Triple-A and competitive advantage in supply chains: Empirical research in developed countries

Abstract

Based on his own experience in a number of companies, Lee (2004) posits that the Triple-A (agility, adaptability and alignment) is essential for supply chain (SC) management to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage (CA). However, there is a lack of empirical research that analyzes the Triple-A SC and its impacts on CA. The objective of the present work is to address this omission and to provide empirical evidence on this topic using a multiple-informant, international sample from eight developed countries. A consistent partial least squares structural equation model (PLSc) is used on data for 151 manufacturing plants in three industrial sectors to determine whether agility, alignment and adaptability have individual and/or joint effects on achieving a CA in SCs. In relation to the individual effects, different CAs are achieved by each of the Triple-A variables. SC adaptability has been shown to have a significant positive relationship with all the dimensions of CA. SC alignment affects most of these dimensions, but SC agility only affects financial CA and flexibility CA. This research does, however, confirm the positive relationship for the joint effect of the Triple-A SC variables and CA. The effects are significant on all the CA measures except quality.

Who pays you to be green? How customers' environmental practices affect the sales benefits of suppliers' environmental practices

“…However, research on green supply chain management shows that customers' environmental performance is intricately related to its suppliers' PEPs (Klassen & Vereecke, 2012;Zhu et al, 2013). This view echoes the concept of alignment in a "triple-A supply chain", which maintains that a highperforming supply chain is driven by an alignment of organizational processes, interests, and goals between customer and supplier (Alfalla-Luque et al, 2018;Lee, 2004). Thus, to align the environmental practices along the supply chain, a greener customer firm often imposes higher expectations, standards, or contractual terms to suppliers and incentivize suppliers' sustainable behaviors (Sarkis et al, 2010, CDP, 2017, HEC/ EcoVardis 2017.…”

“…Moving from Cells 4 to 2, the supplier lessens the environmental misfit with the customer through improved PEPs and forms a closer contingency fit with the customer's green supply chain practices. Such an alignment will promote cooperative efforts in mitigating environmental impact along the supply chain (Alfalla‐Luque et al, ; Klassen & Vereecke, ). Less environmental misfit also fosters a shared vision for a greener supply chain and strategic coherence among supply chain partners that contributes to the supply chain's operational and environmental performance (Darnall, Jolley, & Handfield, ; Mani, Gunasekaran, & Delgado, ; Zhu et al, ).…”

“…We focus on supplier‐customer dyads in the B2B market and develop hypotheses to explain how a supplier's sales from a customer can be influenced by its PEPs and its customer's PEPs. We ground our research hypotheses on the contingency view of misfit and findings from corporate environmental management literature (Sousa & Voss, , Kroes & Ghosh, , Zhu, Sarkis, & Lai, , Alfalla‐Luque, Machuca, & Marin‐Garcia, ,). Our empirical analysis is based on a multilevel model (MLM) of granular sales data (at the supplier‐customer dyadic level) and environmental records of U.S. public manufacturing firms and their key customers.…”

Key issues on Partial Least Squares (PLS) in operations management research: A guide to submissions

“…This is particularly relevant when the number of variables increases, the correlation among them also increases and/or sample size reduces. In these situations, multiple regression models without SEM can be seriously affected by the net suppression conditions among the variables that are moderately/highly correlated to one another (Alfalla-Luque, Machuca & Marin-Garcia, 2018;Ato & Vallejo, 2011).…”

Modelos bivariados de ajuste de la relación lean-cadena de suministros sobre el rendimiento competitivo: un efecto interviniente e interactivo

“…La revolución tecnológica y las variaciones en los mercados globales orillan a las empresas a focalizar sus esfuerzos en la mejora de su competitividad, siendo trascendental para ello, la mejora de sus operaciones mediante la intervenciones e interacciones en SCM, entregando valores agregados que contribuyen a la generación de una ventaja competitiva [8], la cual Porter (1980) detalla que está ultima está enfocada en cinco fuerzas impulsoras de los rendimientos marginales [9][10], abordadas desde: la teoría de la ventaja competitiva basada en el mercado, y la basada en los recursos [11], siendo esta última, el amparo para el análisis de las empresas de clase mundial del HPM, dado que la aplicación del LP se basa en la reducción de los desperdicios y costos, mejor aprovechamiento de los recursos, entre otros. El término "empresas de clase mundial" fue utilizado por primera vez por Hayes y Wheelwright en 1984 [12] quienes dieron origen a este término después de analizar las prácticas de manufactura de las firmas Alemanas, Japonesas y Norteamericanas, en una serie de dimensiones compuestas por prácticas de manufactura tales como [12]: Justo a tiempo, Sistemas pull, Retroalimentación, Propiedad del equipo, Control de los procesos, lean manufacturing, Administración de la calidad total (TQM), Mantenimiento productivo total (TPM), basadas en la administración estratégica, costos, mejora continua y desperdicios [13] para generar una ventaja competitiva [14,15].…”