Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyse whether the adoption of e-commerce improves company business, innovation and operational performance and whether sales internationalisation might ...moderate this relationship.
Design/methodology/approach
The research is based on a survey within the fashion industry and a multi-step linear regression model investigating the relationships between e-commerce and performance.
Findings
Results reveal that e-commerce improves innovation performance but has no significant relationship with business and operational performance. Also investigating whether the sales internationalisation might moderate the relationship between e-commerce and performance, the findings reveal that the adoption of these tools might even be negative when applied at the international level in particular by considering innovation operational practices, and the research suggests for fashion companies the necessity to develop strong markets’ knowledge and brand awareness among foreign markets and customers before investing internationally.
Originality/value
This paper offers an original analytical approach to identifying the relationships between a company’s adoption of e-commerce, performance and internationalisation within the fashion industry.
This research intends to offer an original contribution by studying how fashion and luxury companies have redefined both their marketing (in terms of price, product, promotion and placement) and ...operations actions (in terms of the relationship between supply network partners, types of integration, location of production, outsourcing and network objectives) to challenge contextual dynamic changes. The study adopts the multiple case study method. Evidence from 11 Italian companies highlights different areas under exploration to better respond to dynamic business contexts. Findings show how contextual changes significantly compel a growing alignment between marketing and supply network activities. Case studies indicate that closer partnerships and collaborations among companies within the entire value chain are crucial to realizing new collections, with compressed lead times and improved quality content. Finally, this study identifies two new production strategies (
pronto-programmato
and
focused-programmato
) adopted by fashion and luxury companies to improve competitiveness in changing business conditions.
The problem of delocalisation has assumed enormous importance over the last years, given the ever increasing number of firms who turn to it in order to improve their competitive performance. This ...type of intervention has an impact that extends throughout the whole supplier network of those firms that delocalise. The originality of this research in comparison with the numerous studies on this subject lies in analysis of the supplier network relocation of a firm that has delocalised the production plant and operates in a capital-intensive context. The use of the action research method has enabled us to carry out fieldwork, by conducting a longitudinal case study, on what problems can occur, what solutions can be adopted, and what contingent factors are critical for the realisation of a supplier network delocalisation project in a particular context, such as a capital-intensive context.
Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of product modularity on new product development (NPD) time performance, and the moderating effects of interfunctional integration and ...supplier involvement on the product modularity-time performance relationship.Design methodology approach - The paper analyzes data from a sample of 186 manufacturing plants settled in several countries, and operating in mechanical, electronic and transportation equipment sectors. Three hypotheses are tested through a hierarchical regression analysis.Findings - Data analyses show that product modularity has a direct positive effect on NPD time performance, and that interfunctional integration positively moderates the product modularity-time performance relationship. Finally, this research does not support the hypothesis that a positive interaction effect exists between product modularity and supplier involvement.Research limitations implications - Future research should replicate and extend the model to samples drawn from other industries. Moreover, analyses carried out provide some interesting directions for future research on the effect of supplier involvement on NPD time performance.Practical implications - The practical implication for managers is that NPD time performance reduction requires levering simultaneously on product modularity and interfunctional integration to foster their interaction, rather than investing and acting on product modularity only. In addition, before deciding to invest on product modularity, managers should ascertain the level of interfunctional integration. In fact, it acts as prerequisite for the successful implementation of product modularity.Originality value - Empirical studies on the impact of product modularity on NPD time performance are really scant. This research empirically analyzes this effect, and contributes to the advancement of theory by investigating the effect of product modularity and integration practices in NPD in a comprehensive way.
This paper explores sustainability drivers and practices within the Italian fashion industry, a challenging industry with strong impacts on sustainability. More specifically, this research aims to ...identify the different sustainability approaches adopted by Italian fashion suppliers in terms of the internal and external sustainability practices and drivers that trigger sustainability initiatives in relation to each approach. Based on an investigation of twelve case studies, we propose a taxonomy of these approaches by adopting the supplier perspective, a novelty in the sustainability literature. We discovered four types of approaches that we labelled: under-exploited, not-interested, collaborative and developing.
Purpose - The aim of the current study is to develop an understanding of the decisional process that leads a company, at a given point in time, to choose the subsequent supply chain management (SCM) ...initiative to be implemented.Design methodology approach - This research adopts the descriptive case study research design, as defined by Yin and McCutcheon and Meredith. Four supply networks, whose central firms are leading pharmaceutical companies, have been investigated.Findings - At a given time when deciding the SCM initiative(s) to be implemented, external fit and the state of supply network configuration and integration are both important, but for different reasons. In particular, lack of external fit triggers the implementation of SCM initiatives. Sequences of SCM initiatives are the result of a series of successive decisional situations, where the external fit and state of supply network configuration and integration vary each time a new SCM initiative is implemented.Research limitations implications - The research is descriptive. Further research is required to develop a theory on the sequences of SCM improvement initiatives.Practical implications - Managers contemplating the implementation of SCM interventions should consider the current performance conditions for competitiveness and compare them with the measured supply network performances, decide what SCM initiatives should be implemented after considering the current state of the supply network configuration and integration and performance dimensions to be improved, and measure the impact (positive and negative) of the implemented initiatives on supply network performance to evaluate whether or not to implement further initiatives. Moreover, if managers are able to forecast the potential performance trade-off associated with the implementation of the selected SCM interventions, long-term improvement programmes encompassing further SCM initiatives over time can be planned to counteract the trade-off penalty.Originality value - This study refines current literature on the sequences of improvement in supply networks, by demonstrating that the state of supply network configuration and integration is not enough to explain the decisional process that leads a company to follow a well-defined sequence. The paper also explores how the external fit affects the adoption of the following SCM initiatives, thus proving that SCM sequences cannot be considered context-free.
The theory of network coordination provides a theoretical basis to explain how companies can overcome organizational boundaries and constraints to jointly manage business processes across supply ...networks. In particular, this paper focuses on Collaborative Planning, Forecasting and Replenishment (CPFR), a collaboration process whereby supply chain trading partners activate inter-firm coordination mechanisms to jointly plan key supply chain activities, from production and delivery of raw materials to production and delivery of final products to end customers.
By discussing three case studies of CPFR implementation in supply networks of different industries–i.e. pharmaceutical, automotive and mechanical–the paper provides a theoretical framework that contributes to explaining the relations between inter-firm coordination mechanisms and the characteristics of interdependence among the actors involved in CPFR implementation.
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to examine which environmental and social sustainability practices companies in the Italian fashion industry adopt and how these companies communicate their ...sustainability commitment through their corporate websites.
Design/methodology/approach
– The multiple case studies approach was selected and the practices of 12 companies in the Italian fashion industry were investigated.
Findings
– The findings showed that four different approaches in the field of sustainability practices and web-based communication are available within the Italian fashion industry (i.e. low commitment, high commitment, low disclosure, high marketing) by highlighting the alignment (i.e. fit or misfit) among these dimensions and by discussing the practices as well as the drivers/barriers of each approach.
Originality/value
– The paper contributes to the literature by deepening the understanding of both the environmental and social dimensions of the sustainability issue. Moreover, the work investigates the relationship between sustainability practices and web-based sustainability communication, a topic that has not yet been addressed in the current literature.
In an effort to better respond to heterogeneous customer needs, an increasing number of companies in different sectors deal with the combination of high variety and frequent product changes ...modifications. This entails planning, designing, purchasing and manufacturing activities and exacerbates the alignment of Sales, Production Planning and Engineering goals. This paper aims to suggest a way of improving coordination between such functional areas in contexts characterised by high variety and frequent product changes. Based on the data from an action Research study, a method for taking the contrasting requests of Sales, Production Planning and Engineering into account simultaneously and to facilitate the coordination of their activities is developed. It leverages Modular Bills and product modularity to improve inter-functional coordination. Initial indications are promising. However, given the specific nature of the studied case, further research is required to evaluate the generalizability of the findings.
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