Cooperative Relationships between Organizations
I recently rediscovered an article by Ring and Van de Ven (1992), which was published in the Strategic Management Journal: Structuring cooperative relationships between organizations. Herein, the authors propose that “[v]arying levels of risk and reliance on trust will explain the governance structures of transactions”. They distinguish between low and high risk and between low and high reliance on trust. This leads to four cells: (1) markets (low risk, low reliance on trust transactions), (2) hierarchies (high, low), (3) recurrent contracts (low, high), and (4) relational contracts (high, high). Thus, the article provides “a conceptual framework for understanding a broader variety of governance mechanisms than those typically accompanying a focus on markets and hierarchies”. Ring and Van de Ven’s paper was the 2008 winner of The Dan and Mary Lou Schendel Best Paper Prize, which “recognizes a paper published at least five years ago that has made a lasting contribution to scholarship in strategic management”.
Ring, P.S., & Van de Ven, A.H. (1992). Structuring cooperative relationships between organizations. Strategic Management Journal, 13 (7), 483-498 DOI: 10.1002/smj.4250130702
Citation of Excellence Awards 2012
The annual Citation of Excellence Awards recognize “the 50 most outstanding articles published by the top 300 management journals in the world”. Emerald Group Publishing Limited has now announced the winners of the 2012 Awards. All awarded articles are obviously well worth reading. This time, at least two articles related to supply chain management have been awarded: Manuj and Mentzer (2008): Global supply chain risk management and Roth et al. (2008): Unraveling the food supply chain: Strategic insights from China and the 2007 recalls. Congratulations! Only few papers related to SCM have received a Citation of Excellence Award in previous years, e.g., Winklhofer et al. (2006): A cultural perspective of relationship orientation: Using organizational culture to support a supply relationship orientation, Craighead et al. (2007): The severity of supply chain disruptions: Design characteristics and mitigation capabilities, and Holweg et al. (2005): Supply chain collaboration: Making sense of the strategy continuum. Interestingly, all these articles are concerned with either relationships or risks.
Manuj, I. & Mentzer, J.T. (2008). Global supply chain risk management. Journal of Business Logistics, 29 (1), 133-155 DOI: 10.1002/j.2158-1592.2008.tb00072.x
Roth, A.V., Tsay, A.A., Pullman, M.E. & Gray, J.V. (2008). Unraveling the food supply chain: Strategic insights from China and the 2007 recalls. Journal of Supply Chain Management, 44 (1), 22-39 DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-493X.2008.00043.x
Cloud Logistics
Usually, I hate buzzwords. Particularly, I am saturated by the extensive use of the phrase “cloud computing”. However, a keynote speech by Werner Delfmann about “cloud logistics”, which was held at the 6th International Scientific Symposium on Logistics in Hamburg, Germany, exceeded all my expectations. Delfmann’s speech is based on discussions within the BVL‘s Scientific Advisory Board and the discussion paper The Cloud – Logistics for the Future? by Delfmann and Jaekel (2012) can be downloaded on the BVL’s website. Herein, the authors transfer the cloud paradigm from computing to logistics. They argue that an “adequate answer to the challenges for logistics arising from an increasingly complex, uncertain, volatile and less predictable environment seems to be found in principle by means of adaptive, coordinated, distributed, autonomous logistics systems based on decentralized self-control mechanisms”. I believe that cloud logistics can influence our notion of logistics service providers: They might move into a “cloud operator” role.
