Bridging Gaps in Organizational Knowledge - The Role of IT-Enabled Organizational Learning in Supply Chain Partnerships

Supply chains have increasingly become an opportunity for firms to access complementary competencies and learn from other firms. To better understand the role of IT-enabled learning strategies in affecting the supply chain firms’ learning outcome, we use a computational simulation approach to model the IT tools used for intra- and inter- organizational learning. This research-in-progress builds on March’s (1991) organizational learning model and extends it to a supply chain context. The study will lay a foundation for theory building in IT-enabled interorganizational learning and knowledge management

Strengthening Governance of Small-Scale Fisheries: An Initial Assessment of the Theory and Practice

Preferred citation for this report: Basurto, X., Virdin, J., Smith, H. and R. Juskus. 2017. Strengthening Governance of Small-Scale Fisheries: An Initial Assessment of Theory and Practice. Oak Foundation.Often hidden in national statistics, small-scale fisheries have been poorly measured at a global level, and in thepast often ignored in states' policy-making. Yet estimates suggest their aggregate global contribution tonutrition, food security and poverty eradication is massive. The most recent estimates available suggest thatsmall-scale fisheries account for over 90 percent of the world's commercial fishers, processors and otherpersons employed along the value chain, equivalent to over 108 million people. Roughly half areemployed in the ocean and the other half in inland fisheries—making small-scale fisheries far and awaythe ocean's largest employer (greater than oil and gas, shipping, tourism, etc.). This level of activitytranslates into a large portion of the global fish catch: an estimated 46 percent of the total, and 38 percentof the fish caught in the ocean. SSFs are also estimated to provide over half the animal protein intake inmany of the world's least developed countries, and over half of the fish for domestic consumption indeveloping countries more broadly. In sum, in many regions of the world SSFs provide both incomes tohelp reduce poverty and safety nets to help prevent it

Supply chain risk management: capabilities and performance

Growing environmental turbulence and increasingly complex supply chain networks have resulted in greater supply chain disruptions. Firm supply chain risk management performance varies due to differences in recognition of the need for and ability to cultivate supply chain risk management capabilities. This study helps to identify which capabilities have the greatest effect in supply chain risk management and firm performance as well as describes how to achieve them. A meta-analysis of empirical supply chain risk management studies reveals the confounding state of the field and points toward future work which can provide consensus and progress. A multiple case study describes organizational learning from supply chain disruption and identifies a new construct of bracketing necessary to deviate from firm risk dominant logic and respond to changes in the environment

Overcoming Barriers to Innovation in Food and Agricultural Biotechnology

The food and agricultural biotechnology (FAB) sector is poised to respond to some of society\u27s most pressing challenges, including food security, climate change, population growth, and resource limitation. However, to realize this promise, substantial barriers to innovation must be overcome. Here, we draw upon industry experience and innovation management literature to analyze FAB innovation challenges, as well relevant frameworks for their resolution. In doing so, we identify two major FAB innovation challenges: specialized adoption uncertainty, and complex product-market fit across convergent value chains. We propose that these innovation challenges may be overcome by 1) prioritizing the establishment of organizational and social technology legitimacy, and 2) leveraging technology-market matching methods and open innovation practices

THE IMPACT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ON SUPPLY CHAIN PERFORMANCE: A KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT PERSPECTIVE

Supply chain management has become an increasingly important management tool to help organizations improve their business operations. Although information and communication technologies have been used extensively in supply chains, there is a lack of systematic evidence regarding the mechanisms through which IT creates value. Furthermore, as supply chain objectives are going beyond operational efficiency towards pursuing higher-order goals, such as understanding the market dynamics and discovering new partnering arrangements to provide greater customer value, the capabilities that are needed for supply chains to sustain their competitive advantages need to be well understood by researchers and practitioners. To fill this gap, this research investigates the effects of the supply chain?s collective knowledge management capability on the supply chain performance. Drawing from the resource-based view of the firm and the relational view of firm?s competitive advantage, this dissertation proposes a framework of supply chain IT capability as facilitating/inhibiting the supply chain?s knowledge management capability. First, an empirical study using survey-based data collection was conducted. Second, a simulation model was built to investigate the mechanisms through which IT- enabled knowledge management activities affect firms? long-term knowledge outcome

The bridge of dreams::Towards a method for operational performance alignment in IT-enabled service supply chains

Concerns on performance alignment, especially on business-IT alignment, have been around for three decades. It is still considered to be one of the most important driving forces for business success, as well as one of the top concerns of many practitioners and organizational researchers. It is also found to be a major issue in two thirds of digital transformation projects. Many attempts from researchers in diverse disciplines have been made to tackle this issue. Unfortunately, they have been working separately and the research appears in various forms and names. This dissertation presents a piece of interdisciplinary research that focuses on identifying operational performance alignment issues, discovering and assessing their root causes with attention to the dynamics in operating IT-enabled service supply chain (SSC). It makes a modest contribution by providing a communication-centred instrument which can modularize complex SSC in terms of a hierarchically-structured set of services and analyze the performance causality between them. With a special focus on the impact of IT, it makes it possible to monitor and tune various performance issues in SSC. This research intends to provide a solution-oriented common ground where multiple service research streams can meet together. Following the framework proposed in this research, services, at different tiers of an SSC, are modelled with a balanced perspective on both business, technical service components and KPIs. It allows a holistic picture of service performances and interactions throughout the entire supply chain to be viewed through a different research lens and permits the causal impact of technology, business strategy, and service operations on supply chain performance to be unveiled

Managing Intellectual Property to Foster Agricultural Development

Over the past decades, consideration of IPRs has become increasingly important in many areas of agricultural development, including foreign direct investment, technology transfer, trade, investment in innovation, access to genetic resources, and the protection of traditional knowledge. The widening role of IPRs in governing the ownership of—and access to—innovation, information, and knowledge makes them particularly critical in ensuring that developing countries benefit from the introduction of new technologies that could radically alter the welfare of the poor. Failing to improve IPR policies and practices to support the needs of developing countries will eliminate significant development opportunities. The discussion in this note moves away from policy prescriptions to focus on investments to improve how IPRs are used in practice in agricultural development. These investments must be seen as complementary to other investments in agricultural development. IPRs are woven into the context of innovation and R&D. They can enable entrepreneurship and allow the leveraging of private resources for resolving the problems of poverty. Conversely, IPRs issues can delay important scientific advancements, deter investment in products for the poor, and impose crippling transaction costs on organizations if the wrong tools are used or tools are badly applied. The central benefit of pursuing the investments outlined in this note is to build into the system a more robust capacity for strategic and flexible use of IPRs tailored to development goals

Employee involvement in open innovation: The role of new technologies, external employees and trust issues

This dissertation consists of three independent studies - two empirical studies and one literature review - that examine different issues regarding the involvement of employees in innovation within the growing open innovation environment. In particular, I focus on the different facets and vital enablers that influence involving the general workforce in innovation, among which trust plays a critical role for their active involvement and their decision to contribute to innovation. In the first study, the focus is on a powerful set of enablers of high involvement innovation, namely; the new corporate web technologies, and their role in accelerating a wider base of collective innovation. The second study then examines the involvement of a very specialized category of the workforce in innovation which is the highly qualified external workforce. Those employees represent a rich yet underexplored resource of employee innovation. Finally, in the third study, I focus on exploring the different roles played by innovation intermediaries and argue that intermediaries could take a more active role in open innovation, through proposing the ‘trust incubator’ role. New insights coming from this thesis advance the current discussion of actively and effectively involving employees in innovation, as well as uncover important and current related issues and allow us to draw conclusions that are useful for both research and practice.:Introduction I Accelerating high involvement: The role of new technologies in enabling employee participation in innovation II Exploring the involvement of highly qualified external employees in innovation – an organizational perspective 1 INTRODUCTION 2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 2.1 The flexible external workforce 2.2 Employee involvement in innovation 2.3 The involvement of HQEE in innovation 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 4 EMPIRICAL FINDINGS 5 CONCLUSION III Rethinking the role of trust in open innovation 1 INTRODUCTION 2 AN OVERVIEW OF TRUST 3 CONTEXTS OF TRUST IN OPEN INNOVATION 3.1 Supply chain development 3.2 Innovation clusters 3.3 Employee involvement in innovation 4 TRUST IN OPEN INNOVATION 4.1 Open innovation: The shift from knowledge creation to knowledge sharing 4.2 Open innovation opportunities & emerging trust challenges 5 TRUSTED INTERMEDIARIES IN HIGHLY INNOVATIVE CINTEXTS 5.1 Intermediaries – from brokers to trust incubators 5.2 Trusted intermediaries in the literature 6 CONCLUSION AND DIRECTION FOR FUTURE RESEARCH Further research in the innovation management fiel

Supply chains under resource pressure: Strategies for improving resource efficiency and competitive advantage

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the implications of supply chain strategies that manufacturing companies can use to minimise or overcome natural resource scarcity, and ultimately improve resource efficiency and achieve competitive advantage. The relationship between resource efficiency and competitive advantage is also explored. Design/methodology/approach: The proposed research model draws on resource dependence theory. Data were collected from 183 logistics, purchasing, sustainability and supply chain managers from various manufacturing companies and analysed by applying the partial least squares structural equation modelling technique. Findings: The results indicate that both buffering and bridging strategies improve resource efficiency; however, only bridging strategies seem to lead to firm’s competitive advantage in terms of ownership and accessibility to resources. The relationship between resource efficiency and competitive advantage is not supported. Research limitations/implications: Future research could confirm the robustness of these findings by using a larger sample size and taking into account other supply chain members. Practical implications: This research provides guidance to managers faced with the growing risk of resource scarcity to achieve a resource efficient supply chain and an advantage over competitors. Originality/value: Studies have explored the appropriate strategies for minimising dependencies caused by the scarcity of natural resources in the field of supply chain management; however, there is limited empirical work on investigating the impact of these strategies on resource efficiency and competitive advantage