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Many firms are increasing their focus on sustainability. However, this focus has primarily emphasized environmentalism and ethics. Enterprise value chains must develop and support a broader sustainability perspective to ensure that its consumer, business, supply chain, community and environmental relationships and interactions remain viable. Using public documents and Internet sites of major global firms, this article suggests a framework to define the dimensions of sustainability and the categories of initiatives within each dimension. The article then offers examples regarding how major firms are implementing each sustainability dimension to enhance their competitiveness. Building on the framework, the article illustrates the sustainability initiatives applied by different categories of sustainability leaders.

While it is widely believed that information technology is a major differentiator of logistics performance, there has been limited research that empirically tests or characterizes this relationship. The current research investigates the relationship between logistics information technology (LIT) and logistics service performance. The objective of this research is to develop a framework for managers to understand logistics information technology applications and to justify LIT expenditures. The results offer direction for characterizing logistics information integration and customer integration can influence customer service performance. These results begin to dimensionalize logistics information technology and the impact it has on strategy and performance. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

This article (re)introduces the supply chain management academic audience to the critical relationship between transportation infrastructure, freight traffic, economic market drivers, and regional economic development. With the growing importance of transportation, logistics, and supply chain economics to support industrial activities, specific supply chain asset investments can significantly impact national, local, and regional economies. At the same time, the relative availability, quality, and cost of a range of transportation services, particularly those relevant to essential intermodal activities and infrastructure influence firms' location decisions. By introducing an economic-geography perspective to a thus-far transportation-centric conversation, this article explores how states and their regions compete based on economic value propositions adopted on a much broader scale.

This paper compares firms purchasing and/or selling food products internationally to those with domestic supply chains in order to determine if international firms: place greater managerial importance on security; and are more likely to engage supply chain partners in security-related verification and information exchange. The purpose of this paper is to explore the link between security initiatives and firm performance in terms of security outcomes, product quality, and customer service. A series of one-way ANOVA tests are used to assess the differences between firms with international and domestic supply chains. Additionally, cluster analysis is conducted to group firms based on their performance levels. Initial results indicate respondents with international supply chains perceive that their firms place more importance on security and are more likely to assess the security procedures of supply chain partners. Results further indicate that, in general, respondents in international firms perceive better security performance is achieved in terms of the ability to detect and recover from security incidents. Once firms are grouped by performance, respondents in the high-performance cluster, represented predominantly by international firms, perceived significantly higher performance in the areas examined. This paper is the first to compare, the differences in security measures employed by firms maintaining internationally oriented as opposed to domestically oriented supply chains and also relates the implementation of supply chain security measures to security and firm performance.

This research develops a framework for organizational value creation from agile IT applications. Based on the four themes in the business value research—business process perspective, complementarities, application level of analysis, and extent of use—three antecedents (organizational fit, process assimilation, and network adoption) are identified as pre-requisites for realizing the value of agile supply chain applications. Advanced planning and scheduling (APS) systems are used as examples, and two case studies for their implementation in the electronics and consumer goods industry are reported to support the propositions. The theories of diffusion of innovation, complementarities, network externalities, and technology structuration are applied to develop the propositions for fit, assimilation, and network effects. Information sharing and industry clockspeed are identified as the moderating factors in the proposed model. The framework has both managerial and research relevance. The research guides managers regarding ways to more fully realize the value of agile applications and forms a basis for future research on the business value of IT applications.

Purpose - Aims to conceptualize flexible logistics programs and information connectivity as two important aspects of logistics flexibility and to examine the role of information connectivity in making flexible logistics programs successful.Design methodology approach - A hierarchical regression model is used to test the research hypotheses.Findings - The results suggest that flexible logistics programs are strongly related to all performance dimensions, and that information connectivity fully mediates the relationship between flexible logistics programs and asset productivity and partially mediates the relationship between flexible logistics programs and delivery competence.Research limitations implications - Future theoretical research can develop a detailed conceptualization of logistics flexibility. In this paper, the constructs are developed utilizing an exploratory factor analysis approach. Future research utilizing confirmatory factor analysis approach will allow a better validation of the performance constructs. The paper also considers that studies that link flexible logistics program, information connectivity and performance in a structural equations modeling framework will further enrich one's understanding. In this framework, flexible logistics programs can be considered as a latent variable comprising several individual resource level flexibility measures.Practical implications - This research highlights the need for organizational structure, role dependencies and a proactive preparedness in terms of managerial policies. The concept of special programs for accommodating changing customer requirements exemplifies the importance for a firm to be aware of shifting demand characteristics and the ability to tailor service delivery accordingly.Originality value - An examination of the research questions sheds some light on logistics flexibility as a critical component of logistics capability. With this study logistics flexibility is characterized in terms of flexible logistics programs and information connectivity and hypotheses are tested that link these aspects with performance. It is believed that this enhances and enriches the existing logistics literature and presents avenues for further investigation. Meanwhile, testing the link presents managerial insights for prudent decision making. An investigation of the role of information connectivity provides directions for firms to align their information system strategies with their flexibility-oriented planning decisions.

Global competition has intensified geographic repositioning of supply chain activities with implications for the economic prosperity of specific regions and geographies affected by such shifts. Despite recent advancements made in the theory and practice of facility location decisions, a gap exists in understanding how these decisions are influenced by regional geographies and their respective supply chain capabilities. As economic development agencies recognize the value inherent in location-specific and geographically concentrated supply chain capabilities, this research explores how these affect regional prosperity and economic development. Through a combination of exploratory Delphi panels, web content analysis, and cluster mapping procedures, the research suggests a framework highlighting the potential role of regional supply chain capabilities and public sector strategies on economic development outcomes. Findings indicate that regional geographies are differentially and uniquely qualified to serve as supply chain hubs by capitalizing on these capabilities through actionable public- and private sector interventions. Regional differentiation lies in supply chain elements that are place-luck embedded and as such difficult to acquire, change, or modify.

Performance measurement is critically important to business success. Collecting and responding to information that does not advise management about success in meeting established goals is counterproductive and potentially injurious to the success of the firm. This research develops a framework that allows individual firms to assess their unique measurement needs in light of their stated goals, and to select performance measures most suited to addressing those measurement needs.

The current research was undertaken to substantiate the academic relevance of the 21st Century Logistics framework by assessing the unidimensionality, reliability, and internal consistency of measures used to assess supply chain logistics integration competence, as well as offer a deeper investigation into the relationhips between logistics integration and performance. The results support the framework and justify the managerial relationships it portrays. The analyses identify the overall magnitude as well as the relative importance of specific competencies to competitively superior performance. Customer and internal integration are the most significant differentiators of overall firm performance. Consequently, managers seeking to leverage supply chain processes to enhance performance should focus on identifying the current and future supply chain needs of key customers and then develop an effective fulfillment and replenishment process to satisfy those needs.