Managing imbalanced supply chain relationships for sustainability:a power perspective

This study adopts a power perspective to investigate sustainable supply chain relationships and specifically uses resource-dependence theory (RDT) to critically analyze buyer-supplier-supplier relationships. Empirical evidence is provided, extending the RDT model in this context. The concept of power relationships is explored through a qualitative study of a multinational company and agricultural growers in the UK food industry that work together to implement sustainable practices. We look at multiple triadic relationships involving a large buyer and its small suppliers to investigate how relative power affects the implementation of sustainable supply-management practices. The study highlights that power as dependence is relevant to understanding compliance in sustainable supply chains and to identifying appropriate relationship-management strategies to build more sustainable supply chains. We show the influences of power on how players manage their relationships and how it affects organizational responses to the implementation of sustainability initiatives. Power notably influences the sharing of sustainability-related risks and value between supply chain partners. From a managerial perspective, the study contributes to developing a better understanding of how power can become an effective way to achieve sustainability goals. This article offers insights into the way in which a large organization works with small and medium size enterprises to implement sustainable practices and shows how power management-that is, the way in which power is used-can support or hinder effective cooperation around sustainability in the supply chain. © 2014 Decision Sciences Institute.

Green manufacturing supply chain design and operations decision support

This special issue of International Journal of Production Research provides a platform for sharing the knowledge base, recent research outputs and a review of recent developments highlighting the critical aspects of green manufacturing supply chain design and operations decision support. The special issue includes 15 contributions presenting new and significant research in the relevant area. Contributions mainly present either a novel green/sustainable manufacturing supply chain design and operations decision support approach applied to a problem, or a state-of-the-art method on green/sustainable factors in supply chain design and operations. The article delineates an overview of the contributions and their significance, and an introspection on the ‘green’ factors involved.

Detecting EPCIS exceptions in linked traceability streams across supply chain business processes

The EPCIS specification provides an event oriented mechanism to record product movement information across stakeholders in supply chain business processes. Besides enabling the sharing of event-based traceability datasets, track and trace implementations must also be equipped with the capabilities to validate integrity constraints and detect runtime exceptions without compromising the time-to-deliver schedule of the shipping and receiving parties. In this paper we present a methodology for detecting exceptions arising during the processing of EPCIS event datasets. We propose an extension to the EEM ontology for modelling EPCIS exceptions and show how runtime exceptions can be detected and reported. We exemplify and evaluate our approach on an abstraction of pharmaceutical supply chains.

Advances in decision support systems on the endeavour for supply chain optimality

Industry practitioners are seeking to create optimal logistics networks through more efficient decision-making leading to a shift of power from a centralized position to a more decentralized approach. This has led to researchers, exploring with vigor, the application of agent based modeling (ABM) in supply chains and more recently, its impact on decision-making. This paper investigates reasons for the shift to decentralized decision-making and the impact on supply chains. Effective decentralization of decision-making with ABM and hybrid modeling is investigated, observing the methods and potential of achieving optimality.

Online grocery provision resistance:understanding urban (non-)collaboration and ambiguous supply chain environments

This chapter investigates the resistance by institutional actors in ambiguous supply chain environments for online grocery provision. Recent studies have shown that significant shifts in urban geographies are increasing consumers' expectations of online retail provision. However, at the same time there is also growing evidence that the collaborative practice in online grocery provision within the urban supply chains is resisted. That these trends are found despite growing demand of online provision highlights both the difficulty of bringing geographically dispersed supply partners together and the problems associated with operating within and across ambiguous environments. Drawing upon twenty-nine in-depth interviews with a range of institutional actors, including retail, logistics, and urban planning experts within an urban metropolis in an emerging market, we detail the different ways that collaboration is resisted in online retail provision. Several different patterns of resistance were identified in (non-) collaboration notably, ideological, functional, regulatory and spatial. © 2011, IGI Global. C.

Managing supply chain knowledge in the new product development process:a social network analysis approach

The aim of this paper is to propose a conceptual framework for studying the knowledge transfer problem within the supply chain. The social network analysis (SNA) is presented as a useful tool to study knowledge networks within supply chain, to visualize knowledge flows and to identify the accumulating knowledge nodes of the networks. © 2011 IEEE.

Sustainability and supply chain management:Publications in Brazil

The number of research papers linking sustainability with supply chain management is increasing around the world. The purpose of this paper is to analyse how the publications in Brazil are considering the relationship between sustainability and supply chain management. The methodology applied consists in five major steps: (1) selection of databases and journals, (2) selection of the papers, (3) reading of papers' abstracts to select only papers that are related to business and sustainability, (4) qualitative and quantitative analysis of the selected papers' abstracts to define the main dimension of sustainability and sustainability aspect, and finally, (5) an evaluation of experts' responses to a questionnaire in the field of sustainability and supply chain in Brazil. The literature review was conducted in 120 Brazilian academic journals in which 124 papers were identified as being published in relation to sustainability, business management and companies, from 2008 until 2013. When considering the traditional Triple Bottom Line approach, the results of the analysis show that sustainability research in Brazil is focusing on the environmental dimension and SCM research is focusing on the economic dimension. Additional inputs are provided by integrating the governance dimension in the analysis to underline which actions and policies are discussed in Brazilian literature at a corporate level. The consultation of experts in the field of sustainability in Brazil was aimed at understanding better the results of the conducted literature review. One of the main conclusions is that there are large opportunities to increase publications about sustainability and SCM in the country.

Managing supply chain knowledge-based linkages for improving operational performance

Purpose: This paper aims to explore the role of internal and external knowledgebased linkages across the supply chain in achieving better operational performance. It investigates how knowledge is accumulated, shared, and applied to create organization-specific knowledge resources that increase and sustain the organization's competitive advantage. Design/methodology/approach: This paper uses a single case study with multiple, embedded units of analysis, and the social network analysis (SNA) to demonstrate the impact of internal and external knowledge-based linkages across multiple tiers in the supply chain on the organizational operational performance. The focal company of the case study is an Italian manufacturer supplying rubber components to European automotive enterprises. Findings: With the aid of the SNA, the internal knowledge-based linkages can be mapped and visualized. We found that the most central nodes having the most connections with other nodes in the linkages are the most crucial members in terms of knowledge exploration and exploitation within the organization. We also revealed that the effective management of external knowledge-based linkages, such as buyer company, competitors, university, suppliers, and subcontractors, can help improve the operational performance. Research limitations/implications: First, our hypothesis was tested on a single case. The analysis of multiple case studies using SNA would provide a deeper understanding of the relationship between the knowledge-based linkages at all levels of the supply chain and the integration of knowledge. Second, the static nature of knowledge flows was studied in this research. Future research could also consider ongoing monitoring of dynamic linkages and the dynamic characteristic of knowledge flows. Originality/value: To the best of our knowledge, the phrase 'knowledge-based linkages' has not been used in the literature and there is lack of investigation on the relationship between the management of internal and external knowledge-based linkages and the operational performance. To bridge the knowledge gap, this paper will show the importance of understanding the composition and characteristics of knowledge-based linkages and their knowledge nodes. In addition, this paper will show that effective management of knowledge-based linkages leads to the creation of new knowledge and improves organizations' operational performance.

Editorial

This special issue of the Journal of the Operational Research Society is dedicated to papers on the related subjects of knowledge management and intellectual capital. These subjects continue to generate considerable interest amongst both practitioners and academics. This issue demonstrates that operational researchers have many contributions to offer to the area, especially by bringing multi-disciplinary, integrated and holistic perspectives. The papers included are both theoretical as well as practical, and include a number of case studies showing how knowledge management has been implemented in practice that may assist other organisations in their search for a better means of managing what is now recognised as a core organisational activity. It has been accepted by a growing number of organisations that the precise handling of information and knowledge is a significant factor in facilitating their success but that there is a challenge in how to implement a strategy and processes for this handling. It is here, in the particular area of knowledge process handling that we can see the contributions of operational researchers most clearly as is illustrated in the papers included in this journal edition. The issue comprises nine papers, contributed by authors based in eight different countries on five continents. Lind and Seigerroth describe an approach that they call team-based reconstruction, intended to help articulate knowledge in a particular organisational. context. They illustrate the use of this approach with three case studies, two in manufacturing and one in public sector health care. Different ways of carrying out reconstruction are analysed, and the benefits of team-based reconstruction are established. Edwards and Kidd, and Connell, Powell and Klein both concentrate on knowledge transfer. Edwards and Kidd discuss the issues involved in transferring knowledge across frontières (borders) of various kinds, from those borders within organisations to those between countries. They present two examples, one in distribution and the other in manufacturing. They conclude that trust and culture both play an important part in facilitating such transfers, that IT should be kept in a supporting role in knowledge management projects, and that a staged approach to this IT support may be the most effective. Connell, Powell and Klein consider the oft-quoted distinction between explicit and tacit knowledge, and argue that such a distinction is sometimes unhelpful. They suggest that knowledge should rather be regarded as a holistic systemic property. The consequences of this for knowledge transfer are examined, with a particular emphasis on what this might mean for the practice of OR Their view of OR in the context of knowledge management very much echoes Lind and Seigerroth's focus on knowledge for human action. This is an interesting convergence of views given that, broadly speaking, one set of authors comes from within the OR community, and the other from outside it. Hafeez and Abdelmeguid present the nearest to a 'hard' OR contribution of the papers in this special issue. In their paper they construct and use system dynamics models to investigate alternative ways in which an organisation might close a knowledge gap or skills gap. The methods they use have the potential to be generalised to any other quantifiable aspects of intellectual capital. The contribution by Revilla, Sarkis and Modrego is also at the 'hard' end of the spectrum. They evaluate the performance of public–private research collaborations in Spain, using an approach based on data envelopment analysis. They found that larger organisations tended to perform relatively better than smaller ones, even though the approach used takes into account scale effects. Perhaps more interesting was that many factors that might have been thought relevant, such as the organisation's existing knowledge base or how widely applicable the results of the project would be, had no significant effect on the performance. It may be that how well the partnership between the collaborators works (not a factor it was possible to take into account in this study) is more important than most other factors. Mak and Ramaprasad introduce the concept of a knowledge supply network. This builds on existing ideas of supply chain management, but also integrates the design chain and the marketing chain, to address all the intellectual property connected with the network as a whole. The authors regard the knowledge supply network as the natural focus for considering knowledge management issues. They propose seven criteria for evaluating knowledge supply network architecture, and illustrate their argument with an example from the electronics industry—integrated circuit design and fabrication. In the paper by Hasan and Crawford, their interest lies in the holistic approach to knowledge management. They demonstrate their argument—that there is no simple IT solution for organisational knowledge management efforts—through two case study investigations. These case studies, in Australian universities, are investigated through cultural historical activity theory, which focuses the study on the activities that are carried out by people in support of their interpretations of their role, the opportunities available and the organisation's purpose. Human activities, it is argued, are mediated by the available tools, including IT and IS and in this particular context, KMS. It is this argument that places the available technology into the knowledge activity process and permits the future design of KMS to be improved through the lessons learnt by studying these knowledge activity systems in practice. Wijnhoven concentrates on knowledge management at the operational level of the organisation. He is concerned with studying the transformation of certain inputs to outputs—the operations function—and the consequent realisation of organisational goals via the management of these operations. He argues that the inputs and outputs of this process in the context of knowledge management are different types of knowledge and names the operation method the knowledge logistics. The method of transformation he calls learning. This theoretical paper discusses the operational management of four types of knowledge objects—explicit understanding; information; skills; and norms and values; and shows how through the proposed framework learning can transfer these objects to clients in a logistical process without a major transformation in content. Millie Kwan continues this theme with a paper about process-oriented knowledge management. In her case study she discusses an implementation of knowledge management where the knowledge is centred around an organisational process and the mission, rationale and objectives of the process define the scope of the project. In her case they are concerned with the effective use of real estate (property and buildings) within a Fortune 100 company. In order to manage the knowledge about this property and the process by which the best 'deal' for internal customers and the overall company was reached, a KMS was devised. She argues that process knowledge is a source of core competence and thus needs to be strategically managed. Finally, you may also wish to read a related paper originally submitted for this Special Issue, 'Customer knowledge management' by Garcia-Murillo and Annabi, which was published in the August 2002 issue of the Journal of the Operational Research Society, 53(8), 875–884.

Studies in the marketing strategy of a U.K. producer of conveyor belts

Research was undertaken in the field of marketing strategy, its formulation and implementation in Dunlop Belting Division. Emphasis was placed on marketing channel strategy, but other strategies including product strategy were studied. The research has resulted in changes in management practice in the client organisation. The relevance of theories of company organisation, planning and strategy, and marketing channels was examined in the light of the research evidence. The technique of action-research was used to gain admittance to and effect change within the client organisation. Case study material was collected for subsequent analysis. The factors affecting marketing strategy formulation in the client organisation were studied. Both the external and the internal business environments were considered. The operation of the observed marketing channels was compared with channel theory. Market segmentation and penetration, and the selling and technical resources of the channels were analysed. Recommendations were made to (a) enlarge and resite the client's distribution unit to locate it centrally in England (b) use the resited unit to secure local advantage (c) obtain greater integration of field sales activities with and from the centre. A new ex-stock distribution unit was established. Improvements to the client's ex-stock marketing in Scotland were also recommended, including improvements to the Scottish distributor's stock control procedure, as well as to Dunlop-Distributor relationships at all levels. The influence of company organisation structure and formalised procedures and systems on the formulation of strategy were considered with respect to channel and product strategy, and other aspects of marketing. Conclusions were drawn that the action research resulted in successful implementation of .agreed changes in the client organisation; that theories of strategy formulation and planning, of the operation of decentralised companies, and of industrial market segmentation required modification; that the theory of marketing channels was found relevant and useful.

Examining green production and its role within the competitve strategy of manufacturers

Purpose: This paper reviews current literature and contributes a set of findings that capture the current state-of-the-art of the topic of green production. Design/methodology/approach: A literature review to capture, classify and summarize the main body of knowledge on green production and, translate this into a form that is readily accessible to researchers and practitioners in the more mainstream operations management community. Findings: The existing knowledge base is somewhat fragmented. This is a relatively unexplored topic within mainstream operations management research and one which could provide rich opportunities for further exploration. Originality/value: This paper sets out to review current literature, from a more conventional production operations perspective, and contributes a set of findings that capture the current state-of-the-art of this topic.