Sakun Boon-itt

The moderating effects of technological and demand uncertainties on the relationship between supply chain integration and customer delivery performance

– The purpose of this paper is to test the moderating effects of technological and demand uncertainties on the relationship between supply chain integration and customer delivery performance., – Based on a survey questionnaire with 151 participants in the Thai automotive industry supply chain, hierarchical regressions are used to test the moderating effects., – Internal and supplier integration, but not customer integration, were positively associated with customer delivery performance. Technological and demand uncertainties were found to moderate the relationships between internal integration and customer delivery performance, and supplier integration and customer delivery performance., – The moderating effects of technological and demand uncertainties in the Thai automotive just‐in‐time (JIT) environment are explained. This research contributes to the development of a contingency theory of supply chain integration suggesting that the impacts of supply chain integration on customer delivery performance vary under different levels of technological and demand uncertainties., – Managers recognize the diminishing effects of internal integration and supplier integration under demand uncertainty, and the increasing effect of supplier integration under high technological uncertainty., – This study contributes to the supply chain management literature by clarifying the moderating effects of technological and demand uncertainties on the relationship between supply chain integration and customer delivery performance.

Manufacturing strategies and innovation performance in newly industrialised countries

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a comparative study on the impact of manufacturing strategies and resources on innovation performance in two newly industrialised countries in the South East Asian region, Thailand and Vietnam.Design/methodology/approach – A quantitative approach was employed. The survey data was drawn from 95 Thai and 44 Vietnamese middle or senior managers in manufacturing firms.Findings – Three major findings were noted in this study. First, there were no significant differences between Thai and Vietnamese manufacturing firms with respect to manufacturing strategies, resources, and innovation performance. Second, differentiation strategy is shown to be the strongest predictors for both product and process innovation across both countries. Technology management, however, only shows a significant effect on both product and process innovation among Thai firms. The other three manufacturing strategies (leadership, people management, and R&D) did not show a significant relat...

A study of supply chain integration in Thai automotive industry: a theoretical framework and measurement

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to provide a conceptual framework and a scale development process, in order to address the reliability and validity in supply chain integration and environmental uncertainty constructs; in an effort to develop and revalidate scale metrics in different contexts.Design/methodology/approach – Data for this study were collected for a small pre‐test survey in the Thai automotive industry. The measurement scales were pre‐assessed using the Q‐sort method. In addition, a preliminary test for predictive validity was evaluated using correlation analysis.Findings – This study established an explanatory model and a corresponding instrument to conduct future research in supply chain integration. Dimensions/constructs, including supply chain integration, environmental uncertainty, and firm competitive capability are operationally defined in terms of their scale development process.Practical implications – This study will provide a measurement scale for supply chain integration and...

CEO transformational leadership and the new product development process

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the linkages between CEO transformational leadership and the new product development (NPD) process through organizational learning and innovation culture. Design/methodology/approach – A large-scale survey by a sample of 269 manufacturing firms in Thailand was conducted. Structural equation modeling was used to test the proposed relationships. Findings – CEO transformational leadership was strongly and positively associated with organizational learning and innovation culture. Additionally, organizational learning and innovation culture were positively related to the NPD process. Practical implications – Managers should pay more attention to organizational learning since it has a strong impact on the NPD process. CEOs with an innovation-oriented attitude should develop their transformational leadership to support organizational learning and an innovation culture. Originality/value – The study extends the understanding of the connections between CEO transformational leadership and the NPD process. The results highlight the mediating roles of organizational learning and innovation culture on the relationship between CEO transformational leadership and the NPD process.

The role of information technology and supply chain integration on production cost performance

The objective of this paper is to increase the understanding of supply chain integration implementation through a selection of information technology (IT). Survey response from production/purchasing managers in 141 of Thai automotive industry are analyzed to test the effect of types of information technology and supply chain integration on production cost performance. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to analyze the data. The results suggest an interaction effect of collaboration/decision support information technology to enhance the effectiveness of supply and customer integration. The results from this study provide a framework linking supply chain integration strategies and production cost, leading to valuable insights into how information technologies can be configured for enhancing production cost performance.

The effect of internal and external supply chain integration on product quality and innovation: evidence from Thai automotive industry

To succeed in todays competitive global marketplace, companies are looking for successful supply chain management through a supply chain integration strategy. The purpose of this study is to expand the concept of supply chain integration into different sub-constructs – (1) Internal Integration (II), (2) Supply Integration (SI) and (3) Customer Integration (CI) – and to investigate the role of specific supply chain integration in predicting Product Quality (PQ) and Product Innovation (PI). Based on a survey using data on 151 qualified automotive suppliers and automakers in Thailand, results indicate that SI has a stronger impact upon PQ than II and CI. It was also found that the influence of CI on PI was greater than the other independent variables. Building on the previous literature mostly conducted in Western countries, the findings provide additional support for the value of supply chain integration in the development of PQ and PI. Our results also offer confirmation from a different context as an empirical study of supply chain integration in the Thai automotive industry.

Empirical investigation of alternate cumulative capability models: a multi-method approach

Abstract Quality (Q), delivery (D), flexibility (F) and cost (C) may reinforce each other to form specific models of cumulative capability. Previous empirical studies reveal two dominant models of cumulative capabilities (Q–D–F–C and Q–D–C–F) without testing whether other models could better fit their data. The present study fulfils this gap and conducts a comparative analysis by testing various models of cumulative capabilities based on a survey of 368 Thai manufacturing plants, and concludes that Q–D–C–F is the best-fit model and further extends the models to reveal ‘simultaneous’ cumulative capability. The contributions are threefold. First, multiple methods are applied to robustly search for the best-fit model. Second, direct and indirect links between capabilities are revealed to add insights into the cumulative reinforcement patterns among capabilities. Third, we show that the widely accepted sand-cone model (Q–D–F–C) and competitive progression theory are not necessarily the dominant approaches for explaining cumulative capability patterns of manufacturers, especially from an emerging country. The results are also significant for practitioners as they understand how capabilities such as quality and delivery can simultaneously improve the next sequential capability.

Measuring Supply Chain Integration — Using the Q-Sort Technique

Supply chain integration is an important topic for researchers and practitioners. However, the major concerns constraining the full and complete use of this concept in supply chain management research has been that the construct takes on its own meaning depending on individual subjectivity and different points of view. There is a need for researchers to operationalize and measure what it means by “supply chain integration.” The basic research question is whether a meaningful measure of supply chain integration could be developed. The Q-sort techniques could be used to cluster stimuli from subjective judgments to form a description of an indescribable object. This paper describes how the Q-sort technique could be used in the scale development process, and applies it to the context of measuring supply chain integration. The results indicate that the Q-sort technique is a useful methodological approach in eliminating the validity and reliability problems particularly in the early scale development stages for defining the construct of supply chain integration.

The roles of CEO transformational leadership and organizational factors on product innovation performance

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the direct and indirect effects of CEO transformational leadership on product innovation performance. This research investigates the mechanism between CEO transformational leadership and product innovation performance, to understand the process through which transformational CEOs exert their influence. Design/methodology/approach This study is a quantitative research. Data were collected from 269 manufacturing firms in Thailand through a mail survey. This research applied a two-step structural equation modeling process. Findings The results indicate that CEO transformational leadership indirectly affects product innovation performance through an innovation culture, organizational learning, and the new product development (NPD) process. CEO transformational leadership has a strong effect on innovation culture and organizational learning. Organizational learning is strongly associated with the NPD process, which significantly leads to product innovation performance. By integrating the knowledge of leadership and operations management fields, this study helps extend the understanding of how leaders at the top of an organization influence the NPD process and product innovation outcomes. Practical implications For practical implications to be more effective, CEOs focusing on product innovation should develop their skills and behaviors of transformational leadership to foster innovation culture and organizational learning, which in turn will affect product innovation performance. Originality/value This study makes a contribution to the literature by filling the research gaps proposed by several prior studies and offering a theoretical framework of the relationship between CEO transformational leadership and product innovation performance.

Leadership as a determinant of product innovation: A systematic review of the literature

This systematic review paper integrates and analyzes previous empirical results between 2002-2012 to characterize the theories and variables that examine the leadership-innovation relationship. Even though there were many studies examining the effects of leadership on various types of innovation, the empirical results showing the leadership-product innovation relationship were scarce. Among a variety of styles or characteristics of leadership, transformational leadership was used most as explanatory variable to predict innovation. However, there was no single study revealing the positive effect of transformational leadership on product innovation. This article provides the pathway for researchers to further investigate the leadership-product innovation relationship.