC) strengthens the positive impact of SCT on BL but intensifies its negative impact on SCF. Last, these findings are basically more pronounced in highly competitive industries.

This study contributes to the SCT literature by investigating the under-explored practice of supply chain list disclosure and revealing its dual impact on firms' access to financing offerings (i.e. BL and SCF) based on signaling theory. Additionally, it expands the understanding of the boundary conditions affecting the relationship between SCT and firm financing, focusing on supply chain concentration. Moreover, it advances signaling theory by exploring how financing providers interpret the SCT signal and enriches the understanding of BL and SCF antecedents from a supply chain perspective.

The purpose of this study is to examine how the quality management of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) impacts their supply chain financing performance (SCFP). This study also investigates the mediating roles of organisational dependence between quality management and the SCFP of SMEs, as well as the moderating role of environmental dynamics.

Questionnaires were administered to 248 financial managers responsible for supply chain finance (SCF) in SMEs in China. Data analysis techniques used include necessary condition analysis and multiple regression analysis.

Research findings show that, in SCF, the quality management of SMEs positively predicts their SCFP through the mediation of the organisational dependence of the focal enterprises in the supply chain network. Environmental dynamics are also found to moderate the relationship between quality management and SCFP through the organisational dependence of capital providers.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to explore the relationships between SMEs' quality management and their SCFP. Also, this study provides a new theoretical lens through which to study SCF by introducing signalling theory.

There is a growing need for methodological plurality in advancing operations management (OM), especially with the emergence of machine learning (ML) techniques for analysing extensive textual data. To bridge this knowledge gap, this paper introduces a new methodology that combines ML techniques with traditional qualitative approaches, aiming to reconstruct knowledge from existing publications.

In this pragmatist-rooted abductive method where human-machine interactions analyse big data, the authors employ topic modelling (TM), an ML technique, to enable constructivist grounded theory (CGT). A four-step coding process (Raw coding, expert coding, focused coding and theory building) is deployed to strive for procedural and interpretive rigour. To demonstrate the approach, the authors collected data from an open-source professional project management (PM) website and illustrated their research design and data analysis leading to theory development.

The results show that TM significantly improves the ability of researchers to systematically investigate and interpret codes generated from large textual data, thus contributing to theory building.

This paper presents a novel approach that integrates an ML-based technique with human hermeneutic methods for empirical studies in OM. Using grounded theory, this method reconstructs latent knowledge from massive textual data and uncovers management phenomena hidden from published data, offering a new way for academics to develop potential theories for business and management studies.

To explore how the blockchain affects the pricing and financing decisions in a low-carbon platform supply chain.

Considering the dual roles of the e-commerce platform as a seller and an initiator, a typical game-theoretical method is applied to analyze the behavior of supply chain decision-makers and the impact of key variables on equilibriums.

When loan interest rates are symmetric, whether blockchain is used or not, the e-commerce platform financing mode will always produce higher wholesale price and unit carbon emission reduction, while the retail price is the opposite. Higher unit additional income brought by the blockchain can bring higher economic and environmental performances, and the e-commerce platform financing mode is superior to bank financing mode. The application of blockchain may cause the manufacturer to change his/her financing choice. For bank financing, with the increase of loan interest rates, the advantages brought by blockchain will gradually disappear, but this situation will not occur under e-commerce platform financing.

Blockchain is known for its information transparency properties and its ability to enhance user trust. However, the impacts of applying blockchain in a low-carbon platform supply chain with different financing options are not clear. The authors examine the manufacturer's strategic choices for platform financing and bank financing, whether to adopt blockchain, and the impact of these decisions on carbon emissions reduction, consumer surplus and social welfare. The research conclusion can provide reference for the operation and financing decisions of platform supply chain under the carbon reduction target in the digital economy era.

The purpose of the study is to investigate the financing channels and carbon emission abatement preferences of supply chain members, and further examine the optimal contract design of the retailer.

This paper develops a low-carbon supply chain composed of one retailer and one manufacturer, in which the retailer provides trade credit to the manufacturer. Considering the cap-and-trade regulation, the manufacturer with uncertain yield makes decision on whether to invest in emission abatement. There are bank loan and trade credit to finance production for the manufacturer and green credit to finance emission abatement investment. Meanwhile, the retailer may provide the manufacturer with three kinds of contracts to improve emission abatement efficiency, namely, revenue sharing, cost sharing or both sharing.

The results show that the retailer prefers to offer financing service at lower interest rate, but trade (and green) credit financing is always optimal for manufacturer and supply chain. The investment in emission abatement is value-added to all players. The sharing contracts offered by the retailer at lower sharing ratios can realize Pareto improvement of the system regardless of the financing scheme. However, comparing with the revenue or cost sharing contract, the existence of optimal sharing ratios makes the both sharing contract more favorable to the retailer.

The findings provide guidance for the emission-dependent manufacturer in financing and emission abatement decisions, as well as recommendations for the retailer to offer loan service and sharing contract.

This paper integrates green credit into bank loan or trade credit to analyze the financing decision of the manufacturer with uncertain yield and further considers the influence of three kinds of sharing contracts introduced by the retailer on improving operational performance.

It is important to understand the factors that are significant in supply chain (SC) collaboration decision making and whether supply chain collaborative factors that are considered in the literature are still valid. To date, SC collaboration has not been extensively studied in the literature with supply chain finance (SCF) factors to evaluate SCF performance. Therefore, in this paper, the authors investigate the interrelationships between SCF and supply chain collaborative (SCC) factors for achieving SCF performance. The authors identified the most important factors from the literature on SCF and SCC and with inputs from experts in the textile industry in Pakistan.

The authors employed the Gray-Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory approach to help examine the cause-and-effect relationship between the factors and identify the influence of each factor on the others.

The findings showed that the most prominent factors of the study are “level of digitalization”, “information sharing”, and “collaborative communication”, and “most effect factors of this study are incentive alignment” and “information quality”. Furthermore, the “Level of digitalization” was identified as the factor with the central role and most significant correlation with other factors.

The major implication of the study is that textile industries should effectively develop their supply chain decisions after analyzing their internal and external factors, which will help in developing strategies that will facilitate better management of SCF relationships. The limitations of the study are that only 15 SCF and supply chain collaborative factors were considered, and time and scope are also limited. This study is only applied in the textile industry, so generalization may be limited.

To date, this study is the only one that has taken into consideration SCC with SCF factors to evaluate supply chain performance. This paper therefore makes this initial attempt and original contribution to this discussion, which can be helpful for those working to enhance supply chain performance, such as practitioners and policymakers.

Supply chain finance is an emergent research area dealing with the financial performance of a firm throughout its supply chain. It has been drawing significant attention among industrial practitioners and researchers. However, there is need to identify improvements in supply chain finance (SCF) practices to ensure sustainable growth. In recent years, circular economy practices are being adopted worldwide with a motivation to achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Moreover, integration of circular economy practices in the financial aspects of supply chain is still in infant age.

Adoption of circular SCF in firms enhances both restorative and regenerative capacities of the firm. In this regard, this study aims to review articles on circular practices in SCF. The study identified 329 articles related to circular practices and sustainable practices in SCF from the Scopus database. The shortlisted articles were reviewed and discussed.

The findings of the study help to recognize the most influential and productive research in circular SCF in terms of journals and trends. Further research is recommended to explore this area in depth to recognize potential integrating factors that help in smooth acceptance of circular finance in supply chains.

Bibliometric and network analyses were performed to identify research trends and networks in the field of circular SCF. In addition, emerging research themes in the field of circular SCF were identified and discussed, and research propositions are proposed to delineate future research directions.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and prioritise supply chain finance (SCF) adoption enablers and develop a novel comprehensive framework to select supplier firms based on their SCF adoption capability.

The study deploys a three-phase method to identify and prioritise SCF adoption enablers, followed by developing a model to select suppliers according to their SCF adoption capability. An extensive literature review, followed by a Delphi approach-based expert interview, has been used to finalise the enablers. Using the Best Worst Method and the VIsekriterijumsko KOmpromisno Rangiranje technique, a supplier selection model has been developed in the context of a case company.

The financial health and technological advancement variables received the top priority, followed by collaborative efficiency, whereas the human resources and organisational variables received the slightest significance. A supplier selection framework has also been developed by using the adoption capability of these factors by the supplier partners. In this study’s model, Supplier 4 exhibited better SCF adoption capability and received the top priority.

Manufacturing supply chains in a developing country are the scope of the current study. Extensive future studies are required to derive a global consensus.

The proposed framework of this study can be used to select supplier firms based on their SCF adoption capability. Policymakers can emphasise the most critical enablers of SCF adoption to assist small supplier firms to be a part of the advanced global supply chains.

The current study established a novel comprehensive framework for supplier selection based on the Supply Chain Finance adoption capability of MSME supplier firms.

In recent years, technological advancement has played a crucial role in the growth of emerging economies. However, as with any novel technological development, there are often concerns and hesitations surrounding its implementation. This study aims to investigate the factors influencing blockchain adoption and usage. Thereby evaluating its impact on supply chain performance.

This is a deductive research based on the modified form unified theory of acceptance and use of technology, which is a persuasive model that has been used in numerous studies on the acceptance and usage of information technology systems. For this study, valid data was collected from 129 management-level supply chain professionals and policymakers working in diverse manufacturing industries. The collected data was used for testing hypotheses by deploying the structural equation modeling technique.

The findings of this study reveal that facilitating conditions and technology readiness highly are key influencers for organizations to implement this disruptive technology. Moreover, blockchain adoption and usage can significantly enhance supply chain performance.

Blockchain technology is a novel and promising disruptive technology that industries are looking forward to adopting and using. For the policymakers and supply chain strategists working in a developing country, this study offers a comprehensive viewpoint on the swift acceptance and usage of blockchain technology to facilitate supply chain operations.