Understanding supply chain resilience and robustness is increasingly important for supply chain managers. This is due to the growing complexity of contemporary supply chains and the subsequent increased probability of experiencing a disruption. Few studies within the risk management literature have empirically disentangled the concepts of resilience and robustness or explored their antecedents. This study utilizes a contingent resource‐based view perspective to understand the relationship between specific resources (information sharing and connectivity), capabilities (visibility), and performance in terms of supply chain resilience and robustness. In addition, it utilizes supply base complexity as a moderating factor. Survey data collected from 264 UK manufacturing plants suggest that supply chain connectivity and information sharing resources lead to a supply chain visibility capability which enhances resilience and robustness. Of the four dimensions of complexity, only scale is found to have a strong moderating effect on this relationship, while geographic dispersion, differentiation, and delivery complexity do not have contingent effects. This study highlights theoretical and managerial implications for approaches to resilience and robustness.

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In many industries, firms are seeking to cut concept to customer development time, improve quality, reduce the cost of new products and facilitate the smooth launch of new products. Prior research has indicated that the integration of material suppliers into the new product development (NPD) cycle can provide substantial benefits towards achieving these goals. This involvement may range from simple consultation with suppliers on design ideas to making suppliers fully responsible for the design of components or systems they will supply. Moreover, suppliers may be involved at different stages of the new product development process. Early supplier involvement is a key coordinating process in supply chain design, product design and process design.Several important questions regarding supplier involvement in new product development remain unanswered. Specifically, we look at the issue of what managerial practices affect new product development team effectiveness when suppliers are to be involved. We also consider whether these factors differ depending on when the supplier is to be involved and what level of responsibility is to be given to the supplier. Finally, we examine whether supplier involvement in new product development can produce significant improvements in financial returns and/or product design performance. We test these proposed relationships using survey data collected from a group of global organizations and find support for the relationships based on the results of a multiple regression analysis. #

The emerging area of supply chain alliances has received considerable attention in the academic and managerial press, yet there are many unanswered questions regarding the dynamics of such relationships. A number of such fundamental issues drive this research initiative, including how alliances are developed, their key success factors, and the specific benefits to be achieved. The study begins by establishing a definition of strategic supplier alliances, based on a comparison of both theoretical and managerial descriptions. The critical antecedents associated with the success of strategic supplier alliances are next developed, and the magnitude of the effect of these factors on partnership success is assessed. The analysis employs both qualitative and quantitative data, collected through an electronic network of over 200 companies, as part of an ongoing benchmarking initiative in supply chain management.From the perspective of the buying company in the alliance, the following attributes of supplier alliances were found to be significantly related to partnership success: trust and coordination, interdependence, information quality and participation, information sharing, joint problem solving, avoiding the use of severe conflict resolution tactics, and the existence of a formal supplierkommodity alliance selection process.Resource commitment and smoothing over problems were found to be poor predictors of alliance success. The implications of these results for managerial decision making in supplier alliance development are discussed.