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As a popular supply chain finance (SCF) strategy, reverse factoring has been widely adopted by buyer firms. However, the extant literature provides scant empirical evidence on the performance effect of reverse factoring. The purpose of this study is to seek to narrow this gap by empirically examining the relationship between reverse factoring and operating performance and the contingency conditions of this relationship.

Based on a sample of 167 announcements of reverse factoring implementation made by publicly listed Chinese manufacturing firms between 2014 and 2018, this paper employs a long-term event study approach to analyze the operating performance effect of reverse factoring as well as the moderating effects of production and innovation capabilities.

The event study results indicate that reverse factoring has a positive effect on buyer firms' operating performance in terms of cost efficiency and operating margin. In addition, both production and innovation capabilities positively moderate the relationship between reverse factoring and operating margin. However, neither of them moderates the relationship between reverse factoring and cost efficiency.

This is the first study that empirically examines the impact of reverse factoring on operating performance based on secondary data. Furthermore, it sheds light on the SCF literature by providing insights into the contingency effects of production and innovation capabilities, which also extends our understanding of the application of extended resource-based view in SCF research.

Sustainable supply chain finance (SSCF) is a fascinated consideration for both academics and practitioners because the indicators are still underdeveloped in achieving SSCF. This study proposes a bibliometric data-driven analysis from the literature to illustrate a clear overall concept of SSCF that reveals hidden indicators for further improvement.

A hybrid quantitative and qualitative approach combining data-driven analysis, fuzzy Delphi method (FDM), entropy weight method (EWM) and fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (FDEMATEL) is employed to address the uncertainty in the context.

The results show that blockchain, cash flow shortage, reverse factoring, risk assessment and triple bottom line (TBL) play significant roles in SSCF. A comparison of the challenges and gaps among different geographic regions is provided in both advanced local perspective and a global state-of-the-art assessment. There are 35 countries/territories being categorized into five geographic regions. Of the five regions, two, Latin America and the Caribbean and Africa, show the needs for more improvement, exclusively in collaboration strategies and financial crisis. Exogenous impacts of wars, natural disasters and disease epidemics are implied as inevitable attributes for enhancing the sustainability.

This study contributes to (1) boundary SSCF foundations by data driven, (2) identifying the critical SSCF indicators and providing the knowledge gaps and directions as references for further examination and (3) addressing the gaps and challenges in different geographic regions to provide advanced assessment from local viewpoint and to diagnose the comprehensive global state of the art of SSCF.

This study examines the motives and enabling factors regarding reverse factoring (RF) adoption in the automobile industry's supply chain.

This is a qualitative case study based on in-depth interviews with financial institutions in two countries having different statuses within the automobile industry global value chain: Mexico as a peripheral and Spain as a semi-peripheral country.

The RF is more widely deployed in Spain than in Mexico. The differences in the adoption of RF between the two countries stem from the availability of programs for suppliers at different supply levels, their efficient implementation and a robust regulatory framework, but especially from the cooperative approach adopted. The motives and enablers of RF adoption in the automobile industry can be explained under a framework of different supply chain management models. The RF programs driven by self-interest financial motives are characterized by an asymmetric distribution of benefits among supply chain participants. The RF programs that combine self-interest with cooperative motives are partially characterized by balanced benefits. In addition, they favor involvement practices and strengthen long-term relationships among supply chain participants. In this cooperative approach, trust, transparency and especially sharing information are considered relevant enablers. Finally, the specific automobile industry's features that determine RF adoption are linked to the structure and governance mode of the supply chain. The structure in terms of length – multiple supply levels – conditions the design of RF programs based on the buyer's position in the supply chain. The governance mode, particularly how the relationships are established, conditions the factors and requisites for efficient adoption of the RF programs.

This research analyzes the RF framed in the dynamics of buyer–supplier relationships and different models of supply chain management, allowing us to identify cooperation motives and their impact on RF adoption, beyond the traditional economic and financial motives highlighted by previous literature.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the joint effects of lead time, information sharing and the accounts receivable period on reverse factoring (RF) adoption from the suppliers’ perspective.

Supported by one of the largest commercial banks in China, survey data are collected from 424 Chinese manufacturing firms and analyzed using regression methods.

The results suggest that lead time positively affects suppliers’ RF adoption directly and indirectly through the accounts receivable period. Meanwhile, information sharing has a positive, direct and a negative, indirect influence on suppliers’ RF adoption.

The findings give suppliers and financial institutions a better understanding of how to leverage the benefits of RF.

Companies all over the world have recently started to adopt supply chain finance (SCF) solutions in their supply chains to reduce the payment defaults and simplify the bill settlement process. The purpose of this paper is to identify and prioritize the barriers to adopting SCF in micro, small and medium enterprises.

It employs a three-phase methodology to identify and prioritize the essential barriers to the implementation of SCF. An extensive survey has been carried out in 101 Indian MSMEs in India which identified 37 barriers under six heads in the first phase. Experts’ interview using the Delphi technique has been carried out in the second phase to finalize the barriers. The analytic hierarchy process methodology, with sensitivity analysis for validation, is used in the final stage to prioritize and rank the barriers.

Results show that financial and information technology barriers are prominent in SCF adoption followed by financial challenges. Among specific barriers, the disclosure of sensitive company information to competitor barrier acts as an essential barrier followed by poor technological capability of MSMEs.

The study is limited to SCF adoption of MSMEs in a developing nation. Extensive research is required in order to derive a global trend.

The current research contributes to the stakeholder theory and transaction cost economics. Observations made in the current research can encourage organizations to incorporate stakeholders’ concerns into the adoption of SCF solutions. The study provides a more in-depth view of such challenges and a benchmark, which will help companies to adopt SCF solutions more effortlessly. Moreover, policy makers across the world can explore these serious issues and amend or introduce new policies to facilitate companies’ implementation of supply chain financial solutions.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study which identified and prioritized SCF adoption barriers of MSMEs in a developing nation. This study is also novel in adopting a hybrid analytical hierarchy process-sensitivity analysis for ranking the SCF barriers in an MSME context. SCF studies often emphasize only on the reverse factoring aspect of SCF. The current study considers many innovative aspects of SCF, such as pre-shipment financing, dynamic discounting, inventory financing, collaborative logistics, etc.

This paper aims to investigate small and medium-sized upstream suppliers' and downstream distributors' understandings of supply chain finance (SCF) arrangements and their decisions to adopt such schemes.

In this paper grounded theory-informed methods are employed, involving 56 in-depth interviews with informants from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), banks and subject experts in the United Kingdom (UK) and Thailand. A category structure for the data is developed. The findings are then examined systematically from both a transaction cost economics (TCE) and non-TCE perspective.

SME members made sense of SCF through a core distinction between dyadic and triadic SCF arrangements. The former maintains independence between physical and financial supply chains, whereas the latter causes them to be closely coupled or even entangled. The SCF adoption decisions of SMEs were based on a consideration of four related aspects: relationality, awareness, control and context. The authors demonstrate the limits of TCE in explaining the findings, leading to a proposed combined theory of the transactional and, importantly, non-transactional influences on how SMEs make decisions about SCF.

Focal firms wanting their SME suppliers and distributors to participate in triadic SCF (TSCF), i.e. reverse factoring and distributor finance, need to understand that transitioning to such schemes involves the unwinding of existing financing arrangements, which may be problematic for SMEs. Moreover, it is important to be aware of SMEs' concerns, such as about what accessing TSCF might signal to the focal firm about their financial health and about the potential loss of control that might result from entangling the physical and financial aspects of supply chains.

This paper unpack the perspectives of both SME suppliers and distributors of large focal firms in supply chains. These firms appear less concerned with the economic advantages (transaction costs) of SCF and more concerned with the relational consequences or non-transactional costs of participation in a TSCF arrangement. The dyadic-triadic distinction provides a new and meaningful way of categorising SCF mechanisms, which also broadens the service triads’ literature from a focus on outsourcing services for a focal firm's customers to outsourcing financing for its suppliers or distributors. The paper also addresses gaps identified by Gelsomino et al. (2016) regarding the need for a general theory of SCF, for empirically-based holistic studies of SCF applications, and a tool for selecting SCF mechanisms.

Reverse factoring (RF)–a form of supply chain finance (SCF)–is widely recognised as a win-win for both buyers and suppliers. Still, there is evidence that suppliers are often hesitant to join RF programmes initiated by their buyers. This study advances our understanding of how suppliers assess the importance of various attributes of a buyer's offer to join RF and discusses the role of programme configuration and digital technology in overcoming impediments to RF adoption.

Using a choice-based conjoint experimental design validated by experts, we isolate and manipulate the main attributes of a RF programme offer. This enables us to estimate the attributes' importance and to examine suppliers' trade-off behaviour. The authors complement the experimental study with content analysis of respondents' comments.

This study reveals the importance of behavioural considerations in RF adoption. The main findings are (1) suppliers are willing to reject offers that they perceive to be unfair even if these offers benefit them financially, (2) suppliers are willing to trade-off their financial benefit for non-financial reasons–most notably attributes that relate to trustworthiness of the buyer–and (3) suppliers expect technologies to increase transparency and reduce variability in trade processes.

Non-financial attributes that influence supplier perception need to be considered in the programme configuration. Technologies that reduce information asymmetry, increase trust and transparency, increase the speed of execution and reduce process inefficiencies will have a positive impact on RF offer acceptance.

This research opens new lines of inquiry on the role of digital technologies in influencing behavioural operations management specifically suppliers' adoption of digital SCF solutions.

In the context of global economic downturn and intense competition, firms are increasingly resorting to supply chains to acquire capital support and achieve sustainability. This study aims to investigate the effect of supply chain finance (SCF) on corporate sustainability performance (CSP) and identifies SCF-related recipes for CSP.

Based on a sample of 1,038 firms that disclose CSP – namely, corporate financial performance (CFP) and environmental, social and governance performance (ESGP) – the authors use a quasi-replication method consisting of empirical analysis with fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to investigate SCF’s effects on CSP.

The authors find that SCF has a “doing well by doing good” effect on CSP. CFP can promote the positive effect of SCF and ESGP while ESGP’s positive effect on SCF and CFP is nonsignificant. In addition, heterogeneity tests show that SCF’s promoting effect on CSP is affected by high-low CFP and ESGP. The fsQCA results verify the empirical findings and reveal five SCF-related recipes for achieving high CSP.

This study has the following two limitations. First, we do not consider how SCF affects CSP in different industries. There is a need to investigate whether industry heterogeneity changes SCF’s effects on CSP, especially in prominent industries, such as the energy industry, with its high susceptibility to ESGP, and the manufacturing industry, with its extensive application of SCF. It will be important to investigate these industries to better understand SCF’s role in sustainability. Second, we study the secondary supply chain – namely, core firm–suppliers and core firm–customers. The authors do not consider financial institutions (e.g. banks and guarantee institutions). SCF modes that include the participation of financial institutions, such as factoring financing and reverse factoring financing, cater more to the capital needs of diversified firms. In the future, studying specific industries that have made significant contributions to the application of SCF along with others that are more sensitive to environmental governance could better highlight the effect of SCF on sustainability and help supply chain managers understand the application value of SCF. Future research could also extend SCF participants into multiple roles to explore separate effects. Tracking financing demanders, fund providers and credit guarantors could capture SCF characteristics more comprehensively. Methodologically, it will be challenging to accurately measure SCF networks in terms of quantification. In future work, this could be performed with the help of artificial intelligence.

First, our findings indicate that SCF has a “doing well by doing good” effect on core firms. SCF can not only overcome the capital shortage of SMEs but also provide significant benefits to core firms. Second, our findings provide SCF-related recipes to help firms fulfil ESGP obligations without sacrificing CFP under the pressure to “do good.” The authors provide valuable insights and diverse recommendations to help supply chain managers, marketing executives and researchers adjust supply chain management strategies. Third, this work can guide executives in various fields to adopt SCF to achieve sustainability as a risk-mitigation strategy by means of marketing.

This study identifies better, more straightforward SCF-related recipes for CSP (consisting of CFP and ESGP) using a quasi-replication analysis that improves upon conventional methods such as regression analysis, which have limited power. The authors provide valuable insights and diverse recommendations to help managers pursue sustainable development. The findings point to practical guidelines and feasible solutions that can support well-founded operational strategic and management decision-making, which can enhance a firm’s competitiveness under uncertainty and a sluggish economy.

Despite their crucial role in sustaining national economies, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are beset by the constraint of financing at better conditions. The purpose of this paper is to compare supply chain finance (SCF) solutions provided by commercial banks and financial service providers (FSPs) that help SMEs access financing.

This study looks at multiple case studies using in-depth interviews with focal firms (lenders) to answer the research questions. In-depth interviews were conducted with three Chinese FSPs and three commercial banks providing working capital to the same SMEs. The unit of analysis is SCF solutions that have made the companies competitive in the industry.

The case studies show that the acquisition of transaction information and business credit in SCF can reduce ex ante information asymmetry. SCF utilizing receivable transfers, closed-loop business, relational embeddedness, and a combination of outcome control and behavioral control can also reduce ex post information asymmetry. For these reasons, compared with commercial bank-dominated SCF, SCF adopted by FSPs in the supply chain can better reduce information asymmetry.

This study contributes to the emerging literature exploring the impact of SCF on SMEs accessing financing. In particular, this study provides supply chain management and operations insights on SCF and their consequent influence. Previous research has focused on the direct dyadic relationship between lenders and borrowers while neglecting supply chain effects. Uniquely, this study explores the different ways commercial banks and FSPs implement SCF solutions.

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.