Nainika Seth

Bio: Nainika Seth is an academic researcher from University of Alabama in Huntsville. The author has contributed to research in topics: Supply chain & Supply chain management. The author has an hindex of 5, co-authored 8 publications receiving 2021 citations. Previous affiliations of Nainika Seth include Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

Firm performance impacts of digitally enabled supply chain integration capabilities

Abstract: Best practice exemplars suggest that digital platforms play a critical role in managing supply chain activities and partnerships that generate performance gains for firms. However, there is limited academic investigation on how and why information technology can create performance gains for firms in a supply chain management (SCM) context. Grant's (1996) theoretical notion of higher-order capabilities and a hierarchy of capabilities has been used in recent information systems research by Barua et al. (2004), Sambamurthy et al. (2003), and Mithas et al. (2004) to reframe the conversation from the direct performance impacts of IT resources and investments to how and why IT shapes higher-order process capabilities that create performance gains for firms. We draw on the emerging IT-enabled organizational capabilities perspective to suggest that firms that develop IT infrastructure integration for SCM and leverage it to create a higher-order supply chain integration capability generate significant and sustainable performance gains. A research model is developed to investigate the hierarchy of IT-related capabilities and their impact on firm performance. Data were collected from 110 supply chain and logistics managers in manufacturing and retail organizations. Our results suggest that integrated IT infrastructures enable firms to develop the higher-order capability of supply chain process integration. This capability enables firms to unbundle information flows from physical flows, and to share information with their supply chain partners to create information-based approaches for superior demand planning, for the staging and movement of physical products, and for streamlining voluminous and complex financial work processes. Furthermore, IT-enabled supply chain integration capability results in significant and sustained firm performance gains, especially in operational excellence and revenue growth. Managerial initiatives should be directed at developing an integrated IT infrastructure and leveraging it to create process capabilities for the integration of resource flows between a firm and its supply chain partners.

Relational Antecedents of Information Flow Integration for Supply Chain Coordination

Abstract: A new model of competition, where competition is among supply chain networks rather than individual firms, is transforming traditional market-based buyer-supplier relations to one of competition among cooperative sets. In order to integrate and realize performance gains from participating in cooperative supply networks, the importance of information sharing across the supply chain has been emphasized in different literature streams. In this study, we examine the relational antecedents of this critical aspect of supply chain integration-that is, information flow integration. Our objective is to investigate the relationship between relational orientation of the focal firm, as characterized by (1) long-term orientation of its supply chain relationships, (2) asset specificity, and (3) interaction routines and the information flow integration between a firm and its supply chain partners. A research model was developed and data were collected from 110 supply chain and logistics managers in manufacturing and retail organizations. Our results suggest that tangible and intangible resources invested in supply chain relationships enable the integration of information flows with supply chain partners. Specifically, formal and informal interaction routines that take time and effort to develop enable integration of informational flows across a firm's supply chain. Investments in relation-specific assets and long-term orientation in relationships enable the development of these interaction routines.

Why license when you can rent? Risks and rewards of the application service provider model

Abstract: The confluence of several developments in technology and trends in the business environment has led to the emergence of new outsourcing model, the Application Service Provider (ASP). In this paper we draw upon outsourcing literature to understand the factors that are likely to influence the adoption of the ASP model. An initial research model is developed based on factors identified from economic and social perspectives used in outsourcing literature.

Online Matrimonial Sites and the Transformation of Arranged Marriage in India

Abstract: Online personals have been a remarkably successful in the Western World and have been emulated in other cultural contexts. The introduction of the Internet can have vastly different implications on traditional societies and practices such as arranged marriages in India. This chapter seeks to investigate using an ethnographic approach the role of matrimonial Web sites in the process of arranging marriages in India. It seeks to explore how these Web sites have been appropriated by key stakeholders in arranging marriage and how such appropriation is changing the process and traditions associated with arranged marriage. The key contributions of this study are in that it is an investigation of complex social processes in a societal context different from traditional western research contexts and an exploration of how modern technologies confront societal traditions and long standing ways of doing things. Our investigation suggests that the use of matrimonial Web sites have implications for family disintermediation, cultural convergence, continuous information flows, ease of disengagement, virtual dating and reduced stigma in arranged marriages in India.

Building Social Capital With It And Collaboration In Supply Chains: An Empirical Investigation

Abstract: The importance of managing the extended enterprise is a recurrent theme, and many consider supply chains to be the next frontier of opportunities to improve profitability and competitive advantage for organizations. Building on prior work that has identified the value creation capabilities of integrated digital platforms and relational conditions, the paper draws upon social capital theory to develop an organizing framework for developing supply chain integration capabilities. We assert that both IT and relational capabilities constitute the social capital available to firms in the supply network and draw upon Nahapiet and Ghosal’s (1998) work to identify the specific facets structural, relational and cognitive social capital that are relevant in the context of supply chain integration. This framework enables us to evaluate structural relational and cognitive social capital as a platform for managing collective action and as a source of creating and sharing knowledge. A research model is developed and empirically validated that investigates the impact of different facets of social capital on supply chain integration, and subsequently supply chain integration on firm performance. Data from 110 manufacturing and retail firms was used to test the model to provide empirical support for the proposed research model.

The knowledge-creating company

Abstract: How have Japanese companies become world leaders in the automotive and electronics industries, among others? What is the secret of their success? Two leading Japanese business experts, Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi, are the first to tie the success of Japanese companies to their ability to create new knowledge and use it to produce successful products and technologies. In The Knowledge-Creating Company, Nonaka and Takeuchi provide an inside look at how Japanese companies go about creating this new knowledge organizationally. The authors point out that there are two types of knowledge: explicit knowledge, contained in manuals and procedures, and tacit knowledge, learned only by experience, and communicated only indirectly, through metaphor and analogy. U.S. managers focus on explicit knowledge. The Japanese, on the other hand, focus on tacit knowledge. And this, the authors argue, is the key to their success--the Japanese have learned how to transform tacit into explicit knowledge. To explain how this is done--and illuminate Japanese business practices as they do so--the authors range from Greek philosophy to Zen Buddhism, from classical economists to modern management gurus, illustrating the theory of organizational knowledge creation with case studies drawn from such firms as Honda, Canon, Matsushita, NEC, Nissan, 3M, GE, and even the U.S. Marines. For instance, using Matsushita's development of the Home Bakery (the world's first fully automated bread-baking machine for home use), they show how tacit knowledge can be converted to explicit knowledge: when the designers couldn't perfect the dough kneading mechanism, a software programmer apprenticed herself withthe master baker at Osaka International Hotel, gained a tacit understanding of kneading, and then conveyed this information to the engineers. In addition, the authors show that, to create knowledge, the best management style is neither top-down nor bottom-up, but rather what they call "middle-up-down," in which the middle managers form a bridge between the ideals of top management and the chaotic realities of the frontline. As we make the turn into the 21st century, a new society is emerging. Peter Drucker calls it the "knowledge society," one that is drastically different from the "industrial society," and one in which acquiring and applying knowledge will become key competitive factors. Nonaka and Takeuchi go a step further, arguing that creating knowledge will become the key to sustaining a competitive advantage in the future. Because the competitive environment and customer preferences changes constantly, knowledge perishes quickly. With The Knowledge-Creating Company, managers have at their fingertips years of insight from Japanese firms that reveal how to create knowledge continuously, and how to exploit it to make successful new products, services, and systems.

Using PLS path modeling for assessing hierarchial construct models: guidelines and impirical illustration

Abstract: In this paper, the authors show that PLS path modeling can be used to assess a hierarchical construct model. They provide guidelines outlining four key steps to construct a hierarchical construct model using PLS path modeling. This approach is illustrated empirically using a reflective, fourth-order latent variable model of online experiential value in the context of online book and CD retailing. Moreover, the guidelines for the use of PLS path modeling to estimate parameters in a hierarchical construct model are extended beyond the scope of the empirical illustration. The findings of the empirical illustration are used to discuss the use of covariance-based SEM versus PLS path modeling. The authors conclude with the limitations of their study and suggestions for future research.

Specifying formative constructs in information systems research

Abstract: While researchers go to great lengths to justify and prove theoretical links between constructs, the relationship between measurement items and constructs is often ignored. By default, the relationship between construct and item is assumed to be reflective, meaning that the measurement items are a reflection of the construct. Many times, though, the nature of the construct is not reflective, but rather formative. Formative constructs occur when the items describe and define the construct rather than vice versa. In this research, we examine whether formative constructs are indeed being mistaken for reflective constructs by information systems researchers. By examining complete volumes of MIS Quarterly and Information Systems Research over the last 3 years, we discovered that a significant number of articles have indeed misspecified formative constructs. For scientific results to be valid, we argue that researchers must properly specify formative constructs. This paper discusses the implications of different patterns of common misspecifications of formative constructs on both Type I and Type II errors. To avoid these errors, the paper provides a roadmap to researchers to properly specify formative constructs. We also discuss how to address formative constructs within a research model after they are specified.

The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields (Chinese Translation)

Abstract: What makes organizations so similar? We contend that the engine of rationalization and bureaucratization has moved from the competitive marketplace to the state and the professions. Once a set of organizations emerges as a field, a paradox arises: rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them. We describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative—leading to this outcome. We then specify hypotheses about the impact of resource centralization and dependency, goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty, and professionalization and structuration on isomorphic change. Finally, we suggest implications for theories of organizations and social change.