Supply Chain Governance Mechanisms: A Review and Typology

Abstract

In times of globalization and turbulence of the environment, even large companies are forced to develop their competitiveness by creating different types of relations with other entities. The crucial issue in supply chain management is finding a governance mechanism that fosters achieving the greatest possible supply chain performance. However, supply chain governance concept is quite new, not well recognized in the literature. In the chapter issue of supply chain governance mechanisms was presented and discussed. The aim of the chapter was to develop the typology of governance mechanisms in the supply chains as well as to analyse the state of research on the issue of supply chain governance and to identify the main research areas related to this subject. The chapter was based on literature review. The analysis included articles available in the EBSCO, Elsevier, and Emerald databases from 1990 to 2017. The chapter also includes a bibliometric analysis of the articles. The results of the study show that the main distinction of supply chain governance is between market, hierarchical, and relational governance. Other typologies could distinguish formal and informal governance, dyadic and network governance, imposed and self-forcing governance or single and plural governance. The main research topic concerns the choice of the appropriate supply chain governance mechanism (or set of mechanisms) and its impact on supply chain performance or other constructs like innovativeness.