Small and Medium sized Enterprises’ Collaborative Buyer-Supplier Relationships: Boundary Spanning Individual Perspectives

Boundary-spanning individuals (BSIs) play a critical role in supply chain management, especially in small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) where interactions with buyers and suppliers can depend heavily on just a few individuals. This study, utilizing data from Korean manufacturing-sector SMEs, explores whether cooperative social value orientations of SMEs’ BSIs influence the effects of collaborative buyer-supplier initiatives. The results suggested that the performance implication of decision-sharing initiative increases when BSIs have a high level of cooperative social value orientation. However, it also negatively moderates the relationship between risk/benefit sharing (involving financial losses or gains) and performance suggesting possible negative side-effects. However, we found that such orientation also negatively moderates the relationship between risk/benefit sharing (involving direct financial losses or gains) and relationship performance suggesting possible negative side-effects

The (long) road towards smart management and maintenance: Organising the digital transformation of critical infrastructures

The digital transformation of organisations, triggered by various digital technologies such as smart sensors, smart meters and IoT devices, provides large amounts of data that make it possible to make smarter decisions. For (Dutch) infrastructure organisations this provides opportunities to smarten the management and maintenance of their assets. But why are these technologies not used on a large scale yet? Two important hurdles for infrastructure managers here are 1) accessing the right data and the expertise needed to transform data into information and 2) the need to collaborate closely with partners in their respective supply networks. This doctoral thesis investigates these hurdles, thereby adding to the emerging literature regarding the impact of digital transformation on collaborating organisations and providing Dutch infrastructure with practical ways to overcome these hurdles. The three empirical studies in this doctoral thesis each investigate a specific aspect of the impact of digital transformations on collaborating supply network partners. Specifically, the study in Chapter 2 focuses on how the two main data processing activities (i.e. gathering data and transforming data) can be managed in dyadic relationships through contractual and relational governance mechanisms. The study in Chapter 3 focuses on how post formation adjustments to contractual and relational governance mechanisms in dyadic relationships are made to cope with uncertainty caused by the digitalisation of collaborative processes. Finally, the study in Chapter 4 focuses on the governance of supply networks (i.e. networks with three or more partners) and how these can be motivated to start sharing and using data coming from digital technologies

International Vertical Alliances within the International Business Field : A Systematic Literature Review and Future Research Agenda

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

The Effect of Buyer-supplier Partnership and Information Integration on Supply Chain Performance: An Experience from Chinese Manufacturing Industry

Coordination, collaboration, and cooperation are often used in business term to enhance productivity and performance, in this way the partnership with supplier and information integration always play an important role in supply chain. This study investigates the effect of Buyer-supplier partnership and information integration on supply chain performance. The study also elaborates the development of trust and guanxi between suppliers and buyers for better business environment in supply chains. This study uses structural equation modeling to analyze data collected from 218 Chinese manufacturing industries. The Buyer-supplier relationship significantly affects trust and guanxi, which subsequently influences two elements of information integration, namely, quality information and real-time information. We found that Buyer-supplier partnership and information integration have a significant effect on supply performance. Furthermore, we found that trust and guanxi are pivotal role in sustaining better relationship between supplier and business for long run and growt

Inter Organizational Relationships Performance in Third Party Logistics: conceptual framework and case study

Supplier relationship management is an important challenge for shippers in logistics outsourcing. This paper attempts to understand the factors which affect inter organizational relationships performance in third party logistics and proposes a conceptual framework specifically for inter organizational relationship performance in third party logistics. We also draw a set of propositions from published research and exploratory inter-views with practitioners to explain inter organizational relationships performance in third party logistic net-works. Five main dimensions of inter organizational relationships are identified which affect performance in third party logistics: commitment, supplier adaptation, conflict resolution, partner fit and communication. In order to assess the validity of our conceptual model we include a case study in this paper. The case study is based on Shell Chemicals Europe and their portfolio of seventeen third party logistic service suppliers