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The purpose of this paper is to explore the dimensions of strategic sourcing and determines its relationship with organisational supply chain agility and performance. It classifies manufacturing firms based on their level of supply chain agility and test the diffrences in firms' performnace across the clusters so obtained.

This research employes survey method and data is collected from 128 manufacturing companies in India. Valid and reliable measures of strategic sourcing, supply chain agility and organizational performance are developed. Factor structure and initial validity is determined and K‐Means cluster analysis is applied for clustering firms based on their level of supply agility. Multiple regression and ANOVA is used for hypotheses testing.

Strategic suplier partnership, sourcing flexibility, supplier evaluation and trust in supply chain members are the key dimensions of strategic sourcing. Result shows the significant effect of strategic sourcing and its diemnsions on supply chain agility and firms' performance.

Data is collected from single node/respondent of supply chain and further research can be carried out by using mutiple node data of each supply chain to make the research more meaningful and generalisable.

Findings are useful to develop and measure the competitive capabilities of strategic sourcing and guide the organisations to enhance supply chain responsiveness and organisational performance.

The paper provides strategic diemnsions of sourcing and their measurement scales. Provide evidence regarding the impact of strategic sourcing on agility of supply chains and performnace.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of a scale for measuring interorganizational citizenship behaviors (ICBs). ICBs are types of tactical boundary spanning activities employed by firms in supply chain relationships geared toward improving overall supply chain success. ICBs are theoretically grounded in organizational citizenship behaviors research (OCBs) and adapted to apply to the interorganizational context. Based on a previous research article, the paper aims to report on multidimensional scale development for ICBs that should be useful for future empirical research efforts in this and related areas.

The paper adhere as closely as possible to the formalized measurement scale development heuristic posited by Hinkin.

The process reveals four measurement scales useful for operationalizing unique types of ICBs in empirical research articles.

This paper operationalizes four common ICBs: interorganizational altruism, tolerance, loyalty, and compliance. It provides evidence to support the convergent and discriminant validity of the four ICB scales evaluated.

Quickly responding to customer needs has become a major priority for retail businesses such as grocery operations. Customer satisfaction is an absolute for staying competitive in these retail operations. This paper discusses efficient consumer response (ECR) as a supply chain strategy in grocery businesses by analyzing the adoption of ECR strategy by five major grocery operations in US markets. Furthermore, a management action plan is presented for future adoption of ECR strategy by similar business operations.

The thrust of this paper is to develop a comprehensive software selection criterion and view information technology related issues in supply chain management. This paper furnishes implicit details of decision support systems, software solutions and factors associated with selection of IT applications for supply chain management. It entails the components of decision support systems and evolution of supply chain management softwares. A brief discussion of the functioning of various modules of the supply chain package is presented. This paper also proposes the use of percentage based weighted Tree in order to choose appropriate supply chain solution(s).

Are lateral transshipments an effective instrument to ensure the safe and efficient supply of blood? This paper will use the lens of institutional theory to determine how the blood supply chain can benefit from lateral transshipments and what requirements are necessary for their implementation. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The research design comprises two stages. First, 16 case studies clustered into two case groups were conducted with transfusion laboratories in UK hospitals resulting in the derivation of eight key themes which were tested using a follow-up survey.

The blood supply chain acts under the influence of significant institutional pressures. Coercive pressures result from regulations enforced to ensure the safe supply of blood, normative pressures are imposed by society, demanding wastage is minimized and mimetic pressure from other hospitals fosters efficient supply chain operation. Lateral transshipments offer a powerful organizational tool to allow the blood supply chain to conform to these pressures.

This paper offers a novel institutional perspective on a complex supply chain issue where additional external pressures are seen to complicate the context. Due to the special characteristics of the blood supply chain, generalization of the findings to other industries must be done with care.

The paper confirms the benefits of lateral transshipments in a perishable product context. Special requirements for the blood supply chain/health care services are identified.

The key contributions of this paper are five propositions which offer an institutional theory perspective on the application of lateral transshipment relationships in the blood supply chain.

The supply chain (SC) model is commonly utilized in manufacturing and has also been adapted to a variety of service industries with similar goals. However, in a few service industries, most notably academic libraries, the SC model is rarely implemented, despite the fact that SC management best practises have been shown to boost stakeholder satisfaction, revenue and decrease total expenses. This research aims to discuss the development of the entities of an academic library SC model and present the verifying/validation process of the model.

In this research, both qualitative and quantitative approaches have been used. System thinking method used to develop the conceptual SC model of the academic library and fuzzy Delphi method (FDM) used to validate the developed model.

This research explores the functions and components that need to develop and validate the academic library SC model.

The outcome of this research is to construct a valid SC model of an academic library which could be a strategical tool for ensuring a quality service for the library users and the stakeholders because this model shows a holistic view of all entities of the academic library SC.

With ever‐increasing competitive pressures, growing numbers of firms use electronic procurement (e‐procurement) in an attempt to reduce costs and increase profitability. Academicians and practitioners alike agree that one of the most important benefits of e‐procurement is its ability to facilitate integration within the firm and across the supply chain. However, there is much to be discovered about the prevalence of actual implementation of e‐procurement. The purpose of this study is to empirically examine the extent to which firms operating in diverse industries use nine different e‐procurement tools that differ in their ability to facilitate supply chain integration. The survey data were provided by a sample of 142 members of the Institute for Supply Management (ISM). Factor analysis revealed that the group of nine e‐procurement tools could be categorized into two types: basic, single‐process tools and integrative tools. A t‐test of the mean differences between each type of e‐procurement tool revealed that firms used basic, single‐process tools to a greater extent than they used integrative forms of e‐procurement. To further explore firms’ use of e‐procurement, we attempted to ascertain whether the industry in which a firm operates impacts use. Logistic regression revealed that firm sector has an effect on the use of integrative eprocurement tools, with firms operating in the petroleum and the transportation equipment sectors being less likely to use them than their manufacturing counterparts. These findings are important, as previous research indicates that effective supply chain integration is associated with improvements in production planning, inventory management, distribution, and overall supply chain performance.

The challenges confronting the Nigerian construction industry which led to the adoption of supply chain management (SCM) practice were evaluated in this chapter. It was discovered that the Nigerian construction industry is confronted with fragmentation and poor information management. The stakeholders within the Nigerian construction industry proposed the adoption of SCM to overcome the fragmentation and other shenanigans facing the industry. This chapter revealed that construction supply chain (CSC) practices within the Nigerian construction industry focus on waste elimination by adopting the lean concept. The focus on the lean concept could be attributed to the numerous research related to lean or the enormous waste emanating from the Nigerian construction industry. Regardless of the emphasis on lean, the Nigerian CSC is still confronted with fragmentation and heavy waste generation. Thus, this chapter proposed the adoption of principles and technologies driven by the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) is a paradigm shift for the management of CSC in the country. It was discovered in this chapter that Nigerian construction supply stakeholders had not embraced the technologies and principles of the 4IR. The failure to adopt the technologies driven by the 4IR is attributed to the absence of a CSC model that depicts the management of CSC in alignment with the 4IR. This chapter called for developing a SCM model for the Nigerian construction industry in tandem with the principles and technologies of the 4IR.

In today’s market, firms are riding on the wave of globalisation to enhance competitiveness through corporate collaboration in new product development (NPD). In joint NPD, huge amounts of information and knowledge are interchanged among business partners. However, industrial experience and past research have indicated that knowledge sharing among firms invite opportunism, that is, knowledge being leaked or misused by others. To determine the means to rectify the problems of opportunism in joint NPD, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of commitment and knowledge sharing on opportunism.

An online questionnaire survey was conducted to verify the research model with 312 valid responses from manufacturing firms. The survey data were analysed by structural equation modelling, and the findings were verified by follow-up interviews.

Contradictory to most studies, this study finds that knowledge sharing among committed business partners suppresses, rather than invites, opportunism.

This finding is new in the literature with strong managerial implication. Firms that hesitate to share their knowledge with others because of the fear of opportunism should commit more seriously to their business partners so that they could share knowledge for better NPD.

This study has reversed the sceptical belief of knowledge sharing leading to opportunism. This new belief will encourage corporate collaboration in joint NPD. However, for a comprehensive view on opportunism in inter-firm NPD, other governance mechanisms, that is, contract and trust, should also be studied in future research.