Arcs of integration: an international study of supply chain strategies

Abstract

Though there is a wide acceptance of the strategic importance of integrating operations with suppliers and customers in supply chains, many questions remain unanswered about how best to characterize supply chain strategies. Is it more important to link with suppliers, customers, or both? Similarly, we know little about the connections between supplier and customer integration and improved operations performance. This paper investigated supplier and customer integration strategies in a global sample of 322 manufacturers. Scales were developed for measuring supply chain integration and five different strategies were identified in the sample. Each of these strategies is characterized by a different “arc of integration”, representing the direction (towards suppliers and/or customers) and degree of integration activity. There was consistent evidence that the widest degree of arc of integration with both suppliers and customers had the strongest association with performance improvement. The implications for our findings on future research and practice in the new millennium are considered.

Examining sustainability performance in the supply chain: The case of the Greek dairy sector

“…ANOVA is a widely used statistically method for investigating statistically significant differences in SCP between groups of firms (see Zhu & Sarkis 2006;Frohlich & Westbrook 2001) and the results are given in Table 3. Table 3 here"…”

Examining Value Co-Creation in Healthcare Purchasing: a Supply Chain View

“…Literature supports the positive influence of SC integrative practices in creating a synchro nous conducive environment and in maintaining trust and connectedness, through goal alignment along the value chain and enhancing performance, both upstream and down stream with suppliers and customers respectively (Frohlich, Westbrook 2001;Drickhamer 2002;Rosenzweig et al 2003;Droge et al 2004). Kim and Narasimhan (2002) supports such claims about SC integration and indicate that it enhan ces the linkage between the focal firm and network actors through integration of the relationships, activities, processes and strategies, which in other words from the viewpoint of DART can be said to represent SC transparency reflected through alignment of motivation and goals.…”

Supply chain management resources, capabilities and execution

“…Ultimately, the central aim of inter-organisational vertical networks is to increase the chances of firm survival, the performance of individual actors, and their ability to create value for their customers (Lambert, Cooper, and Pagh 1998;Frohlich and Westbrook 2001;Mentzer et al 2001). Researchers have shown the necessity of considering up-and downstream flows as well as improving relationships in such vertical networks.…”

“…Such quasi-integrated channels (Cai, Yang, and Hu 2009) span from raw material suppliers to the final customer (Frohlich and Westbrook 2001;Heikkilä 2002). The role of supply chain managers is to install and execute a set of inter-organisational business processes to add customer value and optimise the whole entity instead of single parts of it (Cooper and Ellram 1993;Cooper, Lambert, and Pagh 1997;Heikkilä 2002).…”