Andrew O'Loughlin

Agency theory and supply chain management: A structured literature review

Purpose – The paper aims to explain how agency theory can be used to inform our understanding of the dynamics surrounding supply chain behaviours and relationships.Design/methodology/approach – A structured review of the literature using a three‐stage refinement process is used. The articles were sourced through online databases and keyword classifications, such as “agency theory”, “principal‐agent relationships” and “supply chain management”. The search initially identified over 86 articles. After further screening these were reduced to 19 for final assessment and comparison.Findings – Despite agency theorys prevailing descriptive and predictive qualities there is scarcity in its application to the SCM discipline. The authors posit that agency theory provides valuable insights for relationship engineering within supply chains where social, political, legal and behavioural dynamics dominate.Practical implications – It is a critical task for managers to understand and mitigate abnormal behaviours across t...

How Australian manufacturing firms perceive and understand the concepts of agility and flexibility in the supply chain

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to address an important question which centres on investigating how do manufacturing businesses perceive and understand the concepts of agility and flexibility in their supply chains (SCs). Design/methodology/approach – A case study approach was utilised and data were gathered from semi-structured interviews with ten organisations in the Australian manufacturing sector. Data analysis was conducted using analytic techniques based on, for example, pattern matching and cross-case synthesis. Findings – Findings confirmed that there is some ambiguity concerning the understanding of the terms agile and flexible, both within and between organisations. The implications are that there is often little consistency in the way the terms are operationalised and then applied. In this regard, and to inform future research, the paper offers empirically grounded definitions for SC agility and flexibility. Moreover, four propositions are developed and discussed which shed light on the ...

Understanding and Development of Supply Chain Agility and Flexibility: A Structured Literature Review

This paper provides a review of the literature while contributing to academic understanding of the concepts of agility and flexibility within the supply chain. The research identified 83 peer-reviewed articles through a structured review technique, which is based on a three-stage refinement process. Data reduction procedures using codification, sentence strings and a review of keywords, title, abstract and conclusion were used in the search. The papers identified focused on organizational and supply chain agility and flexibility. The acknowledged gaps in understanding and development of agility and flexibility in supply chains were identified and categorized in terms of conceptual, contextual and methodological gaps. Subsequent to the gap analysis, this paper argues that effective relationship integration with key partners is a fundamental mechanism for mitigating the problem of control dissipation, which has hindered academic understanding with respect to development and application of agile and flexible capabilities in supply chains. The findings in this paper will help academics to gain a better understanding and to develop the concepts of supply chain agility and flexibility. In addition, the findings indicate that supply chain stakeholders need to address the issue of relationship integration when undertaking, or participating in agility and flexibility development programmes, so as to maximize supply chain performance. The paper concludes by highlighting implications for managers and researchers, and proposes a number of areas for future investigation.

Developing an analytical framework to assess the uncertainty and flexibility mismatches across the supply chain

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss how decisions regarding organisational flexibility can be improved through targeted resource allocation, by focusing on the supply chains level of uncertainty exposure. Specifically, the issue of where and in what ways flexibility has been incorporated across the organisations supply chain is addressed. Design/methodology/approach – A two-phase methodology design based on literature review and case study was used. Using 83 journal articles in the areas of uncertainty and flexibility an analytical process for assessing uncertainty-flexibility mismatches was developed. Furthermore, results from ten interviews with senior/middle managers within the Australian manufacturing sector were used to provide preliminary insights on the usefulness and importance of the analytical process and its relationship with organisational practice. Findings – The paper emphasises the importance of having a systematic and encompassing view of uncertainty-flexibility mismatches ...

Flexibility and relationship integration as antecedents of organisation’s supply chain agility

The paper investigates the inter-relationships between relationship integration, flexibility and agility across the organisation’s supply chain. Some hypotheses were drawn from an extensive review of the literature and an earlier qualitative research. The conceptual framework proposed in this paper contributes to the better understanding of the supply chain agility and its key antecedents, which is crucial to the business stability and prosperity amid the intense turbulence, uncertainty and competition.

Knowledge spillovers and innovation spaces in Australia

Using the theoretical framework of ‘institutional entrepreneurship’, this chapter aims to analyse the unique nature of government-university-enterprise link (i.e. Triple-Helix model) in the context of China. The case study of one institute – China University of Geosciences (CUG)’s Industry Technology Research Institute of Geo-Resources and Environment Co. Ltd. (IGE) and its incubated 21 enterprises serves as a window to look into different roles played by the government, university, academic entrepreneurs and industry to foster strategic knowledge creation and diffusion. The process of co-creating knowledge and commercialising research outputs as a part of knowledge spillover from university to enterprise is subsequently evaluated.