Firms are grappling with multiple challenges because of COVID-19, such as supply discontinuity, disruptions, irregular demand patterns, and service delivery issues, among others. The disruption brought by the pandemic has highlighted the relevance of responsiveness and agility in service chains in particular. The unprecedented nature of the pandemic, however, has made design of agile and responsive supply chains difficult, especially for services that draw on intangible, unique resources. In this paper, we develop relevant-and thus far largely absent-theory for the design of service supply chains through a model of service supply chain fit that will guide service firms to prepare better for COVID and future threats. Our model guides the identification of the right supply chain (responsive, efficient, or agile) for services based on their operant resources, which are the intangible resources that act on other resources. Using a qualitative study, we first draw on service-dominant logic and supply chain fit framework to develop the concept of service supply chain fit; that is, the strategic consistency between a service firm's operant resources and its supply chain. We then validate our model using survey data. The results indicate that service supply chain acts as both moderator and mediator for the relationship between operant resources and firm performance. Our findings indicate that, unless managers view service supply chain fit strategically and invest in developing operant resources for the right supply chain, future COVID-like disruptions may continue to severely impact firm performance.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to explore the dynamics of trust creation in an early buyer–supplier relationship phase at the interpersonal level. The authors use a brand-based communication approach to investigate the trust–risk–commitment link.Design/methodology/approachSurvey data from 204 senior managers in small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) in Australia were collected and analyzed.FindingsResults indicate that ability, credibility, benevolence and persona of supplier brand representatives (SBRs) relate significantly to a buyers’ trust in SBR, leading to diminished perceived risk, and increased relationship commitment between the parties. These findings support the importance of using individual representatives who are able to broadcast their supplier’s brand values, and increase trust in exploratory buyer–supplier relationships.Research limitations/implicationsThis research focused on SMEs in Australia, investigating exploratory phase of the interpersonal relationships. Future research can investigate large firms interacting in different relationship phases in the light of brand-based communication.Practical implicationsThe study describes several strategies for both buying and supplying firms to use, to best use brand-based communication as a means to build trust in the early phases of buyer–supplier relationships.Originality/valuePrior research has focused on interorganizational trust and established or mature buyer–supplier relationships. This study investigates the initial phase of buyer–supplier relationships, and at the interpersonal exchange level. It also incorporates a role for brand-based communication in the buyer–supplier relationship which has received limited attention in the literature.

Modern slavery is used to describe forms of coercive labor exploitation that affect more than 40 million persons globally. Such practices are difficult to identify given they exist in the informal economy, and involve vulnerable individuals. Addressing modern slavery by organizations requires awareness of its context and complexities. While corporations have increasingly sought to manage modern slavery risk in their supply chains, their understanding of what modern slavery is and what should be managed remains limited. We argue a key problem with firms’ efforts to manage modern slavery risk is that it is a psychologically distant concept for them. We apply construal level theory to explore how organizations’ psychological distance from modern slavery risk affects their management of risk. We interviewed purchasing executives at 41 global organizations in Australia, Finland, and the U.S and identified four approaches to managing modern slavery risk at different levels of psychological distance. We also identified that conflicts between organizations' approaches to risk and what they identify in their operating environment, precedes important construal shifts that help to improve organizational understanding of labor‐related risk. We highlight ways that organizations' understanding of modern slavery risk plays a role in their governance of such risk in supply chains.

Corporate requirements for modern slavery-type risks in global supply chains, have gained increased attention in recent years. Limited research however has sought to address the context-relevant implications of the contractual mechanisms used to distribute and 'enforce' such requirements. In particular, the socio-economic and cultural factors that underpin and facilitate modern slavery and how these inform supplier and worker choices, have not been addressed by prior SCM scholarship. Ensuring suppliers meet modern slavery requirements, in ways that create legitimate change in the sub-tier environment, remains a complex problem that remains unresolved. For modern slavery type exploitation, the suppliers most at risk of violation exist in the sub-tiers, and in operating environments culturally removed from western-headquartered ideologies. We interviewed 36 executive level Purchasing Directors, from medium to large size firms with headquarters in Australia, the US and Finland. We employed agency and construal level theories to frame our analysis. Overall, several themes emerged regarding the limitations of the principal-agent relationship to address modern slavery risks at a supply chain scale, that reflect significant social, hypothetical and spatial psychological distance between principals, and agents. Importantly, our research drew out a range of significant themes surrounding the conflicts purchasing executives face when attempting to align western policy with complex global operating conditions, and the actual workers they seek to support. Our study sheds light on the challenges of agency theory and highlights the complexity of operationalizing modern slavery type requirements in global supply chains.

Product reuse is most profitable where manufacturers acquire used products in the best possible condition—near new and with little wear and tear. This requires consumers, however, to dispose of products that still work and may still be in use. Prior scholarship on acquiring consumer products for reuse focuses on consumer “returns”—products consumers find fault with, or bought in error. These, however, are a fraction of all products sold to consumers and available for reuse. Importantly, returns are motivated by a different set of factors, than product “disposal.” We explore how psychological ownership influences consumer disposal of reusable products. Across three studies of Australian consumers, we found two psychological tendencies (attachment and frugality) increased product retention. We also found, that infrequent product use, and emotional reward, could weaken ownership and encourage disposal of products that are attractive for reuse. To our knowledge, no behavioral studies in the product acquisition literature deal with consumers before or during product disposal. We highlight a role for consumers in product acquisition, as well as contribute to the consumer psychology and mental accounting literature, and identify significant opportunity for manufacturers to leverage consumers' psychological tendencies to improve the collection of reusable products.

Organizations increasingly form relationships with partners that have goals, values or operating cultures different to their own. These relationships have significant potential to generate innovative products or services and increase opportunities for service delivery. While they can provide greater access to resources, infrastructure or stakeholders, they can struggle with collaboration. Such partnerships may also encounter differences in the role of governance mechanisms such as trust and commitment. Only limited research however has addressed the governance implications of such relationships. We compared managers' perspectives on relationship governance mechanisms for 267 nonprofits and 276 corporations involved in corporate-nonprofit relationships. We found that ‘fit’ - compatibility and complementarity - was important to performance in such relationships. We found also however that nonprofits valued the role of trust in these relationships significantly more than corporations. Our findings suggest potential for significant success in these types of relationships but also possible complications from differences of opinion as to how they should be governed. While relationships between very different partners can succeed, they should remain cognizant of differences in each partner's expectations for relationship governance and its role in relationship performance.

We report on the thoughts of a large group of scholars in the field of operations and supply chain management (O/SCM) regarding current and future issues facing our profession. Broad issues raised and addressed include a perceived lack of relevance in our research, calls from business school deansfor faculty to increasingly fund their own research, greater demand for use of large data sets and methodological rigor, along with higher expectations for publishing. We invited four scholars who discussed these issues during an Academy of Management conference session in 2014, to present their perspectives within this essay. We then distributed the perspectives of each of these authors to O/SCM scholars globally so that they could add support, counterpoints, and extensions. Collectively, they raise important points regarding a need for greater innovation and creativity in O/SCM research, the challenges and opportunities of increased complexity and big data, the value of working in other research domains and collaborating with others, the promise of new technology, and the importance of improving how we communicate our value to business school colleagues. Finally, our contributors provide recommendations on how we may address these issues and continue to adapt and move our profession forward.

ABSTRACTOperations managers clearly play a critical role in targeting plant‐level investments toward environment and safety practices. In principle, a “rational” response would be to align this investment with senior management's competitive goals for operational performance. However, operations managers also are influenced by contingent factors, such as their national culture, thus creating potential tension that might bias investment away from a simple rational response. Using data from 1,453 plants in 24 countries, we test the moderating influence of seven of the national cultural characteristics on investment at the plant level in environment and safety practices. Four of the seven national cultural characteristics from GLOBE (i.e., uncertainty avoidance, in‐group collectivism, future orientation and performance orientation) shifted investment away from an expected “rational” response. Positive bias was evident when the national culture favored consistency and formalized procedures and rewarded performance improvement. In contrast, managers exhibited negative bias when familial groups and local coalitions were powerful, or future outcomes—rather than current actions—were more important. Overall, this study highlights the critical importance of moving beyond a naïve expectation that plant‐level investment will naturally align with corporate competitive goals for environment and safety. Instead, the national culture where the plant is located will influence these investments, and must be taken into account by senior management.

Reverse supply chains rely on used goods to be returned by consumers to disposal points. Very little operations management research however has explored consumer preferences during this process. We identify two main disposal profiles that depend on a consumer’s: a. attachment to their possession, and b. their desire to give.

Purpose– An ongoing challenge for managers is to define and benefit from their firm's environmental management practices. Firms that seek stakeholder recognition of their practices, or face stakeholder pressure for evidence of improvement, increasingly use management standards such as ISO14001. Such standards, however, may encourage firms to use more reportable rather than embedded environmental management practices. Why some firms use environmental management standards to improve practices relative to firms that use them to deflect attention, is an important research question. As paper proposes, stakeholder pressure on firms for improved practices can interact with firms’ expectations of related rewards to influence environmental management outcomes. The paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approach– The intention was to identify significant differences in stakeholder focus and each firm's environmental management practices, between ISO14001 certified and non-certified firms. The paper explored the propositions with a sample of US manufacturers. The paper used a PLS modeling approach.Findings– The paper identified links between firms with a greater regulative stakeholder focus, to greater use of reportable practices (pollution reduction). Firms with a greater normative stakeholder focus were linked to greater use of embedded practices (policies and pollution prevention).Originality/value– This study is one of the first to assess differences that distinguish between both stakeholder type and choice of environmental management practices. Further, the paper grouped firms’ practices according to their emphasis on either rewards of stakeholder recognition or internal operational benefit. As other studies have identified, firms do not necessarily adopt environmental management standards for their goals of practice improvement. The study contributes to use of stakeholder theories to understand firm level adoption of and benefit from environmental management practices.

In recent years, sustainability in supply chains has become a topic of strategic priority for supply chain management. Still, doubts have been raised about the substantive commitment of large, international corporations to really improve global social welfare and to preserve the natural environment. The objective of this panel symposium is to stimulate and inspire new managerial approaches to achieve substantive sustainable improvements in supply chains. It offers a platform for exchanging first ideas and, thereby, stimulates research on sustainable supply chain management to move to the next level. The panelists will, among others discuss questions such as (1) how to enable corporations to give substantial weight to environmental protection and social welfare?; (2) how to move beyond our dominant Western perspective on sustainability and consider the values of different societies, in particular different value systems in emerging economies?; and (3) how to change the strategies and structures of supply chains such that they become truly sustainable?

Pressures to recycle are an increasingly prevalent influence on firms. Understanding of factors however that will lead firms to both: a. successfully capture or reuse their waste, and b. benefit from the practice, is still in a nascent form. Whether regulatory instruments such as recycling laws or increased disposal costs influence firms’ environmental performance is an area of active debate. Firm’s internal capabilities in particular, such as their experience and expertise, may limit the performance outcomes of such pressure. In this study, the impact of recycling pressures on firms’ environmental performance was assessed relative to their use of knowledge resources. Using a sample of U.S.-based manufacturers, knowledge resources were identified as a significant mediator of the influence of regulations, industry practices and disposal costs on firms’ environmental performance. Firm size, industry and ISO14001 certification were used as control variables. These findings have policy implications as well as contribute to understanding of the impact of increased institutional and economic pressures on firms to recycle their waste.

Voluntary management standards for social and environmental performance ideally help to define and improve firms’ related capabilities. These standards, however, have largely failed to improve such performance as intended. Over-emphasis on institutional factors leading to adoption of these standards has neglected the role of firms’ existing capabilities. External pressures can drive firms to adopt standards more than their technical capacity to employ them. This can lead to problems of “fit” between institutional requirements and a firm’s existing capabilities. We describe a conceptual model that considers the impact of an interaction between a firm’s institutional requirements and its existing capabilities on standards failure. We suggest solutions that align institutional requirements to appropriate governance forms as a means to improve standards success. We contribute to theory by describing the role of firms’ internal capabilities to the success of voluntary management standards and the reliability of self-regulation generally.

The introduction of increased recycling and recovery laws in the E.U. and a growing number of countries have forced firms to consider their waste reduction performance. Firms that are unable to understand the complexities of waste recycling and recovery are increasingly at a disadvantage relative to firms that can. Firms for example that do not develop capabilities that support waste recycling must rely on costly third party disposal and treatment options. Identification of beneficial combinations of waste reduction resources however that can be used by firms remains under-explored. In this study, it is proposed that firms' investment in resources that allow them to improve their waste reduction performance has competitive advantage implications. These resources are expected to mediate the relationship between external pressure to reduce waste and firms' waste reduction performance. These resources, such as equipment, personnel or R&D, provide firms with important context-specific capabilities. In this study, the relationship between institutional pressures, waste reduction resources and performance was assessed for a sample of U.S. manufacturers. Study findings indicated that firms' investments in waste reduction resources provided them with significant advantages in the form of increased pollution and cost reduction. The results suggest that waste reduction resources better position firms to predict and effectively respond to institutional pressures. From a policy perspective, the benefits of waste reduction resources can be highlighted and more specific payback calculated for specific resource types. The findings of this study further support the role of resources to environmental performance improvement in the study of sustainable operations.

Financially significant relationships between corporations and non-profit organizations (NPOs) have increased in recent years. NPOs offer access to interests and ideologies that are lacking within most for-profit organizations. These partnerships form a unique bridge between for-profit and non-profit goals and offer significant potential to produce innovative ways of “doing business by doing good.” Exploration of the structural implications of these relationships, however, has been limited. The potential for ideological imbalance in these relationships, particularly for the NPO, has been poorly described. We explore the structure of Corporate–NPO relationships from the NPO's perspective under high pressure conditions such as large relational investments or negative pressure from stakeholders. Using data collected from 20 NPOs in Australia, we identified the use by NPOs of both formal and informal governance mechanisms within their partnerships. These mechanisms acted to align and defend important goals of the NPO. They allowed the NPO and their corporate partners to be simultaneously “together and apart.” Our study offers important insight toward the study of cross-sector relationships and the role of governance mechanisms.

Voluntary management standards for social and environmental performance ideally help to define and improve firms‟ related capabilities. These standards however have largely failed to improve such performance as intended. Over-emphasis on institutional factors leading to adoption of these standards has neglected the role of firms‟ existing capabilities. External pressures can drive firms to adopt standards more than their technical capacity to employ them. This can lead to problems of „fit‟ between institutional requirements and a firm‟s existing capabilities . We describe a conceptual model that considers the impact of an interaction between a firm‟s institutional requirements and its existing capabilities on standards failure. We suggest solutions that align institutional requirements to appropriate governance forms as a means to improve standards success. We contribute to theory by describing the role of firms‟ internal capabilities to the success of voluntary management standards and the reliability of self-regulation generally.

The reverse logistics function in supply chain management has received increasing attention in recent years as the value of the activity, the awareness of its potential and the legal requirements for its presence have increased. Reverse logistics has two dominant end purposes for returned materials-reconditioning (high-value recovery) or recycling (low to no value recovery). Much of the material generated by reverse logistics activity falls into this second category of low to no value. This can create a significant material management problem for many organisations. Several large organisations have successfully created recycling empires around the more primary materials that feed readily into raw material supply streams-such as metals, timbers and paper. For individual firms, however, the likelihood of investing effort in identifying both materials that could be recycled and a potential market for them has seemed frequently out of reach. This study highlights an under-researched phenomenon whereby firms engage with one another to seek economical recycling of low value and often complex secondary materials. Using eight case studies of manufacturing firms, the study identifies several examples of innovative and valuable recycling solutions occurring between supply chain members. Supply relationships are proposed to provide a critical enabler for improving firm knowledge of material value, recycling options, previously un-considered buyers or markets for a material, and for aggregating resources and improving the economy of recycling.