Guest editorial

Citation

Archer, N. (2007), "Guest editorial", Journal of Enterprise Information Management, Vol. 20 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/jeim.2007.08820eaa.001

Guest editorial

Dr Norm Archer Professor Emeritus in the Management Science and Information Systems Area, and Special Advisor to the McMaster eBusiness Research Centre, in the DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada.

To provide a forum for the exchange of ideas, research, results, applications, and opinions on the current state of supply chain management, the Annual Supply Chain Management Symposium is held in Toronto, Canada, each fall to bring together researchers and practitioners from around the world. In 2005 this was a three day event, from September 28 to 30. At the Symposium, 19 academic research papers and 19 practitioner papers were presented, and there were 3 roundtable discussions on current topics (for more information see: http://merc.mcmaster.ca/symposium/SCMSymposium2005.html). This special issue of the Journal of Enterprise Information Management includes six of the academic papers presented at the symposium. It reflects the recent surge of interest by researchers in the globalization of supply chains and related issues in collaborative product development that face firms wishing to expand globally. This issue includes the following papers.

Kun Liao and Paul Hong, in “Building global supply chain networks: a supplier portfolio entry model” describe how, using entry mode, network, and portfolio theories, a model of a global supply chain network can be used to demonstrate how profit optimization can be achieved through a series of decisions. These decisions are made while demand grows for products of the global enterprise, which is central to the supply chain. The model is illustrated with a real example of a Japanese auto firm as it moves into the Chinese marketplace.

“Acquiring competitive advantage in industry through supply chain integration” by Liqun Du, is a case study of the global Chinese firm, Yue Yuen Industrial Holdings, Ltd, which has become the largest branded athletic and casual footwear manufacturer in the world, with 17 percent of the global market. Most of its production facilities are in China, Vietnam and Indonesia. The paper tracks the growth of this firm, and its adoption of supply chain management that moves the firm from the typical “vertical” or hierarchical orientation towards a “horizontal” orientation that is typical of collaborating supply chain partners. The resulting supply chain process depends extensively on integration, through a platform that targets integrated improvements in product development and procurement throughout the entire supply chain.

In “Coordinating global inter-firm product development”, Yan Jin and Paul Hong explore the rich interactions that can result from global supplier and manufacturer relationships. Global product development is necessary to achieve cost effectiveness and product differentiation when enterprises strive to expand their markets beyond national boundaries. Compared to domestic enterprises, global enterprises have more choice of suppliers, but they face more challenges in their product development processes. This article recognizes the complexities involved in global product development, and it develops four propositions from the literature that are useful in promoting an understanding of the process and outcomes of global product development.

Eva-Maria Kern and Wolfgang Kersten, who won an honorable mention for their paper, take a somewhat different view of collaborative product development, in “A framework for internet supported inter-organizational product development collaboration”. Here, they describe collaborative engineering as the Internet-supported design of distributed product development processes, considering technological as well as organizational and human aspects. To realize different degrees of interaction intensity among the partners engaged in product development, one of three different formal mechanisms of interaction: coordination, cooperation, or collaboration, can be selected. They develop a framework for determining the level of integration among the partners that is required for optimal outcomes of the process.

In “Customer orientation and performance outcomes in supply chain management”, Jung Sik Jeong and Paul Hong address the important issue of customer orientation in supply chains, through a model that links interactive system infrastructure, value chain practices, and network performance outcomes. The challenge is how to implement customer orientation within the complex network of the supply chain. They consider customer orientation as a critical aspect of supply chain management and explore its implementation process, within an interactive supply chain system infrastructure.

David Walters and Mark Rainbird, in “Cooperative innovation: a value chain approach” look at a related approach to model of creating customer value. Here, business partners work together through the value chain to combine elements of process and product innovation within a network structure where customer and market expectations can be met by the partners cooperatively. They identify approaches to cooperative innovation that appear in industry. These include upstream partnerships with suppliers or down stream partnerships with customers and, in some cases, outsourcing of R&D upstream or assembly operations downstream.

Norm ArcherGuest Editor