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This paper aims to question the capacity of firms embedded in global value chains to manage their natural resources in a sustainable way. Thus, it offers guidelines for more sustainable value chains.

While business strategies have focused on optimizing natural resource exploitation and on constructing global value chains to face sustainability issues, this study first explains why these strategies are not effective in preventing natural resource depletion. Second, it offers a model for anticipating resource depletion. The cut flower industry constitutes a central case to explain the model. Two other industry cases complement the demonstration.

To anticipate natural resource depletion and thus improve industry sustainability, firms must shift from the exploitation of endangered natural resources to the use of alternative local ones. This shift, however, encourages firms to reconstruct value chains and rethink how they create value within these new value chains. It also has an impact on firms’ growth strategy: they must replicate value chains on a local scale instead of taking part in global value chains.

The findings rely on illustrations from the cut flower, fishing and textile fiber industries. Generalization to other industries may strengthen the argument.

This study offers a model of sustainable growth for firms willing to anticipate natural resource depletion by offering a shift in value chains. It consists of exploiting alternative natural resources and of rethinking the value offered to consumers. Thus, it goes against current models that merely focus on optimizing natural resource exploitation within global value chains.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new conceptual framework for smallholder value chains based on complex adaptive systems.

The authors review the application of the framework to three case studies and explore their implications. The authors reflect on the value of a framework based on complex adaptive systems compared to alternative frameworks.

The authors argue that the dynamics of smallholder value chains have received insufficient attention.

By focusing on these dynamics and on the capacity for adaptation among value chain actors the framework provides a new perspective on smallholder value chains.

Complex adaptive systems provide a useful framework for analyzing value chain dynamics.

Smallholder value chains are dynamic, changing over time in sudden, unpredictable ways as they adapt to shocks. Understanding these dynamics and adaptation is essential for these chains to remain competitive in turbulent markets. Many guides to value chain development, though they focus welcome attention on snapshots of current structure and performance, pay limited attention to the dynamic forces affecting these chains or to adaptation. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper develops an expanded conceptual framework to understand value chain performance based on the theory of complex adaptive systems. The framework combines seven common properties of complex systems: time, uncertainty, sensitivity to initial conditions, endogenous shocks, sudden change, interacting agents and adaptation.

The authors outline how the framework can be used to ask new research questions and analyze case studies in order to improve our understanding of the development of smallholder value chains and their capacity for adaptation.

The framework highlights the need for greater attention to value chain dynamics.

The framework offers a new perspective on the dynamics of smallholder value chains.

Best-value supply chains characterized by agility, adaptability, and alignment, have become a crucial strategic means for firms to create and sustain competitive advantage in today’s turbulent environment. The purpose of this paper is to investigate linkage between best-value supply chains and firms’ competitive performance.

In Study 1, survey data from 76 firms is used to test the impact of the three qualities of best-value supply chains on firms’ competitive performance. In Study 2, to test if a firm’s competitive advantage can be sustained through building best-value supply chains, a long-run performance analysis is conducted, which is based on a stock portfolio of firms identified from the American Marketing Association’s annual list of “Supply Chain Top 25.”

The results of Study 1 indicate that the three qualities of best-value supply chains are positively related to firms’ competitive performance. The results of Study 2 show that firms having best-value supply chains generate significant and positive abnormal returns for shareholders over time.

This is a multiple-method research, providing two-level empirical evidence to the investigation of theoretical linkage between best-value supply chains and firms’ competitive performance.

Organizations are increasingly required to take up extended responsibilities for social and environmental outcomes, including in global value chains. To address these challenges, the organization must call upon stakeholders to engage, contribute, and innovate, and in turn, this requires the organization to have a stronger social basis for its relationships. An integrative model of global value chain management based on social cooperation shifts the focus from corporate reputation to value chain reputation, from a firm-centric view of corporate reputation to a multistakeholder conception of value chain reputation. This approach conceptualizes reputation as a dynamic and potentially vulnerable organizational feature which cannot always be managed by public relations but requires a more stable notion grounded in something more permanent in the organization’s character, history, and the quality of its relationships with stakeholders. We consider the prospects for attending to organizational integrity as a stabilizing force for its public reputation. Integrity may be adopted as a hypernorm for motivating stakeholders who share a concern for the organization’s reputation. Co-creating reputation depends upon a social bond of cooperation developed by stakeholders caring about the organization and in turn, the organization caring about its stakeholders. This socialized understanding of reputation-building is grounded in an ethic of care and manifested through joint purposes, boundary-crossing processes, collaboration practices, and a division of labor into which value chain members are integrated and brought into relation with one another. We propose a model of global value chain management that discusses organizational capabilities required for such an approach.

The purpose of this paper is to synthesize lessons from the agricultural value chain models and their associated financing mechanisms in China and India as to provide policy recommendations on how best to facilitate development of efficient and inclusive value chains.

The paper builds on a review of the existing literature on agricultural value chains and their financing mechanisms, and draws lessons from it for strengthening interface between product and financial markets in order to enable smallholders capture benefits of the value addition.

From the comparative review of value chain financing mechanisms and current policy contexts the authors find dominance of internal financing of value chains (in terms of provision of inputs, technology and services) in both the countries. Value chain finance from commercial banks and other financial institutions is limited and mainly through tripartite agreements among the financing institutions, lead firms and farmers.

The lessons drawn from various value chain models and their financing mechanisms provide feedback to financial institutions and policymakers to take measures to strengthen value chain finance in smallholder agriculture.

The paper undertakes a rigorous review of the existing value chain models and their financing mechanisms in light of the most recent research on emerging innovations and development strategies, in order to glean key lessons for policy recommendations on strengthening linkages between financial and product markets.

This paper aims at enriching the literature on international business (IB) studies to include insights from Global Value Chain (GVC) analysis to better explain how MNCs can orchestrate a global network organization. A first important contribution of the GVC literature is that it shifts the focus from single firms to their value chains, providing instruments to study how activities are split and organized among different firms at the industry level, and how MNCs can implement different governing mechanisms within a network-based setting. The GVC literature also highlights that retailers (as global buyers) often act as ‘lead firms’ in shaping the trajectories of global industries, while IB studies have so far focused predominantly on manufacturing firms. A fine-grained analysis of alternative forms of governance characterizing value chains can offer additional elements in explaining how MNCs can manage their network relationships in a global scenario. Finally, through their focus on upgrading, GVC studies suggest that knowledge flows and innovation dynamics taking place within value chains are as important as those taking place within the MNC’s organizational border. We conclude by arguing that these insights can help the IB literature to examine the challenges and opportunities MNCs face in engaging with suppliers and to explain the dynamic evolution of orchestrating global activities at the global level.

This chapter aims to critically analyse the implications that the national protectionist policies have on the global supply and value chains and the relocation of production. The analysis is based on the assumptions that the global economy is facing the possibility of decoupling of many trade connections, and this trend favours de-globalisation processes that have long been promoted by populism, nationalism and economic protectionism. It is concluded that global supply, production and value chains although being economically efficient are no longer any more secure under national protectionist policies, and therefore, the relocation of production processes is mainly due to the increase in the level of income and wages of the developing countries that are the destination and which reduce the advantages to relocate.

This paper seeks to describe a conceptualisation of the multiple facets of the bullwhip effect between stocking levels within and between value chains and value systems.

The paper provides a conceptual discussion of the bullwhip effect. It is refined and re‐defined.

The bullwhip effect has usually been explored between inter‐organisational stocking levels. Recently, it has also been explored within intra‐organisational stocking levels. A broader descriptive framework is introduced, one that positions the bullwhip effect construct in intra‐ and inter‐organisational, as well as intra‐ and inter‐channel, stocking levels in and between value chains and value systems.

A research agenda is provided that goes beyond current definitional boundaries and state‐of‐the‐art research of the bullwhip effect.

The refined and re‐defined bullwhip effect is of interest to practitioners. It considers inter‐organisational and intra‐organisational stocking levels. In addition, it considers intra‐ and inter‐channel stocking levels. It is of great concern to achieve best practices in business.

The principal contributions are – a dynamics model of the bullwhip effect construct; a principle of stocking level variability; a typology of stocking level variability; a framework that describes different levels of analysis of the bullwhip effect; and a re‐definition of the bullwhip effect construct – within or between value chains and value systems.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the key characteristics of business-to-business relationships in the early stages of the relationship that will influence the successful creation of value chains. Identification of these characteristics will provide a decision-making tool for continuing the effective development of the value chain process.

Key characteristics necessary to develop strong relationships were identified from the literature. These characteristics will assist the relationship to evolve into a long-standing mature relationship. An expert panel evaluated four value chain analysis (VCA) case studies against these characteristics in order to identify patterns in relationships that could explain the varied performance of these cases.

In total, 15 relational characteristics were identified that must be present in the engagement stage before initiating the next step in the VCA process. An assessment of the activities associated with pre-relationships and early relationships within the value chain provide a strong indication of the chains ability to conduct successful VCA.

This research furthers the understanding of value chains and adds an important and novel contribution of relationship characteristics to the early stages of relationship development within value chains.

The application of relationship development to the engagement of value chains is an extension to the VCA literature. Relationships are a proven foundation component of successful value chains, and yet relationship development research from business-to-business marketing has not been well incorporated into the value chain literature. The framework proposed in this paper facilitates an assessment on the level of chain engagement and readiness to take the next step in the value chain process, thus making a valuable practical contribution.