Relationships among supply chain strategies, organizational performance, and technological and market turbulences

• Pages: 206-232
• Published date: 09 May 2016
• Date: 09 May 2016
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJLM-09-2013-0103
• Author: Amit Arora,Anshu Saxena Arora,K. Sivakumar
• Subject Matter: Management science & operations,Logistics

Relationships among supply

chain strategies, organizational

performance, and technological

and market turbulences

Amit Arora and Anshu Saxena Arora

Savannah State University, Savannah, Georgia, USA, and

K. Sivakumar

Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA

Abstract

Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to propose a relational view of supply chain management

strategy (RSCMS) and its impact on organizational performance and examine the moderating role of

technological and market turbulences on these relationships.

Design/methodology/approach –The authors propose a conceptual model that links supply chain

(SC) strategies to operational and relational outcomes of organizational performance. The authors

follow an interdisciplinary approach by integrating insights from domains such as supply chain

management (SCM), operations, marketing, management, management information systems, and

technology management.

Findings –The proposed RSCMS framework presents 15 propositions that examine SCM strategies

and their interrelationships, and examine how these strategies result in superior organizational

performance.

Research limitations/implications –Through the RSCMS framework, the authors conceptualize

transformation as a higher order SC strategy resulting from collaborative and integrative SCs, and tie

the relational SC mix first to operational and relational outcomes and then to organizational

performance.

Practical implications –The research provides a better understanding of SC strategies of

collaboration, integration, and transformation, along with market and technological turbulences for

more efficient and effective SCs.

Originality/value –In this research, the authors propose a unified RSCMS framework of SC mix

strategies of collaboration, integration, and transformation and their influence on organizational

performance; and explore how the RSCMS framework contributes to theory development, provide

insights for managers, and explore avenues for further research.

Keywords Strategic management, Collaboration, Supply chain management, Integration,

Transformation, Technological turbulence

Paper type Conceptual paper

Introduction

In today’s competitive business environments, organizations worldwide strive to

incorporate strategic and effective supply chain management (SCM) into their existing

competitive strategies. Supply chain (SC) strategy in effective SCM describes a pattern

of decisions related to sourcing products, capacity planning, conversion of raw

The International Journal of

Logistics Management

Vol. 27 No. 1, 2016

pp. 206-232

©Emerald Group Publishing Limited

0957-4093

DOI 10.1108/IJLM-09-2013-0103

Received 15 September 2013

Revised 3 May 2015

Accepted 6 May 2015

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

www.emeraldinsight.com/0957-4093.htm

The authors appreciate the guidance of the Editor and the constructive comments of the

anonymous reviewers on prior drafts of the manuscript. They also appreciate useful comments

from Zach Zacharia on a previous version of the paper. The authorship appears in alphabetical

order.

206

IJLM

27,1

materials, demand management, communication across the SC, and delivery of

products and services (Narasimhan et al., 2008; Grawe et al., 2011) and thereby links

SCM strategy to business and corporate-level strategy.

Croxton et al. (2001) examine the importance of SCM in strategic business processes

and differentiate between strategic and operational SCM processes. Mentzer et al. (2001)

establish an SCM model built on the prerequisite of a relationship, with customer and

market orientation serving as the drivers connecting business processes with a minimum

of three organizations. SCM researchers (e.g. Ho et al., 2002; Chen and Paulraj, 2004b) have

focussed on strategic management to address theory development in SCM. As Goldsby

and Autry (2011) note, the SCM research domain is growing in both scope and theoretical

robustness, but some emergent topics have yet to be sufficiently investigated with a

theory-building perspective. We believe that SCM strategy is one such area. Although SC

literature focusses on defining SCM using different perspectives (Mentzer et al. 2001;

Larson and Halldórsson, 2002; Skjøtt-Larsen et al., 2003), limited research has focussed on

providing an integrative view of SCM strategies and their link to organizational

performance using comprehensive theoretical frameworks. Similarly, conceptual

frameworks focussing on the interface between SCM strategies and external

environment factors, such as technological and market turbulences, are also lacking.

To address these gaps in the literature, this research introduces the relational supply

chain management strategy (RSCMS) framework and conceptualizes the “SC mix”as

representing relationships among the key SCM strategies of collaboration, integration,

and transformation. The primary purpose of this research is to examine how the

RSCMS framework links these three components to firm performance, leading to

successful strategic SCM. Furthermore, given the important role of technological and

market turbulences in affecting business performance, we examine their moderating

effect on the relationships between the SCM strategies and firm performance.

This research makes several contributions to SCM literature and managerial practice.

First, by developing a comprehensive and relational view of the impact of SCM strategies

on organizational effectiveness, we extend the conceptualizations of SCM in a new

direction. Thus, we answer the call for more research on new theoretical approaches and

conceptual frameworks in the SCM domain (Mentzer et al., 2008; Zacharia et al., 2009;

Danese, 2011; Fawcett et al., 2011; Goldsby and Autry, 2011; Omar et al., 2012). Second, we

highlight the influence of collaboration, integration, and transformation on organizational

performance. Thus, this research addresses current gaps in the literature by investigating

the dynamics of buyer-supplier collaboration and integration leading to SC

transformation, with a focus on operational and relational outcomes and organizational

performance. Third, by examining the moderating roles of market and technological

turbulence, we contribute to the dialogue on the interplay between a firm’s internal SCM

strategies and the external environment, thereby taking a more comprehensive view of a

firm’s SC strategies. Fourth, organizational effectiveness is increasingly becoming a

function of a firm’s network of upstream and downstream partners rather than the

strategies followed only by the focal firm (Ketchen and Hult, 2007; Paulraj and Chen, 2007).

With our RSCMS framework, we also contribute to the network view of emerging

organizational processes and their role in business performance.

Literature review

SCM research has focussed on long-term collaborative relationships and SC strategies ,

emphasizing several key areas. First, research has found that firms collaborate and

strategize to share resources; to combine and adapt knowledge through information

207

Technological

and market

turbulences