Business Commons^™

Supply Chain Success Depends On Workers, Sarah Schiffling, Nikolaos Valantasis Kanellos

Articles

2022 proved to be a difficult year for the people side of supply chains and the global transport networks that support them. Labour shortages and labour disputes put further pressure on systems that were already struggling with the fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and the impact of climate change. Amid high levels of inflation, workers around the world have been striking for better pay and conditions, in areas as different as healthcare, waste management, and teaching. For example, 2022 saw port related strikes quadrupling in comparison to the previous year.

Sustainability In Supply Chain Management: Using Drawings To Understand Undergraduates’ Perceptions Of Sustainability, Sharon Feeney, John William Hogan

Articles

Purpose – This paper presents an interpretation of freehand drawings produced by supply chain management undergraduates in response to the question: “What is sustainability?” Having to explain sustainability pictorially forced students to distill what the essence of sustainability meant to them and provided insights into how they perceived sustainability and their roles in achieving sustainability in the context of supply chain management. Design/methodology/approach – Students were asked to draw and answer the question “What is sustainability?” These drawings were discussed/interpreted in class. All drawings were initially examined quantitatively, before a sample of four were selected for presentation here. Findings – …

Dark Side Of Black Friday: The Major Drawbacks With This Shopping Bonanza, Sarah Schiffling, Nikolaos Valantasis Kanellos

Articles

Black Friday is upon us again. It’s one of the biggest shopping events of the year, although there are mixed signals about how successful it is likely to be in 2021. One recent study found that only a third of consumers plan to take part. The financial strain of COVID-19 is still evident, and inflation running at its highest level in a decade.

All the same, consumer confidence has been rising. According to GlobalData, shoppers are set to spend nearly £9.2 billion in the four days from Black Friday to Cyber Monday. This would still be a big increase …

Supply Chain Management Diffusion Among Firms In The Republic Of Ireland, Edward Sweeney, Claudia-Maria Wagner, Bernd Huber

Articles

The changing business environment has sharpened the focus on the need for robust approaches to supply chain management (SCM) and the improvement of supply chain capability and performance. This is particularly the case in Ireland, which has the natural disadvantage of a location peripheral to significant markets and sources of raw materials which results in relatively high transport and distribution costs. Therefore, in order to gain insights into current levels of diffusion of SCM, a survey was conducted among 776 firms in the Republic of Ireland. The empirical results suggest that there is a need for more widespread adoption of …

The Need For Wider Supply Chain Management Adoption: Empirical Results From Ireland, Bernd Huber, Edward Sweeney

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Purpose - Empirical results are provided which suggest that there is a need for more widespread adoption of supply chain management among Irish firms.

Design/methodology/approach - The Republic of Ireland is a small, open, trade-dependent economy and is one of the fastest growing economies in the developed world. However, due to rising costs, there is an increasing trend in Ireland to outsource lower function manufacturing processes to lower cost locations but to retain high skill functions (such as R&D). This trend, together with other factors such as its peripheral location, suggests that supply chain management is critical from an Irish …

An Investigation Into Outsourcing Practice In Ireland: A New Direction In Logistics And Supply Chain Management, Aoife O'Riordan, Edward Sweeney

Articles

Companies are increasingly focusing on the development of core competencies as an integral part of their overall strategy development and implementation. The corollary of this is that functions regarded as being non-core are being outsourced. This paper investigates the case for and against outsourcing and in addition what is happening in Ireland regards outsourcing. Furthermore to analysis of current literature in
the field, an Irish-wide postal and e-mail survey, as well as three case studies revealed many interesting facts. The key findings of the work are manufacturing outsourcing is now the most popular function to be outsourced for both small …

Techonology Usage In The Supply Chain: The Case Of Small 3pls, Pietro Evangelista, Edward Sweeney

Articles

Purpose - In today’s supply chain management (SCM) practices, a successful strategy depends
increasingly on the performance of Third Party Logistics (3PL) providers as they play a key
integrative role linking the different supply chain elements more effectively. Information and
Communications Technology (ICT) has become an important element of 3PL competitive
capability as it enables higher levels of supply chain integration. Recent industry developments
have widened the technological gap between large and small 3PLs. This is critical particularly for
those markets populated by a large number of small 3PLs such as the Italian logistics industry. The
purpose of this paper …

Editorial To The Lrn2004 Annual Conference Special Issue Fo The International Journal Of Logistics: Research And Applications, Edward Sweeney

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No abstract provided.