Organizational Alignment and Supply Chain Governance Structure: Introduction and Construct Validation

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce and validate two new constructs with the potential to sharpen our understanding of how and why firms integrate their internal supply chains and assess the governance structure of their supply chains. The first construct, organizational alignment (OA), is a reflective scale measuring the extent to which upper management attempts to foster integration between internal supply chain functions. The second, supply chain governance structure (SCGS), is a formative index, and is a first attempt at developing a measurement instrument to assess SCGS along multiple dimensions. Design/methodology/approach – Following a literature review, measures of OA and SCGS are conceptualized. These instruments are used to collect data, after which they are refined and validated through parallel scale development (OA) and index construction (SCGS) processes. Findings – OA shows acceptable content and construct validity, and SCGS shows acceptable results for content and item specification, as well as multicollinearity. Practical implications – OA and SCGS may provide some insight into how to promote better internal supply chain integration within the firm, and may allow for an assessment of the governance structure of the firm\u27s supply chain. In different industries and at different times, this knowledge may prove useful in supply chain design and supply base optimization decisions. Originality/value – These scales have considerable applicability in logistics and supply chain management research. Together, they represent initial attempts to assess upper management influence on internal supply chain alignment (OA), and to assess the governance structure of a firm\u27s supply chain

Outsourcing and financial performance: A negative curvilinear effect

This study asks how a firm's degree of outsourcing across all activities influences financial performance. We argue there is an optimal degree of outsourcing, where firms outsource some activities yet integrate others, and that deviations lower performance in a negatively curvilinear fashion. We find empirical support, using 1995 and 1998 data on a sample of manufacturing businesses in the Netherlands, and show that the steepness of the curve increases under conditions of high uncertainty. We show the magnitude of the uncertainty effect on performance outcomes through a post hoc scenario analysis. Thus we provide a specific, theoretically and empirically grounded prediction of how outsourcing affects performance with implications for theory and practice

The Purchasing-Logistics Interface: A Scope of Responsibility Taxonomy

To date, integration research has paid little attention to defining and exploring the interface between purchasing and logistics. This research seeks to catalog the set of joint activities that define this interface, and to analyze the way in which this interface is structured, in terms of how companies assign collective responsibility across the activity set. A cluster analysis of a set of 15 boundary-spanning activities reveals a preliminary taxonomy of three purchasing-logistics interface structures: (a) Purchasing-Dominant; (b) Segregated; and (c) Logistics-Dominant. The analysis also reveals limited evidence that the choice of purchasing-logistic interface structure has an influence on supply base performance. In addition, the choice of purchasing-logistics interface structure appears to be influenced by firm size

The Intersection of Power, Trust and Supplier Network Size: Implications for Supplier Performance

This paper examines the intersecting effects of power, trust and supplier network size on five dimensions of supplier performance (delivery, quality, cost, innovation and flexibility). When assessing main effects, coercive power shows a negative relationship with supplier quality and innovation, referent power shows a positive relationship with all dimensions of supplier performance and legitimate power shows a positive relationship with supplier delivery, cost and flexibility. The supplier\u27s trust in the buyer also shows a positive relationship to all five supplier performance dimensions. While exhibiting no main effects, supplier network size moderates these power–performance relationships. Increasing supplier network size appears to attenuate the impacts of coercive and referent power upon supplier performance, while strengthening this connection in the case of legitimate power. Contrary to our hypotheses, expert power use exhibits a negative relationship with supplier delivery performance, an effect which is exacerbated with increasing supplier network size. Overall, this study suggests that while not as independently important as perhaps thought, selecting the right number of suppliers may have considerable contextual influence on the interplay between power, trust and performance in buyer-supplier relationships