Investigating open innovation strategic alignment for sustainable competitive advantage in the automotive supply chain in South Africa

Abstract

Background: The automotive supply chain (ASC) is mainly composed of Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) who are the most crucial drivers of South African economic activities. However, the sector faces many challenges that threaten its survival. Besides the added impact of COVID-19, the industry is experiencing financial and operational pressures, which are exacerbated by the proliferation of cheap imported components that have flooded the local market. These factors affect not only the component manufacturers but also the complete automotive supply chain. Hence, in order to survive, management has realigned its operational strategies to the open innovation archetype to stimulate sustainable competitive advantage.Objectives: This study investigates how an open innovation strategic alignment influences sustainable competitive advantage decision-making amongst the various levels of management of selected automotive supply chain in South Africa.Method: This article adopted an exploratory, qualitative approach. Fourteen semi-structured interviews were conducted amongst Chief Executiver Officers (CEOs), senior managers and Research and Development (RD) managers of four selected firms who understood their organisation’s research and development initiatives. Thematic analysis was used to process the dataResults: This study identified that the process of strategic alignment is central to the implementation of open innovation strategies, which hinges on the operational levels of the employees in an organisation.Conclusion: This study provides a further academic understanding of the open innovation strategic alignment imperatives and assists management to understand how they can ensure that strategic alignment between and amongst themselves, as managers should cascade to all levels in their firms to enhance sustainable competitive advantage.

alineación estratégica: revisión de literatura

“…La literatura ha revelado que la alineación estratégica nace en el contexto empresarial y se extiende ampliamente al ámbito de los sistemas y tecnologías de información, además, la mayoría de estudios han tomado como marco de referencia la teoría de la contingencia de Chandler (1962). Los resultados de la revisión de literatura han proporcionado información y evidencia teórica del amplio uso de la alineación estratégica como una variable organizacional de trascendencia para el logro de los objetivos corporativos y la productividad, en este sentido, se ha demostrado que la alineación estratégica se articula en forma adecuada con las variables organizacionales, además, hay una amplia gama de estudios que demuestran que la alineación estratégica mejora los resultados de las organizaciones y conduce a una mayor efectividad, por ejemplo, se ha revelado su asociación positiva con el liderazgo y la cultura organizacional (Shao, 2019), con las capacidades dinámicas (Anand et al, 2021), talento humano (Oehlhorn et al, 2020); cultura organizacional y sistemas de información (Chtourou & Ben, 2019); un papel positivo como mediador entre la credibilidad y la motivación del gerente (Lees & Dhanpat, 2021), la gobernanza (Duhamel et al, 2021); innovación y sostenibilidad Gonyora, et al, (2021), cartera de proyectos (Lotfian et al, 2021); ámbito de la salud e incentivos financieros (Shitu, et al, 2021). Gestión de cambio en el área educativa (Guerra & El Dalal, 2021).…”

“…Estudios recientes han establecido una relación positiva entre la credibilidad del gerente, la alineación estratégica y la motivación, revelándose que, la alineación juega un papel positivo como mediador entre la credibilidad y la motivación del gerente (Lees & Dhanpat, 2021), además, al haber realizado un estudio cuantitativo, se recomienda realizar investigaciones cualitativas y en diferentes contextos toda vez que los resultados pueden diferir al ser aplicados en diferentes tipos de empresas y lugares. Del mismo modo, la investigación de la alineación estratégica, en un estudio cualitativo realizado por Gonyora, et al, (2021) ha revelado que el proceso de alineación estratégica para la innovación, la sostenibilidad y las ventajas en la cadena de suministro, es fundamental para la implementación de estrategias de innovación abierta, y que depende de los niveles operativos de los empleados en una organización. Además, que es necesario realizar estudios mixtos y en otras industrias y sectores.…”

Covid-19 Pandemisi Sırasında Stratejik Yönetim Literatüründe Neler Söylendi?

“…This research uses collaboration-based innovation to denominate generating ideas, creating solutions, and sustaining innovation processes by including participation of a variety of stakeholders. Herein, concepts of crowdsourcing (Vermicelli, et al, 2021), collective innovation (Wang, et al, 2020;Antonelli, et al, 2021), and especially open innovation (Markovic, et al, 2021;Patrucco, et al, 2021;Boeing and Wang, 2021;Gonyora, et al 2021;Bertello, et al, 2021) was studied more. Since the situation of, that COVID-19 has generated worldwide impacts influencing all walks of life without any exception, is considered, it is logical to focus on collaborative efforts to reach solutions.…”

“…The result indicating that the second most appeared sub-sub-theme is innovation management can be considered as a clue that the question of how to do is important as much as what to do during COVID-19. In the scope of this sub-sub-theme, concepts like innovation strategies (Ding and Li, 2021;Ferrigno and Cucino, 2021;Gonyora, et al, 2021), patent analytics (Guderian, et al, 2021), innovation process (Ceci, et al, 2021), and innovation program (Brockova, et al, 2021) was researched. When considering that resources become more constrained during a crisis like COVID-19 and innovation requires a certain amount of resource usage, innovation management takes a critical role to sustain innovation activities under resource constraints by optimizing and integrating innovation activities with other activities.…”

A Study on the Reinforcement of Supply Chains Corresponding to Global Value Chain Reforms in the Automobile Parts and Component Industry

“…The COVID-19 has drawn much attention on SCM research field since it has greatly impacted the existing SC for most industries especially the automotive manufacturing in the world (Garcevic and Lidberg, 2021). Gonyora et al (2021) on the other hand looked into the relationship between innovation strategic alignment and sustainable competitive advantage decision-making. This research was based on the automotive SC in South Africa.…”