The impact of supply chain quality integration on green supply chain management and environmental performance

This study develops a model to investigate the relationships between supply chain quality integration (SCQI) (supplier quality integration and customer quality integration), green supply chain management (GSCM) (green purchasing and customer green cooperation) and environmental performance. The model is empirically tested using data collected from 308 manufacturing companies in China. We find that supplier and customer quality integration have positive impact on green purchasing and customer green cooperation, which improve environmental performance. Supplier and customer quality integration also influence environmental performance indirectly through green purchasing and customer green cooperation. The results provide insights into the mechanisms through which SCQI influences environmental performance, and clarify the complex relationships between SCQI and GSCM, contributing to the quality management and green management literature and practices

Maintaining stability while boosting growth? The long-term impact of environmental accreditations on firms’ financial risk and sales growth

202105 bchyAccepted ManuscriptRGCOthersRGC: 156050/17B,Others: National Natural Science Foundation of China under grant number 71525005, 71821002, and 71961137004Publishe

The impact of supply chain integration on performance: A contingency and configuration approach

This study extends the developing body of literature on supply chain integration (SCI), which is the degree to which a manufacturer strategically collaborates with its supply chain partners and collaboratively manages intra- and inter-organizational processes, in order to achieve effective and efficient flows of products and services, information, money and decisions, to provide maximum value to the customer. The previous research is inconsistent in its findings about the relationship between SCI and performance. We attribute this inconsistency to incomplete definitions of SCI, in particular, the tendency to focus on customer and supplier integration only, excluding the important central link of internal integration. We study the relationship between three dimensions of SCI, operational and business performance, from both a contingency and a configuration perspective. In applying the contingency approach, hierarchical regression was used to determine the impact of individual SCI dimensions (customer, supplier and internal integration) and their interactions on performance. In the configuration approach, cluster analysis was used to develop patterns of SCI, which were analyzed in terms of SCI strength and balance. Analysis of variance was used to examine the relationship between SCI pattern and performance. The findings of both the contingency and configuration approach indicated that SCI was related to both operational and business performance. Furthermore, the results indicated that internal and customer integration were more strongly related to improving performance than supplier integration

Power, Relationship Commitment and Supply Chain Integration Between Manufacturer and Supplier

This study identifies the factors that influence supply chain integration between manufacturer and suppliers and develop the measurement instruments for them. The factors influencing supplier integration include mediated power, non-mediated power, normative relationship commitment, and instrumental relationship commitment among the trading partners. This study empirically investigates the relationships between the factors that influence supplier integration, the degree to which the suppliers are integrated, and supplier and manufacturer’s performance within the supply chain using data collected from manufacturing companies within the supply chains from Mainland China and Hong Kong. This study also empirically tests the reliability and validity of the instruments. The results show that two types of power impact relationship commitment significantly. Relationship commitment has a positive influence on supplier integration and supplier’s performance. Supplier integration leads to manufacturer’s financial performance. This study provides important insights for future researchers to understand power, relationship commitment and supplier integration from various perspectives. Findings from the study can help companies enhance their global competitiveness by developing and managing relationships with their trading partners that will enable them to have effective integration of key processes within the supply chain

Linking supply chain quality integration with mass customization and product modularity

Supply chain quality management has received increasing attention from researchers and practitioners in recent years. However, the knowledge about the effects of a manufacturer's design and production capabilities on supply chain quality management is limited. In this study, we propose a model to investigate the effects of mass customization and product modularity on supply chain quality integration (i.e. internal, supplier, and customer quality integration) and the impact of supply chain quality integration on competitive performance. We use data collected from 317 global manufacturers to empirically test the conceptual model. The results show that mass customization and product modularity directly improve internal quality integration, and product modularity also improves internal quality integration indirectly through mass customization. Product modularity improves supplier quality integration directly, and both mass customization and product modularity improve supplier quality integration indirectly through internal quality integration. Mass customization improves customer quality integration both directly and indirectly through internal quality integration, and product modularity improves customer quality integration indirectly through mass customization and internal quality integration. We also find that supplier quality integration directly enhances competitive performance, and internal quality integration enhances competitive performance both directly and indirectly through supplier quality integration. Our findings contribute to production and quality management literature and practices

The impact of power and relationship commitment on the integration between manufacturers and customers in a supply chain

Supply chain integration (SCI) has received increasing attention from scholars and practitioners in recent years. However, our knowledge of what influences SCI is still very limited. Although marketing and management researchers have investigated power and relationship commitment issues between organizations, few have examined their impact on SCI. This paper extends the power–relationship commitment theory established in Western marketing literature and links it with SCI in China, through examining the relationship between power, relationship commitment and the integration between manufacturers and their customers. We propose and empirically test a model using data collected from 617 manufacturing companies in China. The results show that different types of customer power impact manufacturers’ relationship commitment in different ways. Expert power, referent power and reward power are important in improving manufacturers’ normative relationship commitment, while reward power and coercive power enhance instrumental relationship commitment. We also found that normative relationship commitment had a greater impact on customer integration than instrumental relationship commitment. These findings are interpreted in light of national culture differences between China and the U.S. in terms of power distance and collectivism, which provide a new perspective on SCI

Water vapor estimation based on 1-year data of E-band millimeter wave link in North China

Abstract. The amount of water vapor in the atmosphere is very small, but its content varies greatly in different humidity areas. The change in water vapor will affect the transmission of microwave link signals, and most of the water vapor is concentrated in the lower layer, so the water vapor density can be measured by the change in the near-ground microwave link transmission signal. This study collected 1-year data of the E-band millimeter wave link in Hebei, China, and used a model based on the International Telecommunication Union Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R) to estimate the water vapor density. An improved method of extracting the water-vapor-induced attenuation value is also introduced. It has a higher time resolution, and the estimation error is lower than the previous method. In addition, this paper conducts the seasonal analysis of water vapor inversion for the first time. The monthly and seasonal evaluation index results show a high correlation between the retrieved water vapor density and the actual water vapor density value measured by the local weather station. The correlation value for the whole year is up to 0.95, the root mean square error is as low as 0.35 g m−3, and the average relative error is as low as 5.00 %. Compared with European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) reanalysis, the correlation of the daily water vapor density estimation of the link has increased by 0.17, the root mean square error has been reduced by 3.14 g m−3, and the mean relative error has been reduced by 34.00 %. This research shows that millimeter wave backhaul link provides high-precision data for the measurement of water vapor density and has a positive effect on future weather forecast research. </jats:p