Search results

Sharing services increasingly extends beyond intraorganizational concentration of service delivery. Organizations have started to promote cooperation across their boundaries to deal with strategic tensions in their value ecosystem, moving beyond traditional outsourcing. This chapter addresses two research questions geared to the challenge of interorganizational shared services (ISS): why would organizations want to get and remain involved in ISS? And: what are the implications of ISS for (inter)organizational value creation?

The conceptual chapter reviews literature pertaining to ISS from public, commercial, and nongovernmental sectors. ISS is understood as a multistakeholder organizational innovation. In order to analyze ISS and conduct empirical research, we developed a taxonomy and research framework.

The chapter shows how ISS can be positioned in value chains, distinguishing vertical, horizontal, and hybrid ISS. It outlines ISS implications for developing business models, structures, and relationships. Success factors and barriers are presented that epitomize the dynamic interplay of organizational autonomy and interorganizational dependence.

The research framework offers conceptual ideas for theoretical and empirical work. Researchers involved in ISS studies may adopt strategic, strategic innovation, and organizational innovation perspectives.

ISS phases are distinguished to focus innovation management — initiation, enactment, and evaluation. Furthermore, insights are provided into processes and interventions aimed at making ISS a success for participating organizations.

Cross-sectoral perspective on ISS; taxonomy of ISS; research framework built on organization and strategic management literature.

Industry 4.0 and the digital supply chain (DSC) are changing how things are made and moved around the world. This change is all about how smart technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), and blockchain are making supply chains work better. These tools help companies react faster and more clearly to what's needed. By using these new technologies, businesses can get better at guessing what customers want, keeping the right amount of stock, and quickly adjusting to new market trends. With these advanced technologies, companies can see big improvements, like being able to match supply with demand more closely and change their plans fast when things in the market change. It is really important for businesses to get how these tech tools work together as the world of making and selling things keeps changing. This chapter examines the convergence of traditional supply chain systems with Industry 4.0, focusing on the transformative impact of technologies such as the IoT, AI, and blockchain.

Contemporary literature reveals that, to date, the poultry livestock sector has not received sufficient research attention. This particular industry suffers from unstructured supply chain practices, lack of awareness of the implications of the sustainability concept and failure to recycle poultry wastes. The current research thus attempts to develop an integrated supply chain model in the context of poultry industry in Bangladesh. The study considers both sustainability and supply chain issues in order to incorporate them in the poultry supply chain. By placing the forward and reverse supply chains in a single framework, existing problems can be resolved to gain economic, social and environmental benefits, which will be more sustainable than the present practices.

The theoretical underpinning of this research is ‘sustainability’ and the ‘supply chain processes’ in order to examine possible improvements in the poultry production process along with waste management. The research adopts the positivist paradigm and ‘design science’ methods with the support of system dynamics (SD) and the case study methods. Initially, a mental model is developed followed by the causal loop diagram based on in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and observation techniques. The causal model helps to understand the linkages between the associated variables for each issue. Finally, the causal loop diagram is transformed into a stock and flow (quantitative) model, which is a prerequisite for SD-based simulation modelling. A decision support system (DSS) is then developed to analyse the complex decision-making process along the supply chains.

The findings reveal that integration of the supply chain can bring economic, social and environmental sustainability along with a structured production process. It is also observed that the poultry industry can apply the model outcomes in the real-life practices with minor adjustments. This present research has both theoretical and practical implications. The proposed model’s unique characteristics in mitigating the existing problems are supported by the sustainability and supply chain theories. As for practical implications, the poultry industry in Bangladesh can follow the proposed supply chain structure (as par the research model) and test various policies via simulation prior to its application. Positive outcomes of the simulation study may provide enough confidence to implement the desired changes within the industry and their supply chain networks.

Recently, 181 CEOs of notable corporations signed a joint statement at the Business Roundtable (2019) on the “Purpose of a Corporation” – declaring its aim as the creation of benefits for “all stakeholders.” This will likely accelerate the circular economy transition process. Harmonizing the interests of various stakeholders is essential for managing successful organizations and supply chains, which is similar to the first principle of using natural ecosystem thinking. According to that principle, it is essential to strike a balance between the producers, consumers, scavengers, and decomposers. We draw on stakeholder theory to identify various challenges and risks that restrict businesses from building sustainable circular systems. We turn our attention toward increasing the numbers of “scavengers” and “decomposers” in the system for attaining sustainable growth. Our emphasis is on (1) empowering organizational life cycle stages, (2) designing for “decomposability” and “scavengers,” and (3) suggesting the use of advanced optimization models for harmonizing stakeholder relationships.