Imitation of Management Practices in Supply Networks: Relational and Environmental Effects

Abstract

This study investigates the imitative use of management practices across a multitier supply network. Although imitation may take the form of any management practice, operationally, we focus on whether the buyer's control practices used with first-tier suppliers results in similar control practices being used by these first-tier suppliers with the second-tier suppliers. Drawing on institutional theory, we identify relational context (i.e., affective commitment) and environmental context (i.e., environmental uncertainty) as two important factors influencing the extent to which such imitation takes place. Using unique survey data of vertically linked supply chain triads, we generally find support for the occurrence of imitation and more so in cases of high affective commitment. The results regarding environmental uncertainty further reveal selectivity in imitative behavior, calling attention to the level of deliberateness in imitation decisions in supply networks. Besides contributing to theory on imitative behaviors in the supply chain, this study also generates practical implications on the spread of management practices across multiple tiers.

Sustaining extended enterprises as a matter of institutional logics: insights from the railway sector

“…This paper’s findings support that intra- and inter-organizational commitment at the hierarchical and EE-level of supply chains is critical for their resource coordination and integration (Fawcett et al , 2006; Reusen et al , 2020). They also suggest that the resource-centrism of a supply chain’s institutional logics results in paying lip-service to integration efforts.…”

“…The co-creation logic is able to alleviate the segregation effect of these logics by interlinking them and allowing the joint translation and transformation of the resource-centric personifications and representations. This suggests that the agency needed for resource coordination and integration builds on an interlinking co-creation logic and if such logic is absent business units sharing similar resource personifications and/or representations are prone to mimic each other (Reusen et al , 2020) forming dyadic and multi-tier inter-organizational factions. This, in turn, hinders the resource coordination and integration in EEs (Flynn et al , 2010).…”

“…They also suggest that the resource-centrism of a supply chain’s institutional logics results in paying lip-service to integration efforts. Hence, the commitment, relationships, capabilities and technologies meant to support supply chain integration (Flynn et al , 2010; Yu and Huo, 2018; Rajaguru and Matanda Margaret, 2019; Reusen et al , 2020) appear to depend on an interlinking co-creation logic.…”

Broadening our understanding of interfirm rivalry: A call for research on how supply networks shape competitive behavior and performance

“…McFarland et al (2008), for instance, coined the term supply chain contagion to describe the observation that suppliers' use of influence strategies with the focal firm affects the latter's use of similar strategies with its downstream customers. In a related study, Reusen et al (2020) presented evidence that the outcome and behavior control tactics firms are subjected to by their customers can be observed in how they interact with their suppliers. Similar contagion effects have also been documented in the inventory and environmental management domains (Hofer et al, 2021; Modi & Cantor, 2021).…”

Investigations and Results Analysis of Key Parameters of Vehicle Tracking System

“…Due to the need of the companies for modernization, reduction of costs, increase of productivity, improvement of working conditions and the other needs, it is necessary to apply methods for solving this kind of problems [1,2]. One point of view has included application of GPS system for monitoring and measuring important parameters for vehicles [3][4][5].…”