Inga-Lena Darkow

Heading Toward a More Social Future? Scenarios for Social Enterprises in Germany

In recent years, the public sector in many countries has had difficulty keeping abreast of social problems due to restricted financial resources and limited organizational capacities. As a consequence, entrepreneurs have started to address social welfare issues that the public sector has been unable to tackle with an innovative approach called social enterprise. The authors present research on the future prospects of social enterprise as a sustainable business model for industrialized countries. As there is a lack of historical and current data, the authors aim to contribute to and structure the debate about the potential of the concept. Therefore, the authors provide initial data from a Delphi survey on the future development of social enterprise in a multistakeholder environment. Experts from academia, business, nongovernmental and governmental organizations, social enterprise investors, and social entrepreneurs evaluated 16 projections for the year 2030. Based on these results, the authors present comprehensive scenarios of four different possible developments of the future of social enterprise in Germany.

Sustainability in food service supply chains: future expectations from European industry experts toward the environmental perspective

Purpose – This study aims to examine the management of food supply chains in complex and volatile business environments, where the sustainability requirements of customers and legislation are increasing. This challenging situation gives rise to the question as to how a logistics company can achieve and sustain competitive advantage through environmentally-oriented sustainability. Design/methodology/approach – This empirical study gathers insights on emerging practices in European food service supply chains from two parallel Delphi surveys conducted with 145 industry experts from 27 countries. The long-term industry expectations of a leading provider in food service logistics are compared with an industry-wide external panel. The questions were designed to understand how managers perceive the emerging domain of sustainability in supply chains. Findings – Environmentally oriented sustainability will remain a key driver of success in the field. However, after applying the dominant logic concept for analyzing...

Delphi-based strategic issue management: crafting consumer goods supply chain strategy

Purpose – Consumer goods supply chains (SCs) are characterized by continuously changing customer trends. Early detection of these trends is crucial for deriving successful long-term SC strategies. The purpose of this paper is to present a systematic process to support decision makers in assessing future-relevant issues and developing strategies. Design/methodology/approach – In order to contribute to the quality of long-term decision making for SC strategy, we combine strategic issue management (SIM) and corporate foresight methodology. The authors develop a procedure that integrates the Delphi technique and SIM to empirically demonstrate how “Delphi-based SIM” can support SC strategy development. Findings – The paper demonstrates how to craft a strategy for consumer goods SCs supported by Delphi-based SIM. The authors are able to include and evaluate uncertain and ambivalent future developments. Pertinent strategic issues for the consumer goods SC include: consumer demographics, automated ordering, city ...

Energy-constrained and low-carbon scenarios for the transportation and logistics industry

Purpose – There is consensus among experts that the design of future supply chains will have to focus more strongly on environmental concerns. Sustainability will play a major role within the business and has an impact especially on the distant future. Thus, supply chain executives are challenged in designing sustainable supply chains for the future. The paper aims to discuss this issue. Design/methodology/approach – The authors develop expert-based scenarios, which describe how future supply chains could evolve by 2030. The authors focus on the transportation and logistics industry’s perspective to provide an industry-internal view. The data collection is based on an internet-based Delphi survey. Overall, 48 top executives from 20 countries, representing academic, governmental, and industrial perspectives, participated in the survey. Findings – The authors operationalized the research question into five concrete sub-topics relevant for investigation: energy and emissions, consumer behaviour, future trans...

Foundations of logistics and supply chain research: a bibliometric analysis of four international journals

The purpose of this paper is to explore the current intellectual foundation of four leading academic journals within the field of logistics and supply chain management. We were interested to identify the most frequently quoted publications as well as their impact on logistics research. We examined 17,000 references of 412 papers and further analysed the 39 top-references with the means of multidimensional scaling (MDS), cluster- and factor analysis. We were able to identify a mix of textbooks and articles from academic journals and revealed a journal-specific citation pattern, not only in the choice of textbooks but also in the choice of referenced methodology papers. We were also able to identify citation streams and citation areas, where it was surprising to find so many general socio-scientific papers and general papers explaining the character of the field.

The future role of logistics for global wealth – scenarios and discontinuities until 2025

Purpose – The aim is to present research results on global logistics scenarios 2025 with focus on the future contribution the logistics industry can make to the triple bottom line – people, planet and profit. Design/methodology/approach – The research was conducted within the scope of an interdisciplinary foresight conference, where a group of 216 renowned persons from 16 countries in business, academia and politics discussed policies and strategies for the future role of logistics as an enabler and driver of global wealth. Attendants were asked to share their visions of the future via a real-time Delphi study. The results were further discussed in futures workshops according to World Cafe methodology for group dialog. Findings – Based on extensive desk research of scenario studies, expert workshops, and creative sessions, the authors developed 20 key Delphi projections for global logistics in 2025. Experts were asked to rate the projections probability, impact, and desirability as well as to provide rea...

Coordination of Automotive Supplier Networks: Different approaches towards utilizing Power and Trust as Coordination Mechanisms

Growing development expenditures in technological innovation and competitive pressure on time-to-market lead to a high task split in automotive value chains. In recent years, we have observed different coordination approaches to manage increasing complexity and cost pressure. Based on network theory and the coordination mechanisms of power and trust we explore, how these development influences the relationship between suppliers and automotive OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturer). An embedded case study, consisting of two automotive OEMs and seven suppliers, which deliver into both supplier networks, provides empirical insights on differences in coordination mechanisms. The outlook suggests that OEMs can strategically choose their way of coordinating their supplier network. The theoretical implication is that additional aspects like corporate culture and company specific strategic goals need to be included when utilizing network theory for exploring the relevance of coordination mechanisms in an industry.

Does Supply Chain Integration Pay? Mediating Effects of External Integration and the Contribution of Internal Integration to Performance

The economic crisis has demonstrated that highly integrated supply chains are as strong as their weakest link. Therefore, one of the key topics in supply chain research has recently been how companies integrate externally with customers, to adapt to changing demands, and with suppliers, to ensure efficient and highly responsive material supply (Chen et al. 2009; Rosenzweig et al. 2003; van der Vaart and van Donk, 2008). Research on supply chain integration has focused on customer and supplier integration as well as on internal, or intra‐organizational, integration which improves the interfaces among corporate functions. However, research on the contribution of supply chain integration to performance has shown inconsistent results. Few studies take interactions among the integration perspectives into account. Recently, Flynn et al. (2010) tried to find evidence for a moderating effect of internal integration. Since internal integration is a prerequisite for external integration (Morash and Clinton, 1998), we propose that the relationship between internal integration and performance is mediated by external integration. Specifically, we find evidence that internal integration has a significant effect on operational performance, which is mediated by customer integration. Moreover, our research reveals that the interactions among internal, customer, and supplier integration go beyond the findings of Flynn et al. (2010), which projected that asymmetric, customer‐oriented integration patterns are more efficient than balanced integration patterns.