Supply Chain Relationships Research Articles

Nested relationships and the spatially distanced consumer in alternative pet food movements

Abstract Marketing ‘sustainable and humane’ super-premium dog kibble emerged alongside alternative food movements interested in sustainability, transparency, and welfare. To demonstrate the trends and implications of the alternative pet food movement, I selected Open Farm for a case study. Open Farm was the first certified humane and sustainable dog food on the market with a ‘transparent’ supply chain. Through interviews, autoethnography, and semiotic analysis, I demonstrate that certification represents a series of nested relationships in the dog food supply chain, from the dog through to the nonhumans used as ingredients. With the transparency tool, these relationships are commodified to increase the exchange value of the product. The added premium is meant to signal an intimate and improved food system, but I argue that the certification and representation of these specific relationships obscures the industrial scale of alternative pet foods and the consequential impact for humans and nonhumans within food systems. This research contributes to food and animal geographies by applying alternative food literature to the alternative pet food industry, and by researching a novel intersection in pet-farmed animal-human relationships: the pet store.

The role of supply chain finance in enhancing financial performance: Evidence from personal and home care product industry

By leveraging supply chain finance (SCF), businesses can optimize their cash flow and strengthen their supply chain relationships, improving overall performance. By effectively harnessing this strategy, companies can dramatically enhance cash flow, strengthen supplier relationships, and propel overall efficiency and growth across their supply chains. The study considered 34 years, from 1990-91 to 2023-24, for India's personal and home care product industry companies, which is a part of the consumer goods industry and contributes as the fourth largest sector in the country's GDP. The study emphasizes the development of an empirical model on the impact of SCF on financial performance parameters like net profit margin (NPM), return on equity (ROE), return on capital employed (ROCE), and return on assets (ROA). The study applied an ordinary least square regression method to establish the relationship. Four empirical models were developed where Model 1 and Model 2 indicate that the accounts receivable turnover ratio (ART) emerged as a key SCF parameter with a statistically significant correlation to firm performance, particularly influencing NPM and ROE. The results of Models 3 and 4 reflect that ATR does not significantly impact the ROCE and ROA of firms. The study results also show that the SIZE variable positively influences financial performance, while LEV (Leverage) has a negative influence. This study compellingly illustrates the connection between SCF and a firm’s economic success, providing actionable insights for stakeholders eager to sharpen their strategic approaches. By prioritizing SCF, industries can unlock significant competitive advantages and drive sustainable growth.

ESG performance, supply chain relationship stability and enterprise technology innovation

PurposeThe enterprise environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance can bring advantages to corporate operations by sending favorable signals and reducing transaction costs. This paper empirically tests the impact of ESG performance on enterprise technology innovation and introduces supply chain relationship stability as an intermediary variable to discuss the intrinsic mechanism of the impact.Design/methodology/approachCollecting non-equilibrium panel data of 3272 A-share listed firms, we use a fixed effect model and an intermediary effect test to verify the research hypothesis.FindingsESG performance of an enterprise can positively promote enterprise technology innovation, and the conclusion is still valid after the robustness test. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the impact of ESG performance on enterprise technology innovation is different when considering the nature of corporate ownership and industries. Mechanism analysis shows that ESG performance can positively promote enterprise technology innovation by improving supply chain relationship stability.Originality/valueThis paper expands the research about the impact of ESG performance on enterprise technology innovation from the perspective of supply chain relationship, and complements the literature on the economic effect of ESG advantage, which is of great importance for improving enterprise technology innovation, optimizing supply chain resource allocation and promoting sustainable development.

Navigating global uncertainty: Do foreign national directors protect US firms from supply chain disruptions?

AbstractWe examine whether foreign national directors (FNDs) on US corporate boards help their firms mitigate the adverse effects of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) shocks originating from the directors' home countries. Using a comprehensive data set of US manufacturing firms' international supply chain relationships from 2003 to 2019, we find that EPU spikes in supplier countries lead to significant declines in aggregate US imports as well as in buyer firms' inventory purchases, sales, and market valuation. However, firms with FNDs from the affected countries are better able to mitigate these negative impacts. Cross‐sectional analyses reveal that the beneficial role of FNDs is more pronounced in firms with limited operational slack, greater difficulty accessing information about supplier countries, and higher financial constraints. Robust to a battery of sensitivity tests, our findings underscore the importance of FNDs on corporate boards during times of increased global uncertainty, especially for firms heavily reliant on foreign suppliers, and inform the debate on board diversity and supply chain resilience amid economic policy‐driven uncertainties.

Digital transformation’s impact on upstream green technology innovation: a supply chain perspective

ABSTRACT Enabling greening through digitalization has become an effective way for enterprises to achieve green transformation. Previous studies have not examined whether the digital transformation of businesses contributes to green technology innovation among upstream and downstream enterprises from a supply chain perspective. To fill this gap, this study constructs a supplier – customer – year supply chain relationship sample using data on Chinese listed companies from 2009 to 2020, and applies a two-way fixed-effects model to examine the impact of downstream customers’ digital transformation on upstream suppliers’ green technology innovation. Findings show that customer-driven digital transformation significantly increases suppliers’ green technological innovation, through the action channels of the forcing effect of green transformation, cohort effect of digital transformation, and spillover effect of green technological innovation. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that the effect of customer digital transformation on suppliers’ green technological innovation differs significantly based on different supplier and customer characteristics. Further analysis indicates that the synergy between digitalization and greening created by customer digital transformation can also play a crucial role in enhancing suppliers’ environmental and social governance performance. The findings have significant policy implications for the synergistic development of digitalization and greening of the entire supply chain, with the opportunity to foster sustainable socioeconomic development.

An empirical examination of factors affecting low-carbon practices in green supply chain management in the Indian construction industry

PurposeThis study aims to address the critical issue of carbon dioxide emissions contributing to global warming by examining the drivers of low-carbon practices in green supply chain management (GSCM) within the construction sector. Focusing on the construction industry, the study aims to investigate the key factors influencing the adoption of low-carbon practices in GSCM, specifically supply chain interactions, organizational culture and environmental regulations, based on institutional theory, relational perspective theory and self-determination theory.Design/methodology/approachData for the study were collected through a structured questionnaire distributed to key stakeholders involved in construction projects, such as owners, contractors, designers and other relevant parties. Analysis was conducted using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to explore relationships between the identified drivers and low-carbon practices in GSCM.FindingsThe study reveals that supply chain interactions and organizational culture positively and significantly influence the adoption of low-carbon practices in GSCM. Additionally, organizational culture partially mediates the effect of supply chain relationships on low-carbon behaviors. Contrary to previous assumptions, environmental regulations do not have a direct impact on these practices but exert an indirect effect through the mediating roles of corporate culture and supply chain links.Originality/valueBy exploring the factors that drive low-carbon behaviors within the green supply chains of the construction sector, this study fills an important gap in the literature. The findings provide policymakers and practitioners with valuable insights to enhance low-carbon practices and reduce carbon emissions. This research contributes to improving environmental performance in the construction industry and supports the development of more effective strategies to combat climate change.

The Impact of Exogenous Shocks on the Sustainability of Supply Chain Relationships: Evidence from the COVID-19 Pandemic

In recent years, supply chain risks and stability have become a focal point of public attention. However, there is no consensus on how exogenous shocks affect the sustainability of supply chain relationships, nor a clear mechanism of influence. This study uses data from all A-share listed companies in China from Q2 2018 to Q4 2021, constructing a “supplier–quarter–customer” relationship dataset, with the COVID-19 pandemic serving as an exogenous shock. The results show that after experiencing exogenous shocks, the sustainability of supply chain relationships actually strengthens. This suggests that companies may take measures to enhance supply chain stability and maintain existing relationships to ensure sustainability. Channel analysis reveal that trade credit serves as a channel for the impact of exogenous shocks on the sustainability of supply chain relationships, with companies adjusting trade credit supply to downstream customers to maintain and strengthen stability. Additionally, the impact of exogenous shocks on the sustainability of supply chain relationships varies with market concentration, product input heterogeneity, and firms’ ownership type. Therefore, companies should enhance supply chain relationship management, utilize trade credit as a risk buffer, and optimize the supply chain structure to reduce risk transmission and maintain sustainability.

Technology Training, Buyer-Supplier Relationship, and Quality Upgrading in an Agricultural Supply Chain

Abstract This paper examines the impacts of technology training and buyer-supplier relationship on technology adoption and quality upgrading. We randomly varied subjects of each training group across farmer-exporter clusters—farmers, exporters, both, or none—and provided training on Good Agricultural Practices (GAP). We find that training farmers enhances technology adoption and quality upgrading. Yet, the effects are much stronger when farmers and exporters are trained together. We document a plausible mechanism to explain this finding: joint training improves buyer-supplier relationship, which facilitates contract trade between farmers and exporters. We find no effect of GAP certification eligibility on technology adoption.

Linking Network Relationships to Green Innovation Practices in Hotels

ABSTRACT Under the absorptive capacity perspective, the current study developed a research model investigating the links between the quality of external relationships, absorptive capacity development, and green innovation practices among hotels in Southeast Asia. We argue that the strength of relationships with external stakeholders is a critical foundation for absorptive capacity development that, in turn, enhances green innovation practices in hotels. Survey data were collected from 431 three-star and above independent hotels in Vietnam to test the model using the structural equation modeling technique. The analysis results supported both the direct and indirect effects of potential absorptive capacity through realized absorptive capacity on hotels’ green innovation practices, as we expected. The findings also supported our arguments about the importance of constructing strong supply chain relationships with suppliers and customers and those with other stakeholders, including local authorities, industry associations, forums, and research institutions/universities, in developing the potential absorptive capacity for green innovation practices. The study findings significantly contribute to our limited understanding of the relative roles of external network relationships and absorptive capacities as antecedents of green innovation practices among hotels in developing contexts.

Data systems in supply chain resilience: moderated moderating effects of enterprise resource planning

PurposeOutsourcing and offshoring practices have introduced a high level of complexity into operations and supply chains, involving suppliers and manufacturers from various locations to deliver value to final customers within an integrated information-sharing system such as enterprise resource planning (ERP). Such supply chains have been facing more cyberattacks, a ubiquitous problem and danger to businesses worldwide. Therefore, the research objective addresses these research questions: “What is the role of complexity in building cyber-resilience in supply chains? What is the role of ERP in complex supply chains?”Design/methodology/approachThis paper proposes a research model that is empirically tested along with robustness tests such as endogeneity. To provide empirical data, this paper focused on supply chain relationships as the unit of analysis. The sample is selected from the USA employee population with experience in operations management and information technologies.FindingsThe findings indicate that ERP systems assist supply chains in reducing the adverse effects of downstream complexity on the efficacy of information sharing within secure systems for creating cyber resilience. Moreover, theoretical development showed that the more complex the supply chains are, the harder it is to create rents.Practical implicationsThe findings underscore the importance of implementing cybersecurity frameworks such as ISO 27001, as well as regular training to mitigate threats such as phishing and social engineering. Despite the initial costs, such investments are vital for minimizing potential losses from breaches, which are estimated to cost around $4m on average globally.Social implicationsThis research reveals the social impacts of supply chain cyber resilience through ERP systems, which emphasize the protection of consumer data, job security and public confidence. Cyber resilience and ERP systems help shield against data breaches, preserving privacy, preventing job losses and maintaining trust between people and industrial sectors.Originality/valueThe contribution is to propose the moderated moderating role of ERP in cyber resilience. This paper investigates the interaction effects of ERP and downstream complexity on the relationship between information sharing and cyber resilience. Moreover, this paper develops the relational view to consider the influential impacts of complexity in creating rents.

Expanding and Interpreting Financial Statement Fraud Detection Using Supply Chain Knowledge Graphs

The relationships within a supply chain are crucial for analyzing business transactions and can reveal significant patterns in disclosed financial data. These relationships also aid in the assessment and detection of financial fraud. Recent studies employing graph neural networks (GNNs) have demonstrated enhanced detection capabilities by integrating corporate financial features with supply chain relationships, surpassing traditional methods that rely solely on financial features. However, these studies face notable limitations: (1) they do not model enterprise associations across consecutive years, hindering the detection of long-term financial fraud, and (2) they lack efficacy in interpretive analyses of supply chain relationships to uncover patterns of fraud or risk transfer. To address these gaps, this paper introduces an interpretable and efficient Heterogeneous Graph Convolutional Network (ieHGCN) designed to analyze supply chain knowledge graphs. It also extends the model’s learning scope to multi-year financial data for detecting fraud. The experimental results indicate that our method, offering both extensibility and interpretability, significantly outperforms existing machine learning and GNN approaches in continuous multi-year fraud detection, achieving the highest AUC of 0.7498, a 3.8% improvement over the leading method. Furthermore, meta-path analysis reveals that companies sharing the same supplier exhibit correlated financial fraud risks and that fraud can propagate through the supply chain, providing novel insights into anti-fraud and risk management strategies through enhanced interpretability.

Understanding challenges of tourism supply chain during disruption: a topic modeling approach

ABSTRACT This research will investigate the interdependence and meso (e.g. interorganisational) risks in the service supply chain with platformisation during the disruption. The tourism supply chain (e.g. Booking, Expedia, and TripAdvisor) during the pandemic was examined by using SEC-mandated public risk disclosures to quantify risk using Dirichlet distribution-based topic modelling with a natural language processing method. The results revealed the interdependence to constitute vulnerability and challenges in managing risks, which helps understand the service supply chain compared to the traditional supply chain. For academics, this paper has contributed to advancing our understanding of the role of platformisation and service redesign with reconfigurability of service supply chain. Practitioners in the tourism supply chain may obtain insights to navigate and negotiate service supply chain relationships at the interorganisational level during the disruption.

Farmers' Perceived Transparency and Performance: A Moderated‐Mediation Model of Supply Chain Type, Buyer Type, and Relationship Quality

ABSTRACTThis study explores the potential of short food supply chains in addressing information asymmetries within the agri‐food chain. Drawing on data from 133 farmers in Flanders, Belgium, this research examines farmers' transparency perceptions regarding their buyers and evaluates their associations with relationship quality and perceived performance. The findings reveal a direct positive association between perceived transparency and perceived performance, with a substantial mediation through relationship quality. Moderated mediation analyses underscore the significant roles of supply chain type and buyer type in shaping these relationships. Notably, the association between transparency and performance is more pronounced for farmers engaged in short food supply chains and with privately owned buyers, contexts characterized by lower transparency perceptions. This highlights the potential benefits of enhanced transparency, particularly in such farmer–buyer relationships. This study emphasizes the importance for researchers, policymakers, and stakeholders to identify and strategically target practices aimed at increasing transparency in agri‐food supply chains.

Information sharing in agri-food supply chains: insights from the Kenya dairy supply chain

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore information sharing (IS) in triadic supply chain relationships through social capital lenses in the Kenyan dairy supply chain context, a setting challenged by the need to increase transparency and improve supply chain performance.Design/methodology/approachThe study used a multiple-case study design. Data was collected using a range of methods, including semi-structured interviews. Six cases with a triadic unit of analysis were identified and analyzed within the Kenya dairy supply chain.FindingsThe study finds that IS and the presence of social capital hinge on the type of triad and the size of the involved suppliers. The study discovers different outcomes of IS on the development of social capital, highlighting the challenges for buyers to develop social capital with second-tier suppliers, while it may be beneficial for horizontal relationships between first-tier suppliers.Originality/valueThis study contributes to extant literature on IS in supply chains by exploring different types of triadic relationships in dairy supply chains in an emerging country context. The type of triad is an antecedent of information, providing a unique and novel insight. Furthermore, the study highlights distinct contextual characteristics of Africa that can influence the IS process.

The spillover effect of ESG disclosure quality: evidence from major customers

ABSTRACT This study explores the influence of major customers’ ESG disclosure quality on their suppliers’ ESG practices. Utilizing a matched customer-supplier dataset, we find that high-quality ESG disclosures from major customers notably elevate their suppliers’ subsequent ESG scores, revealing a spillover effect in supply chain ESG quality. This effect is more pronounced for suppliers facing intense market competition or with limited innovation capabilities. Furthermore, major customers with higher visibility tend to pressure suppliers towards aligning their ESG disclosures. Economically, this spillover effect benefits suppliers in trade credit, evidenced by increased turnover ratios of accounts receivable, growth in short-term accounts receivable, and a reduction in overdue accounts. Overall, our research indicates that supply chain relationships significantly shape ESG disclosure policies.

Strategic Alignment and Duration of Interfirm Relationships

Prior studies suggest that strategic alignment in the supply chain (i.e., supply chain partners share similar strategic objectives) helps build trust between the partners, reduce transaction costs, and alleviate coordination problems. We posit that a closer strategic alignment helps strengthen supply chain relationships by making them more durable. We use regulation-mandated major customer disclosures to construct a dataset consisting of supplier-customer dyads to examine this proposition. After controlling for the characteristics of suppliers and customers, we find that greater strategic alignment between suppliers and their customers extends the duration of supply chain relationships. Additionally, we hypothesize that the advantages of strategic alignment should be greater for suppliers in more competitive product markets since customers face lower switching costs when their suppliers are based in industries with more competition. We find support for this hypothesis as well.

The Impact of Metacognitive Capabilities on Product and Process Innovations in Supply Chain Relationships

The Impact of Metacognitive Capabilities on Product and Process Innovations in Supply Chain Relationships

Sustainability or Greenwashing: Evidence from the Asset Market for Industrial Pollution

ABSTRACTWe study the asset market for pollutive plants. Firms divest pollutive plants in response to environmental pressures. Buyers are firms facing weaker environmental pressures that have supply chain relationships or joint ventures with the sellers. While pollution levels do not decline following divestitures, sellers highlight their sustainable policies in subsequent conference calls, earn higher returns as they sell more pollutive plants, and benefit from higher Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) ratings and lower compliance costs. Overall, the asset market allows firms to redraw their boundaries in a manner perceived as environmentally friendly without real consequences for pollution but with substantial gains from trade.

One-sided Cusum Chart with V-mask for Weighted Weibull Distribution Parameter Shifts

In our research, we have developed a cumulative sum control chart to identify changes in the parameter of the weighted Weibull distribution. This chart incorporates the V-mask technique and a sequential ratio test. Our analysis of the V-mask revealed that even minor shifts in the weighted Weibull distribution's parameters led to significant variations in the mask's angle, lead distance, and average run length. A change in the V-mask parameters has the following importance: it can lead to an increase in false alarms, decreased detection of true signals, change in process capability, indicates the need for process adjustments, increased security from regulatory bodies, impact on supply chain and customer relationships, and the need for re-training or re-certification. Finally, we applied the cumulative sum chart to real data from the Kabsad Scientific Hospital to illustrate the sensitivity of the proposed cumulative sum control chart. The V-mask plot showed a shift in the process mean of the dataset.

Research on Decision-Making and Coordination of Closed-Loop Supply Chain Under Green and Low-Carbon Perspective

This study explores low-carbon tech investment decisions in a closed-loop supply chain and their impact on supply chain optimization and relationships, using non-cooperative and cooperative game theories. This study examines the behavior patterns and potential gains of suppliers and manufacturers in independent vs. cooperative circumstances using model simulations. This study reveals that the following: (1) Optimal pricing, technology investment, profit, and cost-sharing ratios for low-carbon technologies can be determined under certain conditions to maximize stakeholder profits. (2) Suppliers and manufacturers can mutually benefit in supplier-driven markets. (3) Manufacturers have greater investment opportunities in low-carbon technology when suppliers have market power. (4) Provider utility decreases as consumer preference for low-carbon products rises. (5) The dominant market structure for low-carbon products evolves with the market stage. These findings provide strategic guidance for green supply chain management. The research presented in this paper offers a theoretical foundation and strategic direction for low-carbon technology investment in CLSCs.