Women are an Advantage in Supply Chain Collaboration and Efficiency

Abstract

A large body of literature has documented gender differences in prosocial behaviors, but little is known about the implications of different gender pairings of partner firm agents for supply chain performance. Using a production decision experiment which features asymmetric information and asymmetric risk sharing, we report three key findings. First, women are more collaborative than men in the role of both buying agents and supply agents. Second, information about counterparts’ gender affects behaviors, as both genders are more collaborative when paired with women than when paired with men. Finally, all‐women supply chain pairs outperform all other gender pairings in supply chain efficiency. Our results suggest that women exhibit an advantage over men in supply chain collaboration, and that employing women is advantageous irrespective of gender diversity concerns.

Effect of corporate environmental strategies on firms’ competitiveness, the mediating role of supply chain collaboration

“…The outcome contradicts earlier assertions which stipulated that when firms collaborate, they generate unique expertise to provide benefits to the end user. Prior studies (such as Ma et al , 2021; Sabath and Fontanella, 2002) underscore the relevance of SCC in building a competitive organization. It is therefore surprising that in this study SCC does not drive FC.…”

Impact of metric-alignment on supply chain performance: a behavioral study

“…, 2012). In this context, prior literature offers two facets of interorganizational collaboration (Ma et al. , 2020; Soosay and Hyland, 2015): cooperation and coordination.…”

Impact of Gender and Expatriation Choice on Career Paths in Supply Chain Management: Evidence from Master of Science Graduates

“…Therefore, the combination of both SCCT and SRT is valuable in analyzing career progression in the SCM function. While the SCCT has not been mobilized in SCM research, a few articles do refer to SRT [9,10,46].…”

“…The need to attract more women in the talent war has been recognized, along with the fact that greater gender diversity will improve operational performance, increase customer value, and foster innovation [61]. A recent study of mixed-gender pairings in the SCM field finds (1) women are more collaborative than men in the roles of both buying and supply agents, (2) both genders are more collaborative when paired with women than when paired with men, and (3) all-women SC pairs outperform all other gender pairings in SC efficiency [10]. This study contributes to the field of SCM research by showing that having more women in the SC function is not only a question of diversity and inclusiveness, or in a more trivial sense of "making room for women in a so-called masculine function", but also a question of SC efficiency.…”

“…In the research to date, few studies have looked at the topic of gender diversity in the field of SCM (e.g., [9][10][11]). It has been studied in other management fields, such as corporate social responsibility (e.g., [12][13][14]), corporate governance (e.g., [15][16][17]), and human resources management (e.g., [18,19]).…”