Daniel Hjelmgren

Technical Development in Networks - The importance of third parties

A number of recent studies have emphasised the importance of inter-organisational relationships with regard to technical development. Drawing on the recognition that neither single firms nor individual relationships can be analysed in isolation, we focus in this paper on the importance of third parties for the development of a relationship. That is, every relationship is assumed to be connected to other relationships and thus to various third parties. The analysis is based on a case study and focused on interdependency among resource entities. These resource entities are categorised into products, facilities, business units and relationships. The conclusions are twofold. Firstly, the characteristics of third party impact have been found to be partial, un-symmetrical and non-proportional. Secondly, we show that the value of a relationship for the involved companies is highly dependent upon connections to third parties.

Proximity manufacturing for enhancing clothing supply chain sustainability

The purpose of this paper is to reveal benefits and factors (elements) of proximity manufacturing that enhance triple bottom line (TBL) sustainability in the clothing industry and discusses previous proximity manufacturing studies.,A systematic review is used in searching and extracting data (primary studies artifacts and proximity manufacturing elements) from peer-reviewed articles. Extracted elements are gathered and analyzed in constructed tables under TBL. Four subgroups are inducted under the business bottom line.,This paper shows the potential of proximity manufacturing to enhance TBL sustainability, the scope of proximity manufacturing, and the trend and absence of existing studies. The most frequently mentioned elements are time-to-market, job creation, product quality, quick response, and trade policies. Governments and clusters are also important players.,Future research can further explore elements potentially improving TBL sustainability to fill gaps in existing studies, including how proximity manufacturing can drive environmental and social practices, and how governments can encourage proximity manufacturing in various markets.,Besides perceiving the benefits of proximity manufacturing, businesses may use the derived elements to make manufacturing decisions.,Public policies giving privileges to the locally produced garment industry have great potential to drive the economy and employment as well as sustain local clothing knowledge and the environment.,Proximity manufacturing strategies toward sustainability are under-researched academically and under-practiced industrially; this paper provides insight into sustainability benefits of proximity manufacturing.