Performance Implications of Aligning Supply Chain Practices with Competitive Advantage: Empirical Evidence from the Agri-Food Sector

Abstract

During this pandemic crisis, supply chain management (SCM) has emerged as a critical source of competitive advantage driving organizational performance, especially in the agri-food sector, since public health and consumers’ confidence as well as firms’ survival depend on the effectiveness of supply chain networks. This study adopts two central SCM practices, namely strategic suppliers’ partnerships and partners’ information quality & sharing and tests their relationships with competitive advantage (quality, process flexibility, and time to market) and business performance (profitability and market share), based on an empirical study of 300 enterprises in the agri-food sector in Greece. After data collection, we deploy a diagnostic-exploratory model, utilizing fuzzy cognitive mapping, with agent-based modeling following up for development for data prediction and simulation. Consequently, we found that supply chain firms’ compelling and robust relationships with supply chain partners and suppliers can promote their profitability and market share. Relationships of this kind focus on quality information sharing and are strongly connected with businesses’ quality, process flexibility, and time to market competitive capabilities. Hence, our study provides salutary info to supply chain firms regarding potential implementation to existing and new collaborators.

Research on paths of opportunistic behavior avoidance and performance improvement in food supply chain from the perspective of social control

“…Wu et al (2014) found that by establishing a favorable social control mechanism, core enterprises can build a long-term cooperative relationship with upstream and downstream enterprises and raise their information-sharing willingness, thus enhancing the supply chain performance. Information sharing with suppliers and consumers can strengthen the responsiveness of both suppliers and manufacturers (Han et al, 2021), improve the traceability of food sources, strengthen the innovation and flexibility of the supply chain, lower the cost of food production and processing (Reklitis et al, 2021), and safeguard and coordinate the interest of supply chain members (Dania et al, 2018). We thus provided the following hypotheses: H3: Social control positively influences information sharing (a. information sharing with customers; b. information sharing with suppliers).…”

How the Regulatory Authority Effects Development of Meso Level Competitiveness of Industry: A Research on Istanbul Finance Sector

“…Sector structure provides advantages to competitors and strategy firms for competition. Especially, being close to competitors increases the information flow and competition demand (Porter, 1991;Reklitis et al, 2021).…”

Logistics and Agri-Food: Digitization to Increase Competitive Advantage and Sustainability. Literature Review and the Case of Italy

“…Precision farming would therefore enable farmers to do more with fewer resources and, through the identification of the essential and key "segments" of the production chain, to achieve more effective and immediate decision making and eventually a higher return on investment. Utilizing data and simulation, it is possible to identify specific areas of a business that could be better developed to provide better sustainability results [119,147]. Through the intelligent use of data, it is possible for farmers to better understand their production practices and what changes within their own structure can generate more value.…”