Distant Suppliers Research Articles

FEATURES OF THE WINE INDUSTRY DEVELOPMENT: GLOBAL TRENDS AND DOMESTIC REALITIES

The article analyzes the peculiarities of the development of the wine industry in different countries of the world and in Ukraine. The wine industry is one of the main budget-generating industries in many countries of the world. The leaders in grape cultivation are the following countries: Spain, France, China and Italy. The purpose of the study is to analyze the peculiarities of the development of the wine industry in the world and in Ukraine. The article uses such research methods as systematic, statistical, dialectical methods, as well as the method of induction and deduction. In recent years, the wine industry has changed dramatically. Lower tariffs, lower logistics costs, and lower barriers to international trade have enabled manufacturers to sell their products beyond a limited region and face competition from distant suppliers. The authors conducted a study of the global and national wine industry in the conditions of the pandemic. It was noted that COVID-19 had a significant impact on the development of the wine industry. Many factors are contributing to the decline in consumption of the world's best wines, including reduced tourism and the closure of some fine dining restaurants due to the pandemic. The characteristics of the leading enterprises of the wine industry of Ukraine are provided. The main factors that influence the production of wine are highlighted. In Ukraine, the Odesa, Kherson and Mykolaiv regions have the largest area of ​​grape plantations. The largest producers are “Shabo”, “Odesavynprom”, “Koblevo”. The wine industry is a promising area of ​​ the Ukrainian economy development, an integral part of its foreign economic potential due to favorable natural and climatic conditions and the availability of high-quality labor and other resources. At the same time, the war of 2022 drastically affected winemaking in all corners of Ukraine. Some wineries are completely or partially destroyed, some are in the occupied territory, others live under the threat of shelling every day. Therefore, the main feature of the modern stage of winemaking enterprises is the increasing influence of the external environment on the efficiency of their activities. Recently, the wine market has been characterized by high growth rates, changes in state regulatory instruments, increased competition, etc. Effective development of winemaking is possible on the basis of a combination of the latest technological developments and organizational and economic conditions. The main direction of the wine industry development is: improving the use of available resources and climatic potential of the regions, expanding the logistics networks of enterprises, organizing and improving the varietal composition of plantations.

Interregional trade at Hala Sultan Tekke, Cyprus: Analysis and chronology of imports

This paper presents the results from extensive and intensive field work at Hala Sultan Tekke, Cyprus, supported by scientific analyses. They shed light on the scope of interregional trade in which this Late Bronze Age harbour city participated from the 15th to the 12th centuries B.C. Although the results from older excavations suggested the city’s engagement in interregional trade, these preliminary conclusions were based on chronologically and geographically restricted material and only a few scientific analyses, which have since been complemented and partly revised. It is now clear that long-distance exchange, based on the large-scale intra-urban production and distribution of copper, involved regional and more distant suppliers of coveted goods, and resulted in the transition of the settlement from a late 17th century B.C. village to a trade hub with a minimum extent of 25 ha.

Managing from a distance in international purchasing and supply

International purchasing and supply management (PSM) teams have long faced the visibility and understandability challenges of managing geographically dispersed and culturally distant suppliers. Problems arising from inadequate monitoring and control over suppliers can be attributed to geographical and cultural distance, capability gaps, weak institutions, and supply market dynamism. With transaction costs theory as our lens, we examine how international geographically and culturally distant purchasing and supply management (PSM) teams control emerging economy suppliers with formal management controls. We use interview survey data on 339 international customer-Chinese supplier relationships using supplier perceptions of the extent to which performance measurement and monitoring practices are used by their primary customer in the purchase reorder decision and control. The results demonstrate that the cultural and, to a lesser extent, geographical distance between the customer and the supplier is associated with more extensive use of formal management controls. Also, we find the relationship between geographical or cultural distance and the importance of performance measurement is strengthened for suppliers of complex components.

Equilibrium Supply-Demand Allocation in a Single-Commodity Network

This paper is devoted to the recent findings in the analytical research of supply-demand allocation in a single-commodity network with distant (in space) suppliers and consumers. The allocation problem is formulated as an equilibrium flow assignment problem with affine functions of demand, supply, and logistic costs in a network represented by a digraph with suppliers and consumers located in nodes. We offer a brief overview of supply-demand relocation patterns obtained for elastic, shortage, and overproduction cases. Such kinds of results seem valuable since they allow one to develop different competitive distribution models to facilitate the decisionmaking of supply chain managers. In particular, supply chain managers can use available patterns to design decision-making strategies that mitigate risks concerning disruption or ripple effects.

COVID-19 Disruption Strategy for Redesigning Global Supply Chain Network across TPP Countries

Background: COVID-19 has disrupted and adversely affected supply chains worldwide. A global supply chain network that considers disruptions is needed. This study strategically analyzes the economic and structural effects of disruption on a global supply chain network with customs duty and the trans-pacific partnership (TPP) agreement. Methods: We present a cost minimization model which helps in understanding the difficulty of supplying materials or products to factories or customers if the supplier’s cities are facing disruption. This enables us to model and evaluate simultaneous considerations of supplier disruption, customs duty, and TPP in redesigning a global supply chain network. This network is modeled and formulated using integer programming, disruption scenarios, and a sensitivity analysis for customs duty. Results: Regarding the impact of disruptions on suppliers, two patterns emerge in the reconfigured network: direct changes due to supplier disruptions and indirect changes due to factory relocation. The sensitivity analysis for customs duty shows that the TPP has a positive impact on cost maintained, even in the presence of disruptions. Conclusions: Suppliers should be switched depending on the scale of disruption; when many distant suppliers need to be switched, the factory should be relocated to the country where these suppliers are located.

Three-echelon apparel supply chain coordination with triple bottom line approach

PurposeAn apparel supply chain primarily consists of geographically distant suppliers, manufacturers and retailers. The coordination among the members of the supply chain becomes difficult when we consider the triple bottom line of sustainability in it. Moreover, the complexity increases with the change in dominance power of the respective members. However, the task of managing the channel further becomes complicated after incorporating sustainability and dominance power simultaneously into the supply chain. To fill this gap, this paper focuses on designing of mechanism and demonstration of three-echelon model to coordinate sustainable supply chain.Design/methodology/approachIn this paper, the noncooperative game theoretic method has been applied for the exploration of models. The various structures of the centralized and decentralized supply chain are considered on the basis of a player's dominance power. The model uses simultaneous and sequential move games to analyze optimal profit of supply chain agents, total channel profit, green innovation level and corporate social innovation level.FindingsAnalytical results show that simultaneous game performs better than the sequential game. The consumer sensitivity toward green and social innovations increases total channel profit. We also proposed a linear two-part tariff contract model. The proposed model enhances the sustainability level and leads to perfect channel coordination. Using a numerical example, we present the effectiveness of multiple game structures under centralized and decentralized settings. The results reveal that channel efficiency is the highest in the two-part tariff contract followed by a simultaneous move game structure and lower in the cases of sequential move game.Research limitations/implicationsIn this research, model setting are deterministic and there is no any information asymmetry. Therefore researchers are encouraged to study multiechelon sustainable supply chain coordination models under stochastic and information asymmetry settings.Practical implicationsThe paper includes implications for the development of sustainable supply chain coordination model to tackle the problems of dominance power, sustainability issues and lower channel efficiency of supply chain.Originality/valueThis study proposes game-theory-based three-echelon sustainable supply chain for the channel coordination.

Does Trust Culture Influence Supplier Distribution Decisions

The decision-making of supplier distribution is based on the principle of the trade-off between costs and profits. It is a dynamic and continuous adjustment and optimization process, which is restricted by many factors. The reasonable distribution of suppliers is not only an important means to cope with the increasingly fierce competition pattern and the complex market environment, but also an effective way to coordinate the long-term and short-term strategies of enterprises and improve the efficiency of supply chain management. Generally speaking, it is more convenient for closer suppliers to interact with enterprises due to their location advantages. For distant suppliers, the frequency of interaction with enterprises may be reduced, resulting in a higher degree of information asymmetry, which may affect transaction costs. Admittedly, the supplier distribution decision may also be affected by product quality, product prices, supplier reputation, technical level, logistics costs, information costs and other factors. In fact, in addition to these explicit factors that affect transaction costs, the influence of the implicit factor of trust culture on transaction costs between enterprises and suppliers cannot be ignored.As a “lubricant”, trust culture plays an important role in supplier layout and optimal management. This paper uses text analysis to embed trust culture into the analysis framework of supplier selection decision-making. Based on the theory of new institutional economics, this paper examines the impact of trust culture as an important part of informal institution on supplier distribution decision. The results show that compared with suppliers without trust-oriented culture, suppliers with trust-oriented culture are more dispersed, and the weighted average distance increases by 12%. This phenomenon is more obvious in the samples with low dialect diversity and high transportation convenience. Further heterogeneity test results show that, in the samples of fierce market competition, low supplier concentration, and manufacturing enterprises, trust culture has a greater impact on the supplier distribution decision.The possible innovations of this study are as follows: Firstly, it focuses on the important role of trust culture as a deep cultural factor in supply chain management, enriching and expanding the literature in this field. Previous studies focus on the economic consequences of supplier selection, such as the production and operation of enterprises, the quality of accounting information, financing decisions and so on. Based on the background of “dual circulation” strategy, this paper supplements the existing literature from the perspective of the influencing factors of supplier selection. Secondly, as an informal institution, trust culture is embedded into the decision-making model of supplier selection, and the mechanism of trust culture in informal institution on supplier selection decision-making is analyzed theoretically. It helps to clarify the reasons why trust culture plays a role in the economic activity, and provides new evidence for the governance role of culture. Finally, trust culture is conducive to optimize the supply chain management of enterprises, and has an important reference value for the further understanding of enterprise supplier layout and optimal management, especially for the supply chain management and optimization under the “dual circulation” strategy.

Economic viability and carbon footprint of switchgrass for cellulosic biofuels: Insights from a spatial multi‐feedstock procurement landscape analysis

AbstractWe study a situation in which a multi‐feedstock cellulosic biofuel plant can procure stover from productive cropland and switchgrass from marginal land, where growing corn for stover is typically not profitable. We calibrate our model to growing conditions in a promising area of Indiana, USA. We find that cost‐minimizing biorefineries are likely to include switchgrass in the mix of feedstocks despite their high cost of production relative to corn stover. This is because the biorefinery can reduce cost by buying switchgrass grown on marginal land near the plant instead of paying to cover high transportation costs to procure stover from more distant suppliers. Moreover, the share of switchgrass will rise further if the procurement region is constrained by transaction costs or natural barriers. This is because procuring switchgrass can alleviate the cost of paying to induce land conversion to corn to procure additional stover from the intensive margin. Under the assumption that switchgrass is grown on marginal land, inclusion of switchgrass in the feedstock mix not only reduces the cost of producing biofuels but also their carbon footprint without displacing food crops. A key caveat is that high transaction costs of contracting for switchgrass and/or farmers’ reluctance to grow switchgrass on marginal land can severely undermine its inclusion in the feedstock mix. However, these forces may be countervailed by a differential subsidy for biofuels that include a higher share of switchgrass, which would be warranted because of their lower carbon footprint.

Economic order quantity models for the shipment containing defective items with inspection errors and a sub-lot inspection policy

This paper assumes that there may be some defective items in the various lots of an ordered shipment and chooses a sub-lot inspection policy. Another assumption that this paper makes is that a shipment is sent by a distant supplier and, therefore, the replacement of the defective items is not economical if an additional order is given to the same supplier. This paper incorporates misclassification errors, which are of two types: type 1 and type 2. In order to deal with the received defective items in the shipment, two cases are discussed in this study. The first case is to send them back to the repair shop to be reworked, whereas in the second case, those defective items are sold and replaced with perfect items by buying at a higher cost from a local supplier. For each case, a mathematical model is developed, and an example is solved. The results show a close connection between the optimal order size and sample size, which can be adjusted to maximise the total profit. The results also indicate that the local purchase of replacements for defective items tends to produce greater total profit than reworking them. [Received: 26 June 2018; Accepted: 17 May 2019]

18F-Labeled, PSMA-Targeted Radiotracers: Leveraging the Advantages of Radiofluorination for Prostate Cancer Molecular Imaging.

Prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA)-targeted PET imaging for prostate cancer with 68Ga-labeled compounds has rapidly become adopted as part of routine clinical care in many parts of the world. However, recent years have witnessed the start of a shift from 68Ga- to 18F-labeled PSMA-targeted compounds. The latter imaging agents have several key advantages, which may lay the groundwork for an even more widespread adoption into the clinic. First, facilitated delivery from distant suppliers expands the availability of PET radiopharmaceuticals in smaller hospitals operating a PET center but lacking the patient volume to justify an onsite 68Ge/68Ga generator. Thus, such an approach meets the increasing demand for PSMA-targeted PET imaging in areas with lower population density and may even lead to cost-savings compared to in-house production. Moreover, 18F-labeled radiotracers have a higher positron yield and lower positron energy, which in turn decreases image noise, improves contrast resolution, and maximizes the likelihood of detecting subtle lesions. In addition, the longer half-life of 110 min allows for improved delayed imaging protocols and flexibility in study design, which may further increase diagnostic accuracy. Moreover, such compounds can be distributed to sites which are not allowed to produce radiotracers on-site due to regulatory issues or to centers without access to a cyclotron. In light of these advantageous characteristics, 18F-labeled PSMA-targeted PET radiotracers may play an important role in both optimizing this transformative imaging modality and making it widely available. We have aimed to provide a concise overview of emerging 18F-labeled PSMA-targeted radiotracers undergoing active clinical development. Given the wide array of available radiotracers, comparative studies are needed to firmly establish the role of the available 18F-labeled compounds in the field of molecular PCa imaging, preferably in different clinical scenarios.

Supplier innovation value from a buyer–supplier structural equivalence view: Evidence from the PACE awards in the automotive industry

AbstractWith the growing demand for smarter, cleaner, and safer cars, automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are increasingly seeking novel inventions from innovative new or foreign suppliers. However, not all innovative suppliers are equally valuable for an OEM. When transforming novel inventions into products, OEMs could find it challenging to work with the suppliers with whom they lack trust or have limited shared understanding. In this study, we adopt a social capital perspective to understand how three types of social capital (i.e., structural, relational, and cognitive) influence a supplier's innovation value to the OEM. Hypotheses are tested using a unique data set combining the supply network structure and automotive supplier innovation award. Our results suggest that it is more difficult to obtain innovation value from a new or culturally distant foreign supplier. However, we also found that suppliers whose networks overlap more with the OEM's network are more likely to provide valuable innovations to the OEM, an effect that is stronger for culturally distant suppliers. This study contributes to the supply network and innovation literature by highlighting the importance of understanding the dyadic social capital between the buyer and supplier when evaluating innovation value of a supplier to a buying firm.

A biotech takes a risk on a distant supplier

In 2004, Winston Wu was at a crossroads. A principal scientist and project leader at Schering-Plough, he had worked as a chemist at big companies for almost 12 years. He had learned a lot about che...

Jumping the Chain: How Downstream Manufacturers Engage with Deep Suppliers of Conflict Minerals

Global manufacturing firms are engaging distant suppliers of critical raw materials to participate in responsible sourcing. Downstream firms are concerned about risks in mineral supply chains of violent conflict, human rights violations, and poor governance, but they are limited in seeing their suppliers. Descriptive data on 323 smelters and refiners of tantalum, tin, tungsten, and gold (the “conflict minerals”) were complemented by interviews with downstream firms in the electronics industry. Results provided a narrative of supplier engagement, describing tactics used to identify “deep suppliers” at chokepoints in metals supply and to persuade producers into joining due diligence programs. Top-tier firms collaborate through a standards program to overcame barriers of geography and cultural distance in supply chain management beyond the visible horizon. Curiously, manufacturers do not need line-of-sight transparency to lower-tier suppliers. Rather, top-tier firms are “jumping the chain” to engage directly with “deep suppliers” who may—or may not—be their own actual physical suppliers. The research contributes empirical evidence to understanding multi-tier supply chains, examines how power is exercised by top-tier firms managing suppliers, and provides insights on supply chain transparency. Responsible sourcing, based on due diligence guidance and standards, is becoming expected of companies that are involved in supply chains of raw materials.

Establishing relationships with distant suppliers to explore discontinuous innovation

A controversy exists in the literature regarding the type of suppliers to consider when leveraging external knowledge for exploring discontinuous innovation (DI): familiar suppliers or distant ones. We argue that firms pursuing DI should establish relationships with distant suppliers along cognitive and relational dimensions and that this requires a specific process. Based on a longitudinal study of a firm that developed such relationships and succeeded in exploring DI, we find that firms can develop such relationships through an approach with three main characteristics: 1) a documented mapping coupling identified DI concepts and their underlying technologies with potential suppliers who master and can provide such technologies; 2) a structured and transparent process supporting mutual and progressive commitment; 3) a specific dedicated entity, separate from the rest of the firm, but at the same time connected to the experts who master the internal knowledge to be combined with the leveraged external knowledge as well as the top managers who will make the decisions regarding further development of the explored opportunities for DI. Simultaneous cooperation with both distant and familiar suppliers enables firms to achieve ambidextrous sourcing and pursue both incremental innovation and DI.

Establishing relationships with distant suppliers to explore discontinuous innovation

Establishing relationships with distant suppliers to explore discontinuous innovation

Balancing the Scales of Justice: Do Perceptions of Buyers’ Justice Drive Suppliers’ Social Performance?

A major challenge for supply chain managers is how to manage sourcing relationships to ensure reliable and predictable actions of distant suppliers. The extant research into sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) has traditionally focused on the transactional and collaboration approaches through which buyers encourage suppliers to act responsibly. However, little effort has been devoted to investigating the factors that underpin and enable effective implementation of these two approaches, or to exploring alternative approaches to help sustain an acceptable level of social performance from suppliers. Building on organisational justice theory, we developed a framework in which we propose that buyers’ justice (i.e. distributive, procedural and interactional) as perceived by suppliers can serve as an alternative and complementary vehicle to the conventional sustainability governance approaches for driving the social justice exhibited by suppliers. The paper sheds new light on an alternative relational approach to help to restrain potentially harmful acts of suppliers. It provides a foundation for new research avenues in the SSCM context and supports more informed decision making by practitioners.

Furnishing a Lodge Room on the Canadian Frontier

A small artefact collection and a substantial archival fonds from Rideau Lodge No. 25 offer an unusual glimpse into the material practices of freemasons in early 19th century rural Canada. Organized in 1815, Rideau Lodge operated for about 30 years in and around the hamlet of Burritts Rapids, in presentday eastern Ontario. Their surviving artefacts and accounts reveal how the brethren procured the material necessities of masonic ritual in the context of emerging frontier capitalism. The Rideau Lodge masons developed a hybrid material strategy, purchasing some items from distant suppliers, including those in the United States, while making or repurposing other items locally. A case study in the relationship between local production and the market economy on the Canadian frontier, this article adds to the general literature on early Canadian capitalism by illustrating how cultural considerations - in this case the practices and values of freemasonry - influenced rural Canadians' consumption strategies.

Implementing Socially Sustainable Practices in Challenging Institutional Contexts: Building Theory from Seven Developing Country Supplier Cases

The implementation of socially sustainable practices in suppliers situated in challenging institutional contexts is examined using institutional theory, both in terms of how institutional pressures affect implementation and what explains the decoupling of practices from the day-to-day reality. A multi-case study approach is employed based on seven apparel industry suppliers in Bangladesh. Cross-case analysis highlights the coercive, mimetic, and normative pressures on suppliers to implement socially sustainable practices. A key pressure identified that has not previously been highlighted in the literature is horizontal collaboration between buyers, which intensifies coercive pressure on suppliers and increases the consequences of non-compliance. The factors that contribute to decoupling are categorized into firm-, supply chain-, and environment-related factors. Further, six propositions are developed on how specific forms of institutional pressure can tackle particular decoupling factors to support implementation. The paper responds to recent calls for greater scrutiny of why and how firms decouple ethical practices and supports the development of the literature specifically on social sustainability, which lags behind that on environmental sustainability and has been largely focused on the Western buyer perspective. The findings have implications for the diffusion of ethical practices into supply chains, especially distant suppliers in very different and challenging institutional contexts.

‘The whole art of war is reduced to money’: remittances, short-term credit and financial intermediation in Anglo-Dutch military finance, 1688–1713

The literature on the financial revolution and the rise of the English fiscal-military state frequently gives the impression that a singular set of reforms emanating from the Glorious Revolution of 1688 changed the entire landscape of English army finances, allowing a fundamental shift from patchwork solutions based on short-term credit and managed through a system of wholesale venality to a solid system of long-term funded loans raised on an impersonal market. This article focuses on the crucial role that merchant networks and the personal connections of financial intermediaries continued to play in international troop payments arranged by the English state through the Dutch Republic. Even when the English or Dutch treasuries could find the necessary money to pay and provision the troops in time, getting the money to the military commanders in the field or to their distant suppliers often depended on long and complex credit lines. Short-term loans acquired in making military expenditure – consisting of unpaid bills to suppliers, payments advanced by officials and officers, and temporary loans contracted by financial intermediaries – as well as the widespread reliance on commercial credit in the form of bills of exchange as a way to transfer funds effectively formed the life thread of army finance. The ability to finance the military in times of exploding costs and permanent emergencies without defaulting rested not only on the capacity to draw on financial resources at home, but also on the strength of commercial and financial networks abroad. In doing so, closeness to the centres of emerging international financial capitalism seems to have been of greater importance than a specific set of institutional innovations.

Coal fires, steel houses and the man in the moon: Local experiences of energy transition

Energy transitions involve long-term structural change and are generally presented and discussed in ‘grand narrative’ terms: low carbon, sustainable growth, smart systems. Yet demand for energy services has always been highly distributed and local considerations are also becoming more prominent on the supply side, with developments in distributed electricity generation and heat networks.This paper is based primarily on interviews and observations with low-income householders and their energy advisers, carried out in a district of central Scotland whose economy had depended on coal and paraffin shale mining for over a century. Many older residents had experienced a transition from belonging to fuel-producing communities and handling solid fuels to becoming ‘consumers’ in uneasy and uncomprehending relationships with distant suppliers of gas and electricity. Their stories add texture to ‘grand narratives’ of energy transition, demonstrating, for a particular place and time, some of the complexity and path dependencies of energy systems and how they play out in social and distributional terms. They show how local resources, institutions, social networks and built environment can affect energy services and responses to them, highlighting the role of ‘middle actors’ in an energy advice service as guides to transition.