The Influence of Decisional Autonomy on Performance and Strategic Choices - The Case of Subcontracting SMEs in Logging Operations

St-Jean, Étienne; LeBel, Luc

doi:10.5772/35484

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 53 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The most common performance measures are of a financial nature, such as revenues, costs and equity ratio. One notable exception was described by St-Jean and LeBel (2012), who identified eleven performance indicators in the literature, which they applied to harvesting contractors: increases in revenues, number of employees, profit margin, improvements in production techniques, use of new technology, quality and variety of services, client satisfaction, personnel recruitment and retention, investment in the community and respect for the environment and sustainable development. They did not, however, seek empirical support for these indicators, and did not specify performance further.…”

Section: Performance Alignmentmentioning

confidence: 97%

Management of outsourced forest harvesting operations for better customer-contractor alignment

Eriksson

LeBel

Lindroos

2015

Forest Policy and Economics

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Section: Performance Alignmentmentioning

confidence: 97%

Management of outsourced forest harvesting operations for better customer-contractor alignment

Eriksson

LeBel

Lindroos

2015

Forest Policy and Economics

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…In the forest industry, the outsourcing of forest operations has become common practice all over the world (e.g., [4]). Consequently, many forest companies rely on the services of small or medium-sized harvesting contractors (e.g., [5,6]). Despite the long tradition in the forest industry of working with contracted harvesting resources, large variations in contractor performance have been found regarding, for instance, contractor profitability (e.g., [7][8][9][10]), technical efficiency [11][12][13], and various aspects of the service delivered to the customer [14,15].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effect of Customer–Contractor Alignment in Forest Harvesting Services on Contractor Profitability and the Risk for Relationship Breakdown

Eriksson

LeBel

Lindroos

2017

Forests

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract:In forest operations, the interface between forest companies and harvesting contractors is of special importance, considering that it is the first link in the forest industry's supply chains. Supply operations account for a significant share of the final costs of wood products (up to 50%). This study investigates the effect of customer-contractor alignment on contractors' profit margins and on the risk for business relationship breakdown. Alignment is empirically measured for a Swedish forest company and 74 of its harvesting contractors, who were monitored during a four-year period. Two measures of alignment are employed: (1) the customer-perceived value of the contractors' services; and (2) the contractors' perceived alignment with the forest company expectations. Results indicate that the two measures of alignment are largely independent from each other, and that customer-perceived value affects both contractor profitability and the risk of relationship breakdown. Conflict between the two parties and lack of trust for the customer were found to be common complaints among contractors who ceased working for the studied forest company. Consequently, customer-contractor alignment should be considered a key objective by contractors who strive for business success, and also by forest companies who wish to improve their supply chain performance.

show abstract

“…In forestry, the customer has a large impact on how harvesting services are purchased (and paid for), as well as the business models that companies apply (Benjaminsson et al 2019). As entrepreneurs should maintain a certain independence from their customers, this business relationship structure can hinder contractors' entrepreneurial behaviors, such as taking responsibility for the business and finding innovative solutions for further business development (St-Jean and LeBel 2012). Historically, improvement and development efforts in forestry have mainly been driven by the customers, for example, large forest companies, who hold significant power in dictating the business and operational practices of harvesting services .…”

Section: Involvementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Balancing the flow of wood and use of machinery in harvesting operations : new perspectives on how to improve performance in the wood supply chain

Johansson¹

2023

Acta Universitatis Agriculturae Sueciae

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Meeting current wood supply objectives requires a certain flexibility in the wood procurement system. Suitable buffers to generate flexibility include creating a balance between flow and resource efficiency. Research on resource efficiency (e.g. cost-efficiency) in harvesting operations are abundant, but the flow efficiency have not been given much attention. This is somewhat surprising as the constant need for flexibility in practical operations has to be solved by more or less unplanned and intuitive means, or handled by other parts of the supply chain. This thesis therefore aims to improve performance in Nordic cut-to-length harvesting operations by exploring flow and resource efficiency and suggesting new perspectives on how to balance them well. Paper I covers how workloads in terms of produced volumes and worked time vary in harvesting operations. The results revealed differences between contractors’ workflows, which could be attributed to number of machines, machine sizes and total workload. Papers II and III explore the trade-offs between flow and resource efficiency by altering staffing levels within and between harvesting groups, and thereby improving flexibility. The results revealed that with a balanced amount of flexibility there could be a potential capacity to adjust wood flow efficiency at the expense of resource efficiency. With flexibility, lead times could be shortened to one tenth, but at an increase in costs of 3.2 - 3.5 % or 1.6-1.8 % if flexibility was enabled within or in cooperation between harvesting groups. Paper IV identifies the perceived drivers and hindrances acting on contractors’ flow and resource efficiency while taking into consideration the expectation that harvesting operations also include many other important aspects of performance. The results indicate that incentives given in the business relationship mainly drive resource efficiency and hinder flow efficiency, while involvement from the forest company mainly drive flow efficiency while hindering resource efficiency. A framework was therefore created to improve performance management which is currently surrounded by complexity.

show abstract

The Influence of Decisional Autonomy on Performance and Strategic Choices - The Case of Subcontracting SMEs in Logging Operations

Cited by 5 publications

References 53 publications

Management of outsourced forest harvesting operations for better customer-contractor alignment

Management of outsourced forest harvesting operations for better customer-contractor alignment

The Effect of Customer–Contractor Alignment in Forest Harvesting Services on Contractor Profitability and the Risk for Relationship Breakdown

Balancing the flow of wood and use of machinery in harvesting operations : new perspectives on how to improve performance in the wood supply chain

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About