Baofeng Huo

The impact of supply chain integration on company performance: an organizational capability perspective

Purpose – This paper aims to simultaneously examine the impact of three types of supply chain integration (SCI) on three types of company performance from the perspective of organizational capability.Design/methodology/approach – Using data collected from 617 companies in China and the structural equation modelling method, the research investigates the relationships among internal integration, customer integration, supplier integration, supplier‐oriented performance, customer‐oriented performance, and financial performance from the perspective of organizational capability.Findings – The results show that internal integration improves external integration and that internal and external integration directly and indirectly enhance company performance. In addition, full or partial mediating effects among SCI and company performance are identified, and therefore explain the inconsistent findings in previous studies regarding the impacts of SCI on performance.Originality/value – This study contributes to SCI, o...

Linking financial performance to strategic orientation and operational priorities: An empirical study of third‐party logistics providers

Purpose – Aims to investigates the relationship of strategic choices of pure cost‐, pure differentiation‐, or a combination‐strategy on a composite measure of financial performance for third‐party logistics (3PL) providers in Hong Kong. In addition, it seeks to identify the importance of operations priorities underlying the respective adopted strategy, as well as the importance given to future competitive challenges for each strategy.Design/methodology/approach – Uses cluster analysis, ANOVA.Findings – Logistics service providers classified to follow different strategies report different financial performance, with companies adhering to the combined strategy of cost and differentiation performing best, followed by pure differentiation companies, which in turn outperform pure cost‐, commodity driven‐companies.Research limitations/implications – Future research may be widened to include customer, and not solely competitor, perceptions. Further studies could elaborate on technology adoption, information shar...

The impact of supply chain risk on supply chain integration and company performance: a global investigation

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to empirically explore the relationships among supply chain risks (SCRs), supply chain integration (SCI), and company performance in a global context.Design/methodology/approach – This study is based on the High Performance Manufacturing (HPM) project database collected from 317 manufacturing plants in ten countries and three representative industries (machinery, electronics and transportation components), using structural equation modeling (SEM) methods.Findings – Results show that SCRs, especially supply delivery risk (SDR), are negatively related to SCI. There is a contingent relationship between SCI and performance. Different types of SCI play different roles in improving different types of company performance. Supplier, internal, and customer integration are the most important drivers for schedule attainment, competitive performance, and customer satisfaction, respectively.Originality/value – This study is one of the first empirical studies to explore how SCRs a...

The impact of dependence and trust on supply chain integration

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the joint influence of dependence and trust in supply chain relationships on supply chain integration (SCI) and financial performance. Design/methodology/approach – This study develops a dependence-trust-SCI-performance model and tests it using structural equation modeling based on empirical data collected from 617 manufacturers in China. Findings – The results show that trust with customers/suppliers significantly influences SCI. Although dependence on customers/suppliers has no direct effect on SCI, it improves SCI indirectly through trust with customers/suppliers. Both supplier integration and customer integration significantly improve financial performance. Practical implications – This study suggests that manufacturers should manage dependence and trust in supply chain relationships simultaneously to enable SCI. When there is high-level dependence on customers/suppliers, manufacturers should invest resources to develop trust with those customers/s...

The impact of organizational culture on supply chain integration: a contingency and configuration approach

Purpose – This study aims to bridge the gap in understanding the effects of organizational culture on supply chain integration (SCI) by examining the relationships between organizational cultures and SCI. The extant studies investigating the antecedents of SCI focus mainly on environments, interfirm relationships and other firm-level factors. These studies generally overlook the role of organizational culture. The few studies that do examine the effects of organizational culture on SCI show inconsistent findings. Design/methodology/approach – By placing organizational culture within the competing value framework (CVF), this study establishes a conceptual model for the relationships between organizational culture and SCI. The study uses both a contingency approach and a configuration approach to examine these proposed relationships using data collected from 317 manufacturers across ten countries. Findings – The contingency results indicate that both development and group culture are positively related to a...

Relational governance and opportunism in logistics outsourcing relationships: empirical evidence from China

Logistics outsourcing is prevalent in todays business world as a strategy to obtain competitive advantages. As in other relational exchanges, it is imperative to understand how to alleviate opportunistic behaviour in logistics outsourcing relationships. Using Chinas burgeoning logistics industry as a backdrop, and drawing on social exchange and transaction cost theories, this study examines how relational norms and trust mitigate opportunistic behaviour and how environmental uncertainty moderates the effects of norms and trust from logistics users’ perspective. Employing data collected from 119 manufacturing and service firms in China, we empirically test the proposed model and find that trust and norms are effective safeguards in reducing the opportunistic behaviour of logistics service providers, particularly in highly uncertain environments.

Understanding drivers of performance in the 3PL industry in Hong Kong

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to develop an overarching framework to better understand drivers of performance in third‐party logistics (3PL) linked to the operations strategy literature.Design/methodology/approach – A path model is specified and estimated based on constructs and relationships grounded in the literature, as well as self‐developed constructs, using empirical data from 159 3PL providers in Hong Kong.Findings – Some dimensions of internal and external environments have positive influences on differing operations emphases. Furthermore, operational performance is positively affected by corresponding operations emphases and functional involvement. Finally, good operational performance can bring about better financial performance. However, strict adherence to the low cost operations emphasis will lead to worse financial performance.Originality/value – This research provides a novel overarching framework to link competition in the market place, challenges in the operations and functional invo...

The impact of supply chain integration on firm performance

Purpose – This paper aims to provide empirical evidence of the effectiveness of various supply chain integration (SCI) practices under different competitive strategies in terms of cost leadership and differentiation. Design/methodology/approach – Survey methodology was used to collect data from 604 Chinese manufacturers. Hierarchical linear regression was used to analyze the moderating effects. Findings – The results showed that competitive strategies significantly influenced the effectiveness of SCI practices, including internal, process and product integration. More specifically, internal integration significantly affected the financial performance of cost leaders, while process integration contributed more to the financial performance of differentiators. However, competitive strategies had no significant moderating effect on the relationship between SCI and operational performance. Research limitations/implications – This study contributes to the literature by exploring the effectiveness of various SCI...

The effects of different aspects of ISO 9000 implementation on key supply chain management practices and operational performance

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose and empirically test a model of different aspects of ISO 9000 implementation in terms of their relationships with three key supply chain (SC) management practices (internal processes, supplier relationships, and customer relationships). In addition, it aims to examine the relationship between the three key SC activities and operational performance.Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected from 321 middle and senior managers of ISO 9001 certified firms in Australia who were responsible for managing the quality systems in their organizations. The structural equation modelling (SEM) technique was employed using LISREL software to test the research model and the hypotheses in this study.Findings – The results show that advanced implementation of ISO 9000 is positively related to all three aspects of SC activities (internal, customer, and supplier process management), while supportive implementation is positively related to internal and customer process...

Relationships between intra-organizational resources, supply chain integration and business performance : An extended resource-based view

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the effects of intra-organizational resources, including top management support (TMS) and information technology (IT), on inter-organizational capabilities including supply chain integration (SCI, with a focus on supplier integration (SI) and customer integration (CI)) and on business performance via a resource-based view (RBV), socio-technical systems theory and an extended resource-based view (ERBV). Design/methodology/approach – Partial least squares is used to analyze a sample of 176 manufacturers in China. Findings – TMS and IT are two vital enablers of SCI and have different roles in improving SCI. In addition, SI has a significant effect on business performance, and CI has a marginally significant effect. Originality/value – Based on the RBV/ERBV, this study explores the enablers of SCI and their effects on business performance, ultimately contributing to both SCI theories and practices.