Tobias Schoenherr

The vast majority of extant research into buyer-supplier relations has primarily focused on the buyer’s perspective. The buyer-centric perspective inherently shifts the locus of agency and decision making to the buyer. In actuality, both buyers and suppliers exercise agency in these relationships. Therefore, this study shifts attention to the supplier’s perspective. Grounding this study in the phenomenon-based theorizing methodology, we explore how and why suppliers terminate buyer-supplier relationships, developing complementary frameworks of supplier-initiated separation. We define supplier-initiated separation as a supplier’s voluntary exit from an ongoing exchange relationship and examine the interplay of relationship quality, capability demands, and contextual conditions that make exit more likely. Drawing on a combination of existing literature, observation of real-world cases and practitioner insights, we offer both theory and a model suggesting when supplier separations arise, how they unfold, and what they imply for supply chain governance and performance. This study recenters and rebalances supplier agency in relationship dissolution and offers a coherent account that complements mainstream buyer-dominant perspectives. Methodologically, it demonstrates how the phenomenon-based theorizing methodology can translate contemporary practice into domain-specific theory for supply chain management. For managers, the study highlights practical signals and levers that can be implemented to reduce the likelihood of separation as well as support more resilient partnerships. We conclude with a discussion of implications and avenues for empirical testing and refinement.

Purpose: Grounding our expectations in social network theory and the resource-based view, we investigate how a firm's operations efficiency shapes its likelihood of survival and engagement in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) within the pharmaceutical industry context. We further examine how the firm's supplier and customer network positions moderate these effects. Design/methodology/approach: We use data from 172 pharmaceutical firms and their supplier and customer networks to measure operations efficiency through data envelopment analysis and capture firms' network brokerage positions using betweenness centrality. We employ an instrumental variable probit regression to assess the hypothesized relationships. Findings: The results indicate that operations efficiency reduces the likelihood of bankruptcy, an effect strengthened by higher customer network betweenness. Moreover, operations efficiency increases the probability of M&A activity, with supplier network betweenness positively moderating this relationship. Research limitations/implications: By demonstrating that a firm's operations efficiency and network betweenness serve as complementary resources, this study motivates future research into how a firm's internal capabilities, such as operations efficiency and network structure, can jointly impact the firm's performance. Practical implications: The study highlights network betweenness as a key moderator – supplier betweenness strengthens the effect of operations efficiency on M&A activity, while customer betweenness helps reduce bankruptcy risk. Originality/value: This study emphasizes the role of operations efficiency in driving firm survival and M&A activity while advancing our understanding of how supplier and customer network betweenness interact with operations efficiency. By conceptualizing betweenness centrality as a brokerage capability, we demonstrate how its complementarity with operations efficiency fosters firms' performance.

While supply chain competition increasingly occurs at the network level, most research remains limited to dyadic or triadic relationships, failing to capture the full complexity of multi-tier supply networks. This research investigates the influence of four distinct types of network ties—contractual, transactional, professional, and personal—on supply chain performance, evaluated across five dimensions: cost, quality, delivery, flexibility, and innovation. The analysis draws on data gathered from 153 component-level supply networks, encompassing a total of 1852 entities within South Korea’s automotive and electronics manufacturing sectors. We employed social network analysis with a directed-valued network approach to capture asymmetric relationships. Results reveal that network architecture affects performance dimensions differently: centralized professional knowledge sharing enhances delivery performance, while concentrated personal ties prove detrimental; for innovation, dense network connections and dominant transactional hubs unexpectedly hinder performance by fostering conformity; cost performance shows mixed effects, with transactional centralization impeding efficiency while professional and personal leadership facilitates cost reduction. The influence of the original equipment manufacturer on supplier selection moderates these relationships, particularly mitigating negative impacts of personal tie centralization. These findings challenge conventional assumptions about network density benefits and demonstrate that supply network competence—the ability to configure and leverage network architecture—requires careful consideration of multiple tie types and their distinct effects on different performance outcomes.

This study aims to examine the robustness and resilience of supply chain networks under various disruption scenarios, focusing on how these disruptions propagate through the network, a phenomenon known as the ripple effect. A theoretical model is developed to assess product flow through a multi-echelon supply chain under demand uncertainties. Within this setting, numerical analysis is conducted to measure the customer fill rate and at the same time to assess the impact of disruptions at the final echelon, capturing the ripple effect from distant nodes. The study provides insights into the types and intensities of risks faced by multi-echelon supply chain networks. It highlights the repercussions of disruptions and identifies recovery measures to minimize and manage their impact, enabling the system to regain stability. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of supply chain risks and their management by exploring the ripple effect in multi-echelon supply chains and offering strategies to enhance network resilience and robustness.

Supply chain learning (SCL), which is reflected in organizational learning, referring to the learning between organizations in the supply chain, carries the promise to enable sustainable competitive advantages. Many large multinational companies, such as IKEA, Nestle, and Microsoft, have therefore integrated supply chain knowledge management and continuous learning into their corporate strategies. While there is evidence in extant research about a positive correlation between both the subjective attitude and learning ability of supply chain members and their performance improvement, areas where insight is still missing pertain to the relationship between supply chain members’ subjective psychological factors, and their relationship network structures. This is a serious omission, since these dimensions likely play a key role in the dynamics underlying SCL. In order to alleviate this void, we consider a multi-tier SCL network and develop a model in which a supply chain member’s attraction is weighted based on its previous learning experience. The game mechanism underlying SCL captured in this experience-weighted attraction (EWA) model is then tested using a simulation study of IKEA China’s multi-tier supply chain network for its sustainable cotton initiative. The results suggest that learning costs can be reduced and learning spillover befits can be increased by the provision of rewards to network member companies and better communication. In addition, the perception of and preference for SCL by suppliers can be influenced by initiating sustainable advocacy and providing knowledge and technology training, as well as fostering a range of subjective factors we investigate in our study, such as the strategic attractiveness the decline ratio due to forgetting, the attractiveness improvement ratio due to preferences, and the response sensitivity to strategies. The findings offer insight into the influence mechanisms of the supply chain network structure and subjective attitude about SCL, which are especially applicable to large, multinational enterprises.

Purpose: In the aftermath of disasters, humanitarian actors need to coordinate their activities based on accurate information about the disaster site, its surrounding environment, the victims and survivors and the supply of and demand for relief supplies. In this study, the authors examine the characteristics of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology and those of disaster relief operations to achieve information visibility and actor coordination for effective and efficient humanitarian relief operations.Design/methodology/approach: Building on the contingent resource-based view (CRBV), the authors present a model of task-technology fit (TTF) that explains how the use of RFID can improve visibility and coordination. Survey data were collected from humanitarian practitioners in India, and partial least squares (PLS) analysis was used to analyze the model.Findings: The characteristics of both RFID technology and disaster relief operations significantly influence TTF, and TTF predicts RFID usage in disaster relief operations, providing visibility and coordination. TTF is also a mediator between the characteristics of RFID technology and disaster relief operations and between visibility and coordination.Social implications: The many recent humanitarian disasters have demonstrated the critical importance of effective and efficient humanitarian supply chain and logistics strategies and operations in assisting disaster-affected populations. The active and appropriate use of technology, including RFID, can help make disaster response more effective and efficient.Originality/value: Humanitarian actors value RFID technology because of its ability to improve the visibility and coordination of relief operations. This study brings a new perspective to the benefits of RFID technology and sheds light on its antecedents. The study thus expands the understanding of technology in humanitarian operations.

Recent past has witnessed a great proliferation of sharing economy platforms with great successes, but also many failures on their journey toward institutionalization, that is, their establishment and acceptance in society. To develop insight on factors contributing to this institutionalization process, this paper relies on the literature in institutional entrepreneurship and investigates sharing economy platforms in China, highlighting institutional voids that are encountered, and suggesting ways on how they can be overcome. These insights are derived through a multiple case study approach involving 61 semi‐structured interviews with managers from eight sharing economy platforms (DiDi, Uber China, Huochebang, Yunmanman, OfO, Mobike, Evcard, and Zhida) across four sharing economy industries in China (ride‐sharing, logistics‐sharing, bike‐sharing, and car‐sharing). The findings highlight the importance of exchange and collaboration with stakeholders (allies) in the network, as well as the effective response to emerging issues through the adaptation of the business models. In addition, mergers and acquisitions, and the role of government are identified as critical components in aiding platforms in their progression toward institutionalization. Further cognitive, regulative, and normative factors are found to represent valuable institutional pillars that serve as a fertile foundation throughout the institutionalization process. Overall, the findings provide an intriguing insight into the journey of Chinese sharing economy platforms toward institutionalization.