Integrative leadership for effective supply chain implementation: An empirical study of Korean firms
Introduction
Increasingly, firms garner their attention to develop appropriate supply chain strategies for effective supply chain outcomes (Walters and Lancaster, 2000, Cousins, 2005). In spite of such great endeavor, supply chain strategic initiatives often do not succeed. The primary reasons behind this failure are derived from lack of a cohesive and inclusive mechanism for shared goal as well as integration of diverse roles of senior executive leadership for effective supply chain implementation. Prior literature has examined implementation mechanisms for the successful supply chain outcomes in terms of responsiveness (Koste and Malhotra, 1999), socialization (Cousins and Menguc, 2006), flexibility (Sawhney, 2006) and motivation (Linderman et al., 2006). Performance measurement impacts on leadership (Elenkov, 2002, Ukko et al., 2007), performance through leaders' profiles or goal orientation (Kulmala et al., 2009), dimension of strategic leadership, leadership efficiency and leader effectiveness (Hinterhuber and Friedrich, 2002, Byrne and Bradley, 2007) discuss essential roles of leadership on organizational performance outcomes. However, the role of integrative leadership as a critical implementation mechanism for supply chain management has rarely been explored.
This paper discusses how leadership that is congruent with the shared goal among senior executives is essential for enabling members to share strategic information-level information and in turn operational-level information, which lead to supply chain effectiveness. We call such leadership as integrative leadership. This integrative leadership involves highly collaborative and dynamic interactions among the key senior executives toward implementation of strategic initiative such as supply chain implementation in their organization.
This paper explores a primary research question, “What is the effective integrative leadership mechanism for supply chain effectiveness”? Specifically, this article examines integrative leadership that involves the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Supply Chain Officer (SCO). Because of their different positions in the organization, each executive has diverse perspectives and preferences. Thus, the integrative leadership mechanism requires shared motivation of these executives which enable them to work toward implementing effective processes and supply chain performance outcomes.
Based on the literature review, this study presents a research model that highlights the focus of this research. An empirical validation is done through the survey data of 142 Korean firms. This paper is organized as follows. In the next section this study provides a literature review that presents theoretical rationale for the conceptual framework. For the hypotheses development specific research model is presented and the variables are defined. Each hypothesis defines and explains the nature of causal relationships between variables based on previous literature support or essential interactive characteristics of related variables. In the subsequent section this study discusses the research methods, analysis and results. The final section presents implications of this research and concluding remarks with a summary of limitations and future research issues.
Section snippets
Literature review
This section provides the theoretical rationale of this research aim. Specifically, this study discusses three aspects of effective integrative leadership mechanism in terms of integrative leadership for shared goals, synergistic information flows, and supply chain implementation outcomes. Fig. 1 shows the conceptual framework for an effective integrative leadership mechanism. This study examines how an integrative leadership that is congruent with supply chain goals positively influences the
Hypotheses development
The research model identifies the key variables. An effective research model needs to indicate valid contribution, adequate fit to the research focus and parsimony of the model (Li et al., 2005, Stevenson et al., 2011). This paper presents a research model related to integrative leadership of three major senior executives with the goal of supply chain implementation. Integrative leadership involves the CEO's awareness of the strategic value of supply chain management and the role of IT on
Survey instruments
In developing survey instruments, we have applied generally accepted research practices. Pilot study is generally recommended for rigorous instrument development before proceeding with the main survey (Hong et al., 2005, Hong et al., 2011, Liao et al., 2010). However, in view of relative small population in Korea, it was not practical to conduct both rigorous pilot study and main survey research. Instead, we engaged in rigorous literature review for selecting and developing valid items for each
PLS (Partial Least Square)
In order to test our proposed hypotheses, this study uses Partial Least Square (PLS), a component based structural estimation modeling technique and more specifically, SmartPLS package version 2.0.M3 (Ringle et al., 2005, Claassen et al., 2008). PLS has its distinct features compared to other structural equation modeling techniques such as LISREL/AMOS, covariance based structural equation modeling techniques. For example, PLS does not have minimal requirements of the restrictive assumptions
Discussion
This research proposed a conceptual framework and empirically tested a set of hypotheses concerning the impact of integrative leadership for shared goal on effective supply chain implementation outcomes through synergistic information flow.
Concluding remarks
Several limitations of this study are mentioned here before discussing research implications. A single-respondent (e.g., president, information technology director or purchasing manager) from each firm participated in the survey. Thus, this study shares the limitation of survey methods based on single respondents (Boyer and McDermott, 1999). Our research results report the individual perceptions on the nature of integrative leadership and performance impacts in his/her firm. Thus, it might not
References (87)
- et al.
Supplier diversity and supply chain management: a strategic approach
Business Horizons
(2007) - et al.
Resource attributes and firm performance in international joint ventures
Journal of World Business
(2007) Supply chain design and analysis: models and methods
International Journal of Production Economics
(1998)- et al.
Strategic consensus in operations strategy
Journal of Operations Management
(1999) - et al.
Culture's influence on leadership efficiency: how personal and national cultures affect leadership style
Journal of Business Research
(2007) - et al.
Problem-solving approach in an international context: antecedents and outcome
International Journal of Research in Marketing
(1998) - et al.
The implications of socialization and integration in supply chain management
Journal of Operations Management
(2006) Effects of leadership on organizational performance in Russian companies
Journal of Business Research
(2002)- et al.
Understanding the local-level costs and benefits of ERP through organizational information processing theory
Information & Management
(2004) - et al.
Relational selling strategy and key account managers' relational behaviors: an exploratory study
Industrial Marketing Management
(2007)
A framework for supply chain performance measurement
International Journal of Production Economics
The technology dimension of strategic leadership
International Journal of Production Economics
Role changes of design engineers in integrated product development
Journal of Operations Management
Knowledge sharing and strategic fit in integrated product development: an empirical study
International Journal of Production Economics
Champions of technological innovation: the influence of contextual knowledge, role orientation, idea generation, and idea promotion on champion emergence
The Leadership Quarterly
Perspectives on joint competitive advantages in buyer-supplier relationships
International Journal of Research in Marketing
A theoretical framework for analyzing the dimensions of manufacturing flexibility
Journal of Operations Management
Performance through measuring leader's profiles: an empirical study
International Journal of Production Economics
Issues in supply chain management
Industrial Marketing Management
Accessing information sharing and information quality in supply chain management
Decision Support Systems
Development and validation of a measurement instrument for studying supply chain management practices
Journal of Operations Management
Six sigma: the role of goals in improvement teams
Journal of Operations Management
The nature of interfirm partnering in supply chain management
Journal of Retailing
Understanding the factors that enable and inhibit the integration of operations, purchasing and logistics
Journal of Operations Management
Supplier evaluations: communication strategies to improve supplier performance
Journal of Operations Management
Shared knowledge and product design glitches in integrated product development
International Journal of Production Economics
Information technology as a determinant of organizational learning and technological distinctive competencies
Industrial Marketing Management
A contingent view of e-collaboration and performance in manufacturing
Journal of Operations Management
Inter-organizational information sharing: the role of supply network configuration and partner goal congruence
European Journal of Operational Research
Interplay between uncertainty and flexibility across the value-chain: towards a transformation model of manufacturing flexibility
Journal of Operations Management
The theory and practice of workload control: a research agenda and implementation strategy
International Journal of Production Economics
PLS path modeling
Computational Statistics and Data Analysis
Performance measurement impacts on management and leadership: perspectives of management and employees
International Journal of Production Economics
An investigation of moderators of the link between technology use in the supply chain and supply chain performance
Information & Management
Supply chain practice and information sharing
Journal of Operations Management
Structural equation modeling in practice: a review and recommended two-step approach
Psychological Bulletin
Corporate Strategy: An Analytical Approach to Business Policy for Growth and Expansion
Estimating nonresponse bias in mail surveys
Journal of Marketing Research
Measuring supply chain performance
International Journal of Operations & Production Management
Employee alignment and the role of “line of sight”
Human Resource Planning
Strategy formulation: a social and political process
Goal orientation and goal content as predictors of performance in a training program
Journal of Applied Psychology
Person-organization fit and the theory of work adjustment: implications for satisfaction, tenure, and career success
Journal of Vocational Behavior
Cited by (35)
Supply chain leadership and firm performance: A meta-analysis
2021, International Journal of Production EconomicsCitation Excerpt :Gosling et al. (2016) concluded that the role of leadership in the supply chain is important, and stated that if one organisation takes a leadership role, this can reduce risks and prevent chaos in the supply chain. In other words, appropriate SCL can facilitate superior SCM (Youn et al., 2012, which is critical to organisational performance improvement (Jermsittiparsert and Srihirun, 2019). In addition, some argued that SCL can generate improvement in various firm performance measures (Saini et al., 2018).
Supply chain leadership: A systematic literature review and a research agenda
2019, International Journal of Production EconomicsManaging sustainability orientation: An empirical investigation of manufacturing firms
2019, International Journal of Production EconomicsCitation Excerpt :Such internal implementation efforts considers involvement of customers in planning order sizes, stabilizing production schedules and minimizing bullwhip effect. Strengthening customer relationship results in improved forecasting, information integration and implementation of pull production methods (Koufteros et al., 2007; Youn et al., 2012). This is about translating internal operational level intent/goals, OSI, into back-end effective actions, DBP.
Social influence and safe behavior in manufacturing
2018, Safety ScienceSupply chain information capabilities and performance outcomes: An empirical study of Korean steel suppliers
2014, International Journal of Information ManagementCitation Excerpt :It is the people that implement plans and systems for them to function. Thus, relational trust on system structure and the intent of leadership and information quality in terms of content and manner of information exchange is crucial for effective decision making at the work level (Youn, Yang, & Hong, 2012). Information processing theory suggests that the real work is through sharing relevant information in a timely and reliable manner among key stakeholders (Daft & Lengel, 1986; Hong, Doll, & Nahm, 2004).
Leadership and supply chain management: a systematic literature review
2023, Journal of Modelling in Management