Competitor actions, customer integration, and supply chain responsiveness: A contingency–capability-based view

Abstract

Conventional wisdom suggests that market forces such as competitor aggressiveness and competitor innovativeness induce supply chain responsiveness. However, this assertion does not only lack empirical evidence but also the mechanisms that explain the supply chain responsiveness effects of market forces are under-theorized. Drawing on the contingency–capability perspective, this research develops and tests the argument that customer integration is a critical boundary-spanning capability that translates competitor aggressiveness and innovativeness into enhanced supply chain responsiveness. Empirical results based on survey data from 117 firms in Ghana reveal that both market forces are not directly related to supply chain responsiveness. Additional results, however, show that customer integration mediates the competitor aggressiveness and innovativeness-supply chain responsiveness relationships. In contributing to the limited knowledge of the determinants of responsive supply chains, this article shows that external environmental factors are essential but might be insufficient for accounting for the heterogeneity in supply chain responsiveness.