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Analyzes four entities in a connected supply chain through a case study. Focuses on the relationships between organizations and the specific goals and objectives of each firm. The study was conducted from an insider's view through personal experiences, and a series of on‐site and telephone interviews with managers from each entity of the supply chain. Focuses on passing on and interpreting quality goals, alignment of quality goals and the existence of partnership with the connected supply chain. The main reason for the success of the supply chain is the strength or dominance of the manufacturer. Strong and frequent unidirectional communication exists between the manufacturer and the supplier and between the manufacturer and the distributor. These connections are the crux of the supply chain. From this strong relationship, the supply chain is able to remain successful while communication weakens and disappears at either end of the supply chain.

This paper aims to examine the existing literature on firms’ power through the lens of the supply chain and highlights some gaps that could be covered by future research.

This study uses a systematic framework-based review combining the insights of the antecedents, decisions and outcomes (ADO) and theories, contexts and methods (TCM) frameworks. The review was carried out using a sample of 108 articles published between 1984 and 2022 in 25 prestigious journals.

The ADO framework maps out the state of the art of the antecedents of power (i.e. sources and types of firm power), the decision to use power and the effect that exercising power over other firms may have on firm performance and the quality of inter-firm relationships. In addition, this framework highlights factors that mediate or moderate the decision to exercise power and the factors that mediate or moderate the outcomes of exercising power or power asymmetry. The TCM framework provides insights into the theories, contexts (i.e. countries, industries, level of analysis and sources of data) and methods used by the existing literature. The content analysis using the aforementioned frameworks provides the basis to elaborate propositions for future research on power in the supply chain from the perspective of gender differences.

This systematic literature review offers a comprehensive guide for researchers to understand the antecedents, decisions and outcomes of firm power in the supply chain, as well as the TCM used in the literature. The content analysis using frameworks provides a road map to investigate the proposed factors that might moderate the decision to exercise power and the outcome of exercising power or power asymmetry from the perspective of gender differences. In addition, based on content analysis, the authors make propositions about TCM that could be applied in future research.

From a practical perspective, this systematic literature review may help managers to better understand the sources and consequences of their firm’s power. This would allow managers to make better decisions when negotiating with their supply chain parties, which could potentially lead to better performance for their firms and the whole supply chain.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to conduct a comprehensive systematic literature review of the different dimensions of firms’ power in the supply chain.

The objective of this study is to investigate how country risk, different political actions from the government and bureaucratic behavior influence the activities in industry supply chains (SCs) in emerging markets. The main objective of this study is to investigate the influence of these external stakeholders’ elements to the demand-side and supply-side drivers and barriers for improving competitiveness of Ready-Made Garment (RMG) industry in the way of analyzing supply chain. Considering the phenomenon of recent change in the RMG business environment and the competitiveness issues this study uses the principles of stakeholder and resource dependence theory and aims to find out some factors which influence to make an efficient supply chain for improving competitiveness. The RMG industry of Bangladesh is the case application of this study. Following a positivist paradigm, this study adopts a two phase sequential mixed-method research design consisting of qualitative and quantitative approaches. A tentative research model is developed first based on extensive literature review. Qualitative field study is then carried out to fine tune the initial research model. Findings from the qualitative method are also used to develop measures and instruments for the next phase of quantitative method. A survey is carried out with sample of top and middle level executives of different garment companies of Dhaka city in Bangladesh and the collected quantitative data are analyzed by partial least square-based structural equation modeling. The findings support eight hypotheses. From the analysis the external stakeholders’ elements like bureaucratic behavior and country risk have significant influence to the barriers. From the internal stakeholders’ point of view the manufacturers’ and buyers’ drivers have significant influence on the competitiveness. Therefore, stakeholders need to take proper action to reduce the barriers and increase the drivers, as the drivers have positive influence to improve competitiveness.

This study has both theoretical and practical contributions. This study represents an important contribution to the theory by integrating two theoretical perceptions to identify factors of the RMG industry’s SC that affect the competitiveness of the RMG industry. This research study contributes to the understanding of both external and internal stakeholders of national and international perspectives in the RMG (textile and clothing) business. It combines the insights of stakeholder and resource dependence theories along with the concept of the SC in improving effectiveness. In a practical sense, this study certainly contributes to the Bangladeshi RMG industry. In accordance with the desire of the RMG manufacturers, the research has shown that some influential constructs of the RMG industry’s SC affect the competitiveness of the RMG industry. The outcome of the study is useful for various stakeholders of the Bangladeshi RMG industry sector ranging from the government to various private organizations. The applications of this study are extendable through further adaptation in other industries and various geographic contexts.

Drawing on the relational view and contingency theories, this study explores supply chain relationship conditions' roles in interrelationships between environmental, social and supply chain performance (SCP), i.e. triple bottom line (TBL).

The data from industries and structural equation modeling (SEM) were used to validate the proposed model. Interviews with industry experts were conducted to further understand the findings.

The authors find that relationship conditions, such as inventory information sharing, dependency, opportunistic behavior and conflicts, moderate TBL linkages. Interestingly, power asymmetry does not moderate the linkages. Social performance mediates between environmental and SCP. This indirect effect is stronger than the effect of environmental performance on SCP.

This research is perhaps the first to bring a much-needed nuanced view on the importance of relationship conditions for TBL performance linkages. The research further underlines the importance of social performance in an emerging economy.

Using a dynamic capability view, this study examined the relationships between big data analytics capability (BDAC), entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and sustainable supply chain performance (SSCP) by exploring the moderating role of trust among supply chain partners.

Questionnaires were collected from 300 manufacturing organizations using snow sampling. The moderating connections and direct relationships were examined using Hays' process macro and structural equation modeling.

BDAC was positively related to EO and SSCP. When supply chain partners experienced low levels of trust, an increase in BDAC did not enhance SSCP. As trust increased, the relationship between BDAC and SSCP became more positive, underpinning the moderating effects of trust. Moreover, trust did not moderate the relationship between BDAC and EO. The moderating effect of trust on the relationship between EO and SSCP showed a positive relationship between EO and SSCP when trust was low; however, the relationship became negative when trust was high.

Developing technology alone may not be sufficient, as supply chain managers need to establish a strong business relationship based on mutual trust. However, they also need to be aware of the dangers of high levels of trust because these may negatively affect performance. Therefore, supply chain managers need to achieve an optimal level of trust that is neither excessive nor insufficient.

Advances in technology and entrepreneurial drive for supply chain sustainability make it pertinent to examine trust levels among supply chain partners and the varying impact on BDAC, EO and SSCP. The current study shows the negative aspects of too much trust among supply chain partners.

This paper examines the relationship between supply chain network structures and firm financial performance and the moderating role of international relations. In this study, which is grounded in social capital theory and applies the perspective of systemic risk, the authors theorize the effects of supply chain network structures on firm performance.

The authors extracted data from two Chinese databases and constructed a supply chain network of the firms concerned based on nearly 4,300 supply chain relations between 2009 and 2018. The authors adopted the fixed effects model to investigate the relationship between supply chain network structures and firm financial performance.

The econometrics results indicate that network structures, including the degree, centrality, clustering coefficients and structural holes, are significantly related to firm financial performance. A significant and negative relationship exists between international relations and firm financial performance. The authors also find that international relations strongly weaken the relationship between supply chain network structures and firm financial performance.

This study, which collects secondary data from developing countries (e.g. China) and explores the impacts of supply chain network structures on firm stock performance, contributes to the existing literature and provides practical implications.

Drawing on the resource-based view (RBV), this study aims to investigate the impact of social capital, namely, structural (information sharing), cognitive (shared value) and relational (relationship commitment) capital in the supplier and the customer side on supply chain performance in a longitudinal design. It further aims to examine the moderating effect of change in competition intensity.

Based on two-wave data collected from 203 manufacturers in China, this study uses the ordinary least square and first-difference regression methods to test the proposed relationships.

The results show the effect of social capital on supply chain performance and the dynamic nature of supply chain social capital. The causal analysis further reveals the significance of supplier-side structural and relational capital in improving supply chain performance. Moreover, competitive intensity plays an important moderating role.

This study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, is one of the first to demonstrate the longitudinal effect of supply chain social capital on supply chain performance.

Firms are subject to power from both upstream and downstream partners; those partners may have different or even opposing impacts on supply chain relationships and financial performance. The purpose of this study is to investigate how upstream and downstream dependence structures affect a firm's financial performance through upstream and downstream relational depth (DEP) and relationship extendedness (EXT).

Data representing both upstream and downstream supply chain perspectives was collected using a multiple-respondent survey and was further augmented using financial performance data from an archival database.

Dependence advantages (ADVs) and disadvantages from upstream and downstream partners affect relational mechanisms and firm performance differently. Only downstream ADV will enhance a firm's DEP and EXT and subsequently affect firm's revenue and profit. Contradictory to widely held belief, the results reveal that firms that maintain long-term relationships with buyers and suppliers may experience lower revenue/profit.

This research represents a significant step in understanding the economic ramifications of dependence by (1) highlighting the difference between upstream and downstream supply chain dependence structure and (2) understanding the indirect effects of dependence structure on financial performance.

Contemporary supply chain relationships inherently rely on delegation of work between organizations and, thus, are subject to agency problems for which a wide range of governance mechanisms exist. This review of agency theory (AT), across four distinct fields, explains the connection between governance mechanisms and supply chain relationship types.

The study uses a systematic literature review (SLR) of articles using AT in a supply chain context from the operations and supply chain management, general management, marketing, and economics fields.

The authors categorize the governance mechanisms identified to create a typology of agency relationships in supply chains.

The developed typology provides parsimonious theory on different forms of supply chain agency relationships and takes a step towards a “supply chain-oriented agency theory” explaining and predicting relationship types and governance in supply chains. Furthermore, a future research agenda calls for more accurate measuring of agency costs, to examine residual gains alongside residual losses, to take a dual-sided perspective of agency relations and to adopt AT to examine more complex supply networks.

The review provides a menu of governance mechanisms and describes situations under which these mechanisms could be deployed to guide managers when developing their supply chain relationships.

The first review to combine and elaborate views from four major disciplines using AT as a lens to supply chain relationships. Expanding the traditional set of governance mechanisms provides academics and practitioners with a bigger “menu” of options to consider.

COVID-19 has caused critical supply chain problems, especially in sustainable supply chain management, but very few empirical studies have been explored how to improve the firm sustainability through supply chain endeavours such as supply chain agility to manage the impacts of COVID-19. This paper aims to develop a model to incorporate supply chain agility and supply chain relationships that link firm sustainability to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic.

The authors conducted an online survey and collected 203 valid responses from businesses in the United Arab Emirates, and employed an exploratory factor analysis, mediated regression analysis and structural equation modelling methodology to test the models and hypotheses.

The authors find that the adoption of supply chain agility can improve supply chain relationships and positively impact sustainability. Meanwhile, supply chain relationships partially mediate the relationship between supply chain agility and sustainability. In addition, sustainability mitigates the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on supply chains.

The results provide fruitful insights and implications for the challenges and uncertainties caused by the pandemic post COVID-19 and provide several directions for further research.