Supply chain relationship evaluation

Authors

Tillmann Boehme, University of WollongongFollow
Paul Childerhouse, University of Waikato
James Corner, University of Waikato
Richard Varey, University of Waikato
Ron Garland, University of Waikato

RIS ID

37440

Publication Details

Boehme, T., Childerhouse, P., Corner, J., Varey, R. & Garland, R. (2007). Supply chain relationship evaluation. The 5th International Conference on Supply Chain Management and Information System (pp. 1-13). Melbourne: Monash Unversity.

Abstract

Supply chain integration is a major challenge to the operations management discipline, especially given the existence of power and dependency with suppliers and customers. This research explores the extend to which New Zealand organisations are externally integrated with their key suppliers by using qualitative methods in the form of multiple case studies. In total 113 supplier-buyer relationships of five different agricultural organisations have been examined. The application of the developed matrix to a wide variety of agricultural supply chains highlights the different structural configurations of power within each case. Surprisingly, supply chain and procurement managers were not aware of the power situation they are currently in. The research identified that New Zealand’s agricultural organisations are weakly integrated with their suppliers. Often power and dependency limit the level of integration.