The Social Psychology of Organizations.

Social Psychology of Organizations

The authors examine the implications of electronic shopping for consumers, retailers, and manufacturers. They assume that near-term technological developments will offer consumers unparalleled opportunities to locate and compare product offerings. They examine these advantages as a function of typical consumer goals and the types of products and services being sought and offer conclusions regarding consumer incentives and disincentives to purchase through interactive home shopping vis-à-vis traditional retail formats. The authors discuss implications for industry structure as they pertain to competition among retailers, competition among manufacturers, and retailer-manufacturer relationships.

Interactive home shopping: Consumer, retailer, and manufacturer incentives to participate in

Evaluating Model Fit

Facility location and supply chain management - A review

The renaming of the Council of Logistics Management (CLM) to the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) ushered in some interesting definitional dialogue and debate within the practitioner and academic communities. Inherent in emerging definitions is the notion that SCM encompasses activities traditionally considered aspects of production, logistics, marketing, and operations management. Defining SCM in such a broad scope (i.e., a “within” and “across” functions perspective), while considered by many scholars as the true representation of the essence of SCM, creates confusion regarding the appropriate organizational level within a business that is best suited for managerial decision making regarding the phenomenon. This paper contributes to the emerging SCM dialogue by highlighting the functional spaces (the “within” function perspective), relationships, and conceptual overlaps (the “across” functions perspective) between marketing, logistics, production, operations, and supply chain management. By comparing and contrasting the literature-based conceptual boundaries of each discipline, a framework is proposed that more clearly captures the essence of the SCM decision making sphere. Managerial insights and future research implications are presented.

Supply chain management and its relationship to logistics, marketing, production, and operations management

Strategy identifies two primary sets of processes through which the firm creates value for its customers by moving goods and information through marketing channels: demand-focused and supply-focused processes. Historically, firms have invested resources to develop a core differential advantage in one or other of these areas—but rarely in both—often resulting in mismatches between demand (what customers want) and supply (what is available in the marketplace). This paper suggests that successfully managing the supply chain to create customer value requires extensive integration between demand-focused processes and supply-focused processes that is based on a foundation of value creation through intraorganizational knowledge management. Integrating demand and supply processes helps firms prioritize and ensure fulfillment based upon the shared generation, dissemination, interpretation and application of real-time customer demand as well as ongoing supply capacity constraints. We draw upon literature in marketing, logistics, supply chain management and strategy to introduce a conceptual framework of demand and supply integration (DSI). We also offer insights for managerial practice and an agenda for future research in the relatively under-researched, but strategically important, area of demand and supply integration.

Demand and supply integration: a conceptual framework of value creation through knowledge management

Successfully managing a supply chain requires a supply chain management strategy, aligning all of the companies involved in a supply chain with respect to product, market, and supply characteristics. Doing so requires balancing acceptable levels of cost efficiencies and customer service effectiveness and adopting a supply chain orientation in the firm.


Keywords:

supply chain orientation;
sales and operations planning;
demand and supply integration;
supply chain management strategy;
supplu chain design

Supply Chain Management Strategy

The Internet has increased the level of importance of the end-consumer market to transportation carriers In two between subject experiments, carrier disclosure on retail merchant websites is examined as a strategic differentiation strategy Predictions are offered concerning effects of carrier disclosure strategies on product delivery-related expectations, consumer attitudes, and intentions to purchase a product online Results from Study 1 reveal significant differences between disclosure and nondisclosure of the carrier for numerous product delivery-related variables, as well as many differences between the six carriers examined in this first study Study 2 extends these findings by showing that providing consumers with a choice of carrier leads to increased levels of satisfaction with the online experience and greater willingness to buy, relative to nondisclosure and disclosure strategies

The last mile: an examination of effects of online retail delivery strategies on consumers

Many firms now place emphasis on leveraging logistics capabilities as a source of competitive advantage. This manuscript suggests that the key to sustaining this competitive position is through adopting learning principles in logistics. As such, a logistics learning capability framework is presented, including the components of an effective learning-based logistics organization. Research propositions, an in-depth case study and implications are presented to further support the learning capability framework suggested and highlight the importance of learning in today's hypercompetitive global supply chain environment.

Terry L. Esper

Papers

Supply chain management and its relationship to logistics, marketing, production, and operations management

Demand and supply integration: a conceptual framework of value creation through knowledge management

Supply Chain Management Strategy

The last mile: an examination of effects of online retail delivery strategies on consumers

Logistics learning capability: sustaining the competitive advantage gained through logistics leverage