Joerg S Hofstetter

Institutional entrepreneurship capabilities for interorganizational sustainable supply chain strategies

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to address the implementation of proactive interorganizational sustainable supply chain strategies by empirically exploring the relationship between key (inter‐)organizational resources of the initiating company and the establishment of widely accepted voluntary sustainability initiatives.Design/methodology/approach – The study is built on comparative case studies as well as literature on institutional entrepreneurship and the resource‐based view.Findings – The authors identify capabilities that enable the creation and establishment of company‐driven voluntary sustainability initiatives – namely external stakeholder integration, cross‐functional integration, the management of loosely coupled business units, supply chain implementation, process improvement and cultural framing.Originality/value – With this study, the authors introduce institutional entrepreneurship theory to supply chain management literature and show that institutional entrepreneurship theory may con...

Institutionalizing Proactive Sustainability Standards in Supply Chains: Which Institutional Entrepreneurship Capabilities Matter?

External stakeholders have built up sustainability consciousness and expectations, putting companies under regular surveillance by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and by the media (Doh & Guay, 2006). Stakeholders often do not differentiate between a company’s operations and its suppliers’ operations; they hold the company responsible for all practices involved in the making of the product, including any potential sustainability concerns (Rao, 2002). Thus, suppliers not complying with the company’s promised values are likely to damage corporate reputation or harm customer confidence. Levi’s, Nike, and Mattel are prominent examples that show how brands can suffer as a result of using noncompliant suppliers (Wagner, Lutz, & Weitz, 2009). A proactive supply chain sustainability strategy is therefore vital (Handfield, Scroufe, & Walton 2005; Rao & Holt, 2005). To implement such a strategy, companies provide specific sustainability standards for their supply chains (Bansal & Hunter, 2003; Luo & Bhattacharya, 2006). These standards, known as proactive supply chain sustainability standards (PSCSS) may provide statements to comply with legal requirements and may add elements that go beyond the law. Having introduced these PSCSS, companies still face the challenge of ensuring that their supply chain partners comply. Monitoring supplier processes and assessing the quality of procured products is challenging, because global supply chains have become more complex (Matten & Moon, 2008; Roth, Tsay, Pullman, & Gray, 2008). The large number of suppliers, as well as the organizational and geographical distance between the company and its direct and indirect suppliers, hinder a company from controlling its suppliers’ sustainability practices (Bremer & Udovich, 2001). Further problems may arise when suppliers are located in developing countries, as local legal standards may not conform to the main company’s requirements (Detomasi, 2007).

Konzepte und Erfolgsfaktoren für Anlaufstrategien in Netzwerken der Automobilindustrie

Die Automobilindustrie verfolgt das Ziel, im Markt angekundigte neue Fahrzeugbaureihen nach einer zeit- und kosteneffizienten Anlaufphase termin- und qualitatsgerecht auszuliefern. Dies bedingt eine enge Abstimmung der an der Leistungserstellung beteiligten internen wie externen Akteure. Hierzu dient die Formulierung und konsequente Einhaltung einer Anlaufstrategie auf Unternehmensebenewie auch deren Ausbreitung auf samtliche am Serienanlauf beteiligte Unternehmen.

Conceptualizing the Capability of Supplier Sustainability Risk Management

External stakeholders have built up high expectations on “sustainability”, putting firms under constant watch by non-governmental organizations, media, etc. (Bellmann, 1999; Kudla & Stolzle, 2011). Stakeholders usually do not differentiate between a firm’s and its suppliers’ operations.

Outsourcingpotentiale in der Schweizer Armee

Die Armee der Schweizerischen Eidgenossenschaft ist durch politische Vorgaben des Volkes, des Parlaments und des Bundesrates mit erweiterten Grundauftragen und kontinuierlicher Budgetkurzung konfrontiert. Zur Umsetzung der vorgegebenen Kosten- und Aktivpostenreduktion pruft die Schweizer Armee, inwieweit eine eigenstandige Logistik fur Verpflegung, Fahrzeuge, Immobilien oder Bekleidung unterhalten werden soll, oder ob Kooperationen mit dem Privatsektor wirtschaftlichere Losungen ermoglichen.

Developing a Measurement Instrument for Supply Chain Event Management-Adoption

Supply Chain Event Management (SCEM) is an emerging topic in both business practice and academia. It receives increasing attention as more companies implement SCEM-systems. However, despite its practical relevance, no general definition of SCEM exists in literature or within companies until today. Also, so far SCEM has not been operationalized for quantitative studies. Thus, the goal of this paper is to contribute to an understanding of SCEM by defining a measurement instrument to measure the level of SCEM-adoption in companies. This has been approached on the one hand by pursuing a literature review of both practitioners and academic literature and on the other hand by conducting case studies in companies using SCEM-systems. First, a common definition of SCEM is generated from a combination of findings from literature and expert interviews, and second, a measurement instrument for SCEM-adoption is developed. Implications include advice on how to test the SCEM-adoption measurement instrument statistically in order to asses its ability to measure SCEM-adoption with high validity.

Supply Chain Event Management – Concept and Use in Business Practice

Ensuring continuity of supply while maximizing profitability are primary goals of corporate disciplines like procurement, logistics, production, or distribution. Each discipline for itself has established concepts to reduce or cope with inherent hazards that may hinder inbound or outbound product flows as well as shrinkage, all eventually harming continuity of supply.

Extending ECR into Product Innovation

Overall, it can be experienced that the public discussion on retailer-supplier collaboration in product development and launch is in an infancy stage. Yet, within the companies of retailers and suppliers major work is under way. Retailers are building up customer intelligence, strategic category management and capabilities to quickly turn product opportunities into profits. Suppliers are getting prepared to integrate information they get from retailers into their product creation processes, and are adjusting product, production and logistics design to deliver to retailer requests. So, it is probably not a speculation to say that one of the next fields for major improvement in the consumer goods industry is the redesign of the industry’s product development and launch processes.

Dynamisierung des Kernkompetenzkonzepts: Methode und Anwendungsfallstudie am Beispiel der Nestlé SA

Um den scheinbaren Gegensatz zwischen der Konzentration auf Kernfahigkeiten und der notwendigen Flexibilitat fur unternehmerischen Wandel zu erlauben, bedarf es neuer Ansatze und Managementmethoden, die systematisch und kontinuierlich die Ressourcen, Prozesse, Leistungen und Fahigkeiten einer Unternehmung managen.