Supply Chain Collaboration in Craft Production: empirical evidences from the food and beverage industry

Abstract

This paper empirically analyzes collaborative relationships among craftsmen and their suppliers in the food and beverage industry. Despite the recent return to traditional manufacturing methods triggered by customers’ attention, the literature debate on supply chain collaboration, in this field, has received limited research attention. In particular, the paper aims at investigating information and knowledge sharing in craft production environments by addressing the following research questions: RQ1. What type of information and knowledge is shared? RQ2. What are the main antecedents that lead to exchange information and knowledge with suppliers? RQ3. What are the benefits? The qualitative critical analysis carried out to derive empirical evidence was based on multiple case studies involving eight companies, either ice cream artisans or craft beer producers. Collected data have been analyzed focusing on type, direction and amount of the shared contents. The size of the company and the location of supplier are the most impacting factors other than the craftwork approach to explain the emerged behavior. Knowledge exchange resulted to be more important than information sharing. The paper has a twofold contribution: on one hand, it fills the highlighted literature gap; on the other, it provides practitioners with hints to better understanding their playing field.