Supply Chain Governance Research Articles

The impact of knowledge management on the digital supply chain – a bibliometric literature review

PurposeUsing an abductive perspective, this study aims to review the scientific literature about the governance and management of the digital supply chain (DSC) in the context of the business organizations, providing an overview of the state of the art of the research and outlining a future research agenda with a knowledge management (KM) focus.Design/methodology/approachAfter investigating the Scopus database, 54 articles were identified as relevant and then subjected to an initial discernment. After this assessment, 34 articles focusing on operations management were further analyzed through both a bibliometric analysis and a content analysis.FindingsThe DSC represents a research area of increasing attention, with relevant contributions to several aspects of the field, as well as about KM. At the same time, the results show that the scientific literature on DSC models, solutions and applications is fragmented. Although the analysis has found a heterogeneous literature, two main streams of research seem to emerge: KM in the business culture development about DSC and KM in the business technological evolution about DSC.Originality/valueAlthough there exists growing interest in the scientific community, or perhaps because of this, area of research remains fragmented and under-theorized, thus requiring more systematic studies considering both economic and social aspects of the DSC. This study aims to provide innovative insights about this evolution, especially highlighting the two main contributions of KM in DSCs that have been revealed (business culture development and business technological evolution).

Manufacturing firms’ credibility towards customers and operational performance: the counteracting roles of corruption and ICT readiness

ABSTRACT Firms benefit from being reliable and trustworthy towards their customers. In many countries, however, corruption spills over to supply chain relationship practices and weakens a firm’s credibility towards its customers (CTC). In this study, we investigate the influence of corruption on the relationship between CTC and firm performance. Empirical analyses of manufacturing firms in multiple countries demonstrate that corruption diminishes the effect of CTC on firms’ operational performance. Moreover, a country’s information and communication technology (ICT) readiness can counteract the negative impact of corruption. Our study adds to the literature on supply chain relationship management by considering the influence of two institutional contingencies (i.e. corruption and ICT readiness) on the effectiveness of CTC as an important mechanism of supply chain governance. Our study complements the literature on transaction cost economics and urges managers to consider the two characteristics of their firms’ institutional environments when managing relationships in their supply chains.

Trade Realities: Using Trade Data to Strengthen the Design of Supply Chain Governance

Trade Realities: Using Trade Data to Strengthen the Design of Supply Chain Governance

How to build supply chain resilience: The role of fit mechanisms between digitally-driven business capability and supply chain governance

Drawing upon resource orchestration theory, we argue that deploying digitally-driven business capability aligned with supply chain governance may improve supply chain resilience. Using a sample of Chinese agriculture firms, the empirical analysis verified three fit mechanisms (complementing fit, balancing fit, and configuring fit) between digitally-driven business capability and supply chain governance and their effects on supply chain resilience. This research offers novel insights into the specific actualization mechanisms by which digitally-driven business capability and supply chain governance jointly improve supply chain resilience. Implications for management and future Information Systems (IS) research are provided.

Optimal low-carbon governance model of livestreaming supply chain based on multiple scenarios

Supply chain emissions reduction is an important way to promote the development of a low-carbon economy and address climate challenges. Although the scale of livestream shopping has demonstrated unprecedented growth globally, especially since the COVID-19 outbreak, livestreaming supply chains have also contributed significantly to carbon emissions. Currently, optimisation models for the low-carbon governance of livestreaming supply chains are relatively lacking. To address the issue of carbon emission reduction in livestreaming supply chains, this study paper proposes three low-carbon governance decision-making models based on environmental and operating costs to compare which governance model is optimal. The most suitable decision result for the policymaker and supply chain is both cost-effective and environmentally successful under the model considering carbon tax and carbon trade. The results show that 1) governance based only on carbon tax and collaborative operation will decrease the total cost of the livestreaming supply chain but increase the environmental cost. 2) Governance based only on carbon trading and collaborative operation will increase the total cost of the livestreaming supply chain, while the environmental cost will not change. 3) Under governance that combines carbon tax and carbon trading, collaborative operations can effectively reduce both the total cost and the environmental cost of livestreaming supply chains. Theoretically, our study enriches the research on the low-carbon governance of livestreaming supply chains. Moreover, the research results provide useful insights into the formulation of a low-carbon policy for livestreaming supply chains.

The veil of transparency: Blockchain and sustainability governance in global supply chains

This article interrogates the turn towards digital technologies for addressing sustainability challenges in global supply chains. Focusing on the case of blockchains, we assess industry claims that this set of distributed ledger technologies for undertaking, verifying, and publishing digital transactions provides the greater transparency necessary to resolve sustainability challenges. Our central contention is that blockchain-based initiatives to promote sustainability in global supply chains double-down on modes of third-party audit and disclosure governance that have thus far failed to address labour and environmental abuses. The turn towards these digital technologies, we show, extends interlinked processes of managerialization and the spread of ‘audit culture’ in the governance of global supply chains. These tendencies heighten obstacles to enhancing sustainability across global supply chains, exacerbating the very challenges blockchain initiatives are ostensibly meant to address. Worse than not fundamentally addressing sustainability problems, applications of this set of ‘sustech’ render failures to address sustainability abuses more opaque. The technological novelty of blockchain helps to construct what we call a ‘veil of transparency’ over sustainability abuses and marginalities in and across global supply chains.

A spatially explicit approach to assessing commodity-driven fertilizer use and its impact on biodiversity

Global demand for food, including rising consumption of meat and dairy products, is increasing pressure on the environment and natural resources, often in locations distant from points of consumption. To identify and quantify consumer driven impacts and the components of the supply chain where sustainability interventions will be most effective, spatially explicit consumption-linked indicators that encompass environmental risks are required. Large amounts of phosphorus fertilizers are used in Brazilian soybean cultivation, which potentially cause eutrophication and impact freshwater species. We use a sub-national trade model to develop a spatially explicit approach for assessing commodity-driven phosphorus fertilizer use and its potential impact on biodiversity linked to four key consumers. The use of phosphorus for embedded consumption per capita of Brazilian soybean in China, the EU, the UK, and Sweden are estimated at municipal level and combined with metrics that influence losses of phosphorus to create a normalised relative risk index. The relative risk index is presented in geospatial visualisations to explore geographical patterns of risk to freshwater biodiversity and make the link between consumer and producer countries less obscure. The results indicate high phosphorus-linked species risk in municipalities within Mato Grosso, Rio Grande do Sul, Paraná, and Goiás. Sweden and the UK generate the highest relative risk and the geographical patterns of risk differ between the investigated consuming countries, showing that smaller countries can have relatively large impacts at a spatially explicit scale. In the Amazon biome, risk of nutrient losses and biodiversity are relatively high, creating concerns as soybean production is expanding into the area. The results and methodological approach can contribute to understanding of accountability, agency, and increased transparency for the governance of global supply chains, necessary for enabling transformations towards sustainable food systems.

Transactional Supply Chain Governance and Performance of Agro Processing Firms in Kenya

Purpose: Agro processing sector is a widely diverse subsector and is vital to the production of food, beverages and non-food products. The sector contributes in earning foreign exchange, growth of gross domestic product and offer employment opportunities. The sector is inefficient in terms of value addition to the agricultural produce as Kenya exports raw agricultural produce instead of high-quality value-added products. This study therefore, sought to determine the effect of transactional supply chain governance on performance of agro processing firms in Kenya.
 Methodology: This study adopted a survey research design. The study focused on 344 agro processing firms in Kenya. This study used a census survey and data was collected using self-administered questionnaires. The data collected was analysed using SSPS version 25. Data analysis was conducted using descriptive and inferential statistics by use of moderated multiple regression analysis. 
 Findings: The findings of this study revealed that transactional supply chain governance had a significant and positive effect on performance of agro processing firms in Kenya. The model found out that the coefficient of determination was 0.597 implying that 59.7% performance of agro processing firms in Kenya is explained by transactional supply chain governance. The study concluded that transactional supply chain governance was critical in enhancing the performance of agro processing firms in Kenya.
 Unique contribution to theory, practice and policy: The study recommended that agro processing firms should implement the systems of transactional supply chain governance to enhance their profitability, sales growth and market share

Stability Governance of E-commerce Supply Chain: Social Capital and Governance Mechanism Design Perspective

The supply chain is an important part for firms to maintain competitive advantages. With the development of the Internet industry, the complexity of the business environment faced by E-commerce firms has greatly increased. Additionally, unexpected events have occurred from time to time, which have seriously affected the stability of the E-commerce supply chain. Supply chain social capital comprises the resources obtained by firms in the supply chain network through reputation, status, trust, commitment, etc., which allows the firms in the supply chain to form an interdependent relationship. Supply chain social capital can generate sustainable competitive advantages for supply chain firms. Based on the theory of social capital, this paper analyzes the impact on supply chain collaboration and stability from the three dimensions of supply chain capital: structural capital, cognitive capital, and relational capital. The results show that supply chain social capital positively affects supply chain collaboration and affects the stability of the supply chain in indirect ways. At the same time, this paper also found that under different supply chain governance modes, there are differences in the relationship between supply chain social capital and supply chain collaboration, that the moderation effects of contractual governance are not significant, while relational governance has positive moderation effects on the relationship between supply chain structural capital, relational capital, and supply chain collaboration. The conclusion of this study provides a theoretical basis for E-commerce firms to improve the level of supply chain social capital, adopt informal relational governance to face market uncertainty, and then promote the stability of the supply chain. At the same time, it also provides practical reference for the management department to issue policies so as to promote mutual understanding between supply chain cooperative firms, and to form a harmonious supply chain relationship.

Beyond the brands: COVID‐19, supply chain governance, and the state–labor nexus

AbstractThis article analyses the role played by brands, producer‐country governments, and unions in mitigating the impact of disruptions caused to garment supply chains by COVID‐19 in Cambodia, Indonesia, and Myanmar. Its findings challenge brand‐centric accounts, highlighting the need for more serious consideration of the dynamic, relational nature of labor governance—and, in particular, of the role of the state–labor nexus in determining producer‐country unions' ability to exercise strategic agency within global supply chains.

Leveraging digital and relational governance mechanisms in developing trusting supply chain relationships: the interplay between blockchain and norm of solidarity

PurposeDrawing on the signaling theory and the relational exchange theory, this study investigates how buyer–supplier trust is influenced through the congruence and incongruence between blockchain and norm of solidarity. The moderating role of technology uncertainty is further examined.Design/methodology/approachUsing a survey data of 110 Chinese firms, this study empirically tests not only the combined effect of blockchain and norm of solidarity on trust, but also how this combined effect is moderated by technology uncertainty. The proposed hypotheses are tested using the polynomial regression analysis and the response surface methodology.FindingsThe results suggest that trust increases along with an increasing congruence between blockchain and norm or solidarity, but in a diminishing rate (i.e. an inverted U-shaped relationship). Simultaneously, incongruence between blockchain and norm of solidarity can also guarantee sufficient trust (i.e. a U-shaped relationship). Moreover, technology uncertainty overturns the inverted U-shaped relationship between blockchain and norm of solidarity congruence on trust into a U-shaped relationship and nullifies the U-shaped relationship between blockchain and norm of solidarity incongruence on trust.Originality/valueThis study enriches supply chain governance literature by introducing the emerging blockchain governance and examining the blockchain governance's interplay with a conventional relational norm. The study emphasizes that the combined effects of these two are quite complex. Blockchain and norm of solidarity can offset each other’s limitations when both are at low to moderate levels. But simultaneous pursuit of both high blockchain and norm has only limited marginal benefits. Furthermore, the study also highlights the importance of technology uncertainty under which the combined effects between the two governance mechanisms vary. Collectively, the results provide nuanced insights into the design of supply chain governance portfolios in the digital era.

Blockchain technology in supply chains

Aim: Blockchain technology (BCT) is a relatively new technological development, promising strong gains in the areas of product traceability and visibility, end-to-end coordination (E2E), governance, and efficiency of supply chains. The aim of this study is to gain a better understanding of the impact of BCT on these performance measures.
 Design / Research methods: Hypotheses were tested with survey data from 119 supply chain professionals from Northern American SMEs.
 Conclusions / findings: The results confirm the positive impacts of BCT on all performance measures. E2E coordination is the integration of information, goods, and money within an organisation or supply chain. E2E coordination appeared to benefit from the use of BCT, enabling information sharing in a safe way. The findings suggest that BCT use fosters E2E coordination, which in its turn also positively affects financial performance.
 Originality / value of the article: Despite the increasing interest in and use of, BCT, there is little empirical evidence for the effect on supply chain performance. Many studies are anecdotal and lack empirical evidence.
 Implications of the research (if applicable): Companies should acknowledge the impact of BCT use on the various supply chain performance measures. Implementing and using BCT is likely to foster improvement in a wide range of performance indicators. 
 Limitations of the research (if applicable): Companies use different types, versions, varieties, and forks of blockchain, all having their own strong and weak points. Future studies could investigate and include the nuances within different forks of BCT.

Metrics and Mētis: work and practical knowledge in Agri-food sustainability governance.

In the mid twenty-tens, many major food companies committed to sustainably source their priority ingredients, including North American commodity crops. With deadlines set for the decade’s end, companies joined multi-stakeholder initiatives and developed standards, metrics, and other assessment tools to help them track and drive progress. In short, they embarked on the sort of corporate supply chain governance that agri-food scholars have long studied. But how would this governance happen, especially in the commodity supply chains where companies knew and controlled little about upstream production? Treating supply chain governance as not just a corporate undertaking but also the work of mid-level sustainability managers, this paper examines the practical skills and knowledge, or mētis, employed by managers in their efforts to win the support of colleagues, farmers, and other supply chain actors. This analysis provides insight into how and why food companies’ approaches to governing agricultural sustainability have changed since they set their 2020 sourcing goals. More broadly, it highlights the contingent nature of their governance.

Countering Commodity Trade Mispricing in Low-Income Countries: A Prescriptive Approach

ABSTRACT Commodity trade mispricing, especially the undervaluation of commodity exports, disproportionately harms low-income countries that depend on commodity exports for most of their export earnings. Such countries should (re)consider adopting rule-based pricing methods as a prescriptive alternative to transaction-based valuation systems. This article firmly grounds rule-based pricing in market parameters. It calls for a hybrid form of market-based price regulation in the framework of public–private models of supply chain governance, also integrating advice from independent experts. This article addresses this policy option within the parameters set by international law, considering state regulatory scope under international trade and tax law. It challenges the popular objection that prescriptive pricing methods breach international trade and tax rules. Instead, it emphasizes the complexity of any such legal assessment under international economic law.

Sustainability Governance: Insights from a Cocoa Supply Chain

The food industry is one of the main drivers of climate change, with serious impacts on the living and working conditions in developing countries. Due to these sustainability issues, consumers, governments, and non-governmental organizations are pressuring food companies to rethink their current business concepts of food production. Food companies rely on supply chain governance and its mechanisms to implement sustainability standards across all tiers of their supply chains. This study examines the sustainability governance at all stages of a cocoa supply chain, from the raw material production to the retailer, by using a qualitative case study approach. The results show a differentiation of the sustainability governance according to the different supply chain stages. At the raw material production stage, sustainability is mainly improved using contracts, extensive and frequent knowledge sharing, and audits. After the raw material production stage, environmental and social sustainability is almost exclusively coordinated by certificates, while other governance mechanisms are used to foster long-term economic business relationships. This study gives detailed insights into the application intentions and the functioning of sustainability governance mechanisms and provides propositions on how to efficiently improve sustainability in food supply chains.

Modern slavery and the governance of labor exploitation in the Thai fishing industry

Is modern slavery in the Thai fishing industry effectively suppressed through multilevel supply chain governance? This paper elaborates on existing theory concerning governance synergies, then analyzes how labor governance, exerted at multiple levels within and across the supply chain, affects modern slavery. Exposing the motivations, capabilities, and methods used by different actors in response to the publicization of slavery in the Thai fishing industry, we aim to understand better how their interactions may deter the abuse of workers’ rights. Adopting a phenomenon-based approach and engaging with systemically identified academic and grey literature, we detail several key responses to revelations about modern slavery by a range of actors—private, public, and social—focusing particularly on the role of multinational enterprises as lead firms. We find that, despite significant achievements to date, opportunities still exist for key governance actors, multinational enterprises in particular, to drive further remedial change in the Thai fishing industry. We conclude that misalignments in governance objectives should be redressed through synchronized supply chain governance. This requires states to take advantage of their capability to ensure international norms are given expression in national cultural institutions, thereby aligning and coordinating the disparate efforts of governors in the public sphere, civil society, and the private sector.

Edge Computing and Lightning Network Empowered Secure Food Supply Management

The recent COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of food safety and supply chain governance. In other words, we need to ensure traceability along the supply chain and support high-frequency transactions, effective data collections, etc. Thus, we posit the potential of using a lightning network, which is a decentralized traceable paradigm for achieving high-frequency transactions in blockchain-based systems. In addition, we also utilize edge computing to help facilitate data collection. However, a key challenge in securing food supplies is determining the optimal global transaction path in the lightning network while achieving efficiency and meeting the dynamic nature of food supply management. Thus, we propose a blockchain-edge scheme that utilizes our proposed dynamic programming to produce optimal solutions for selecting global transaction paths. Specifically, our scheme optimizes routing fees under existing constraints (e.g., transmission cost, computing resource consumption, and lightning network balance). The findings from our evaluations demonstrate the utility of our proposed approach in facilitating food safety management.

Theorizing the impact of network characteristics on multitier sustainable supply chain governance: a power perspective

PurposeWhile the literature on multitier supply chain management traditionally assumes that first-tier suppliers belong to the visible proportion of the supply base, intermediaries might limit focal firms' visible horizon already at this stage. High power asymmetries promoting centrality and complexity in the supply network are seen as a particular root cause that limits the impact of governance mechanisms for sustainability. To map the space for governance mechanisms in a network-sensitive context more comprehensively, the study analyzes supply network characteristics from a power perspective.Design/methodology/approachThis research is conceptual. To better understand power imbalances and mutual dependencies from network centrality and complexity, network configurations were constructed drawing on resource dependence theory. These configurations allow deducing the impact of (non-)mediated governance mechanisms for a sustainable development in the supply network. An agenda to stimulate future empirical and model-based research is accordingly presented.FindingsThe research shows that those networks with densely interconnected first-tier suppliers promote network centrality and complexity, leading to an inverted U-shape relationship between the focal firm's exertion of coercive power and the sustainability performance in the supply network. The findings allow a more comprehensive theoretical grounding for mapping governance approaches in a network-sensitive context and provide insights on how to avoid negative effects from power asymmetries.Practical implicationsThe findings suggest the need for accompanying, indirect governance mechanisms already at the stage of first-tier suppliers based on non-mediated forms of power, such as referent power, also promoting disintermediation. Purchasing companies may also consider using digital platform technologies that foster disintermediation, such as blockchain technology.Originality/valueBy studying intermediaries from a power and network perspective, the conceptualization adds to the discussion on governance in multitier sustainable supply chain networks in various industries. Furthermore, it contributes to the increasing efforts of middle-range theorizing in logistics and supply chain management. The results partially challenge previous assumptions on the moderating role of specific network characteristics.

Fresh agricultural product logistics network governance: insights from small-holder farms in a developing country

ABSTRACT Fresh agricultural products (FAPs) require special handling to maintain product quality, especially during socio-economic crises. In developing countries, there is a compelling need for a robust supply chain governance strategy to regulate the supply chain actors involved in the logistics and distribution system. This paper proposes an innovative way to design FAP logistics governance to address specific problems in the FAP logistics networks of developing countries, where FAP supply chains are not well integrated. Three logistics governance scenarios were modelled using discrete-event simulation. The results revealed that the fully distributed governance could effectively reduce process delay and consequently minimise logistics costs, especially within the logistics networks serving multiple markets. This is due to that fact that the distributed governance allows the actors involved in the network to have some autonomy to manage their resources. The paper contributes to improving the fundamental understanding of the governance for FAP logistics networks consisting of small-holder farms. Our work also offers valuable insights for policymakers and practitioners into how to improve FAP supply chain management.

Meta-Organizing for Sustainability: A Comparative Analysis of NGO and Industry-Driven Efforts

Continued proliferation and competition amongst sustainability standard-setting organizations in most global industries and issue areas has generated considerable interest in understanding the mechanisms that may lead to standards harmonization. Drawing on the collective action and meta-organization literatures, this study sheds light on the organization of sustainability meta-governance, underscoring differences in objectives, organizational structures and mechanisms for dealing with collective action dilemmas. By means of 41 interviews and 439 archival documents, we employ a comparative case study approach to examine how eight different industry meta-governors deal with these key issues and how these differ from NGO-based approaches. Findings reveal that NGO and industry-based meta-regulators hold opposing conceptions of harmonization and develop considerably dissimilar mechanisms for bringing these about. While NGO meta-governors’ pluralistic, legitimacy-based approaches have been referred to as “creating a market for standards”, we suggest that industry meta-governors’ centralized approach, characterized by industry concentration and supply chain governance, is best described as “standards commoditization”. We outline implications of this study for both practice and future research.