Strategic Partnerships versus Captive Buyer and Supplier Relationships

The face of customer relationship management has shifted as business partners on both sides of the relationship deploy technology to better manage relationships, streamline business processes and achieve integration. The phenomenon of captive buyer and supplier relationships grounded in substantial unilateral monetary and organizational investments in achieving business objectives contrast with strategic partnerships, which emerge through bilateral investments. The current research examines buyer/supplier relationship dyads finding that buyers’ trust has a direct effect on the occurrence of captive buyer relationships; moreover, captive buyer and supplier relationships have a direct effect on each parties’ respective perceived benefits. More importantly, each partners’ trust has a direct effect upon the occurrence of strategic partnerships, which in turn has a direct effect on perceptions of derived benefits for each

No-size-fits-all: collaborative governance as an alternative for addressing labour issues in global supply chains

Labour issues in global supply chains have been a thorny problem for both buyer firms and their suppliers. Research initially focused mostly on the bilateral relationship between buyer firms and suppliers, looking at arm’s-length and close collaboration modes, and the associated mechanisms of coercion and cooperation. Yet continuing problems in the global supply chain suggest that neither governance type offers a comprehensive solution to the problem. This study investigates collaborative governance, an alternative governance type that is driven by buyer firms setting up a coalition with competitor firms in order to increase leverage and address the supplier and/or host country specific labour issues. Based on interviews with managers involved in the establishment and management of such coalitions and supplier firms in the garment industry, we examine the rationale behind collaborative governance and discuss its opportunities and challenges in addressing labour issues in global supply chains

Making Retail Supply Chains Sustainable: Upgrading Opportunities for Developing Country Suppliers under Voluntary Quality Standards

This paper examines the sustainability claims of private quality standards, voluntary adopted by supermarket to improve the quality of products in respect of food safety, and environmental and social sustainability. The concept of ‘sustainability’ is defined as the opportunity for upgrading by developing country suppliers in the retail supply chains. The paper reports of an explorative analysis on the perceived effects of 36 quality standards in the retail on upgrading. Data was collected through a survey of a wide variety of relevant media: websites, scientific articles and reports, policy reports, and online newspaper articles. The overall conclusion is that the majority of the 36 standards are perceived to facilitate trading opportunities for developing country producers, but only for those suppliers who can meet the criteria of quality standards. The study found interesting differences between various categories of standards. Standards initiated by NGOs and partnerships are perceived to offer better upgrading opportunities to suppliers than do standards initiated by (inter-) governmental authorities, by individual firms, or by business associations. Standards with an explicit social and social/environmental focus have a more positive influence on process and product upgrading in developing countries compared to voluntary food safety standards. Product-specific standards offer better upgrading opportunities than do generic quality standards

A typology of the situations of cooperation in supply chains

Pushed by globalization and its consequent increased competition, supply chain managers have understood the importance of information sharing, joint decision-making and cooperation across supply chains. Therefore, how to synchronize local activities through global processes and how to establish a collaborative supply chain relationship are actual difficulties that supply chain members have to address. In this context, this paper suggests a model of the situations of cooperation in supply chains for coping with real industrial situations, based on an analysis of the limitations of previous models. It is shown how the suggested model may allow to identify dysfunctions in the cooperation process, especially when both large and small companies are involved, and can also be used to describe and monitor the possible evolution of the cooperation process. Finally, the model may help to specify the way information should be efficiently processed all along a supply chain, depending on the situation of cooperation

Managing from a distance in international purchasing and supply

International purchasing and supply management (PSM) teams have long faced the visibility and understandability challenges of managing geographically dispersed and culturally distant suppliers. Problems arising from inadequate monitoring and control over suppliers can be attributed to geographical and cultural distance, capability gaps, weak institutions, and supply market dynamism. With transaction costs theory as our lens, we examine how international geographically and culturally distant purchasing and supply management (PSM) teams control emerging economy suppliers with formal management controls. We use interview survey data on 339 international customer-Chinese supplier relationships using supplier perceptions of the extent to which performance measurement and monitoring practices are used by their primary customer in the purchase reorder decision and control. The results demonstrate that the cultural and, to a lesser extent, geographical distance between the customer and the supplier is associated with more extensive use of formal management controls. Also, we find the relationship between geographical or cultural distance and the importance of performance measurement is strengthened for suppliers of complex components

Partnerships for learning and innovation in agri-export industries: A case study of farmer-exporter partnerships in Kenya's flower industry

This study examines the role of partnerships, institutions and governance arrangements in building cut flower farmers' innovation capabilities. It interrogates whether partnerships between farmers (both small scale and large scale) with exporters contribute to building the farmers' capabilities; how the institutional (contractual versus non-contractual) and governance patterns (captive versus relational) influence the ability of such partnerships to enhance farmers' capabilities and the role of other actors (research institutes, universities, regulatory agencies, input suppliers and NGOs) in supporting these partnerships and contributing to building farmer capabilities. This focus was motivated by the declining performance of small scale farmers in Kenya and the fact that small scale farmers appear to be excluded from high value cut flower export business. Whereas this exclusion is often explained in terms of limited access to capital; infrastructure and stringent market standards and regulations, this thesis takes the view that (besides these factors) exclusion of small scale farmers results from choices that different actors make about enhancing farmers' capabilities to innovate, as well as the policy and institutional environment that underpins and reinforces such choices. The study follows largely a case study approach and employs different methods including structured surveys; in-depth interviews and ethnography. Our findings show that even though farmers' production capabilities have benefitted from their partnerships with exporters, value addition capabilities have only improved modestly and remain a key challenge to small scale farmers. Similarly, marketing is dependent on knowledge and information passed on by the exporters. Secondly, the findings further show that interactions between farmers and R&D actors are undermined largely by the structural, cultural and operational procedures of the R&D institutes and universities. Lastly, the study finds that institutions, power dynamics and governance patterns are the key determinants influencing the opportunities for interactions, learning and innovation within these partnerships

Are Hubs the Centre of Things? eProcurement in the Automotive Industry

Organizations are being confused by simplistic, technology-driven models of e-business that allegedly enhance competitive and co-operative capability. Re-examining the perceived wisdom of electronic markets finds shallow, overlapping networks competing for membership, isolated pockets of collaboration and irregular flows of revenue, resembling an ad-hoc arrangement of spokes rather than a hub structure. This paper develops a classification that highlights the link between inclusive/exclusive hub membership and the buyer-supplier relationship as part of planning eprocurement strategy. Three automotive case studies show that introducing electronic hubs without IS-related, industry-level planning simply speeds up the mess