The role of supply chain integration in strengthening the performance of not-for-profit organizations: evidence from the food banking industry

Abstract

PurposeThis paper investigates the inter-relationships among supply integration, demand integration and internal integration in the context of food banking.Design/methodology/approachThis study utilizes survey data from managers at 71 different food banks in the US combined with secondary data gathered from Feeding America's website to provide model controls and an objective measure of food bank performance. The performance metric is the amount of food distributed per food insecure individual in the food bank's service area. Theoretically developed hypotheses were tested using seemingly unrelated regression techniques and a Monte Carlo simulation-based mediation analysis.FindingsWhile the previous research on integration relationships on for-profit supply chains has shown that managing internal integration forms the foundation for integrating with suppliers and customers, the findings indicate that, for not-for-profit food banks, external integration should precede internal integration and that demand integration has a stronger influence on performance than supply integration.Research limitations/implicationsThe heavy reliance of food banks on external partners necessitates an internal integration structure that supplements and builds upon these external relationships. The basic programs thus developed have a direct impact on the amount of food distributed per food insecure individual.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to the humanitarian supply chain management literature by analyzing supply chain integration and its performance implications in a slow onset disaster setting.

Education for sustainable development in humanitarian logistics

“…Moreover, OIPT sheds light on the relationships between HL and sustainable development in this extremely uncertain setting. Similar to Ataseven et al (2020), this study proposes that the information sharing capability of the organization becomes extremely critical in an uncertain situation (Galbraith, 1973). Every organization needs not only internal but also external information for smooth functioning (Thompson, 1967).…”

“…Likewise, the combination of sustainable development and HL management was also recommended by Stenson (2006). In addition, the achievement of sustainable performance depends on information sharing (Haavisto and Kov acs, 2014) supported by game theory (Xu and Beamon, 2006) and organizational information processing theory (OIPT) (Ataseven et al, 2020). Game theory is a real quantitative technique to investigate the strategic behavior between at least the two actors involved in the process and their actions are interactive.…”

“…Donors are the most important stakeholders with the greatest power in relief operations (Khan et al, 2019a). Hence, they are ready to exercise their power to pressurize the HOs for sustainability in the HL efforts (Tomasini and Van Wassenhove, 2009;Ataseven et al, 2020). Sustainability is a very new and less clarified stream in the field of HL.…”

Revisit the Relationships and Dimensions of Supply Chain Integration for Business Outcomes

“…As shown in Table 4, information sharing and joint decision-making of sales forecast, production plans, production progress, and stock level are primarily investigated in previous literature (Delic et al, 2019;Ataseven et al, 2020;Kumar et al, 2020;Shukor et al, 2020).…”

“…The information flow through enterprise application integration and data integration could help firms to reduce communication barriers between functional departments and improve information sharing efficiency (Sundram et al, 2018;Delic et al, 2019;Shukor et al, 2020). Establishing cross-functional teams and using periodic interdepartment meetings are important ways of reducing information-sharing barriers in the company (Fekpe and Delaporte, 2019;Ataseven et al, 2020). Most of the internal integration indicators have been investigated linked to information flow.…”