The implications of socialization and integration in supply chain management

Abstract

For many years, firms have been organizing supplier conferences, conducting on-site visits, and talking about the concept of joint buyer/supplier teams. It is believed that the implementation of these concepts enhances inter-firm relationships. Furthermore, as firms move towards closer and more integrated supply chains it is argued that socialization is an increasingly important mechanism in facilitating and enhancing the supply integration process. This paper has taken these activities and embedded them in the theory of 'socialization' and supply chain integration. The authors propose and test a model on how buyers can use the concepts of supply chain integration and socialization to achieve improved supplier communication and operational performance, and therefore, to improve the buyer's perceived level of the supplier's contractual conformance. The findings reveal that socialization is essential for the development of any significant business relationship and the enhancement of a supply integration strategy. #

Cruise ship suppliers: A field study of the supplier relationship characteristics in a service supply chain

“…We conducted our field study through the lens of organizational socialization theory (J. E. Van Maanen & Schein, 1977), building on previous research on the impact of socialization on supply chain management from Cousins and Menguc (2006) as well as its impact on supplier relations from Cousins, Handfield, Lawson, and Petersen (2006) and service quality from the work of Cronin and Taylor (1992); Parasunaman, Zeithaml, and Berry (1985); Parasunaman, Zeithaml, and Berry (1988), and on SERVQUAL and its implications. The nature of these relationships and their attributes are however perceived with some variance.…”

“…These socialization mechanisms can enable the creation of relational capital, strengthening the relation and promoting the integration of members in the supply chain (Cousins & Menguc, 2006), which then facilitates the transmission of the norms and practices of the parent company to the suppliers, allowing the culture to be absorbed by the supplier and potentially fostering understanding between actors.…”

“…Informal mechanisms of socialization consist of any encounters between a supplier and a buyer not bound by a formal context, including suppliers' visits and informal conversations (Cousins & Menguc, 2006). For the cruise company, informal mechanisms include cruises taken by suppliers for pleasure or work, informal phone discussions with cruise company representatives, and other forms of informal communication between the cruise company and the suppliers.…”

Supply chain management resources, capabilities and execution

“…Internal SCM resources comprise human and financial resources as well as 'soft factors' such as mutual organisational understanding, trust and commitment (Mentzer et al 2001;Olhager 2002;Hsuan Mikkola and Skjøtt-Larsen 2004;Yeung et al 2009), whereas joint SCM resources refer to long-term relationships, shared visions and goals, shared control systems, joint project groups, trust, information sharing about forecasts and inventory status, product development, leadership, organisational culture, mutual dependency, and profit and risk sharing (Bechtel and Jayaram 1997;Cooper, Lambert, and Pagh 1997;Fawcett and Magnan 2001;Mentzer et al 2001;Droge, Jayaram, and Vickery 2004;Cousins and Menguc 2006;Das 2006;Cigolini and Rossi 2008;Palomero and Chalmeta 2012;Alfalla-Luque, Medina-Lopez, and Dey 2013;Dey and Cheffi 2013). Kotzab et al (2011) argue that the putting in place of internal resources -which they label conditions -is a prerequisite for the existence of joint resources.…”

“…Supply chain managers thus have an expanded view of process execution, consisting of not just a single isolated unit but an inter-organisational unit comprising an upstream and a downstream network (Cousins and Menguc 2006). Such quasi-integrated channels (Cai, Yang, and Hu 2009) span from raw material suppliers to the final customer (Frohlich and Westbrook 2001;Heikkilä 2002).…”