The Role of Social Mechanisms in Demand and Supply Integration: An Individual Network Perspective
研究制造企业一线物流员工在零售前线的需求与供应整合，分析社会资本理论中关系嵌入和社会机制（社会化、共享解释）对跨职能整合的影响，采用混合方法验证。
In many industries, including retail, increased complexity of marketing strategies needs to be met with increased efficiency in product delivery, requiring integration across demand and supply facing functions of the firm. For frontline logistics employees (FLEs) of manufacturing firms who are delivering and marketing products in retail stores daily, the ability to understand both the marketing and supply implications of their actions is essential. Despite the importance of cross‐functional integration at the retail frontline, little logistics research has explored how logistics frontline employees interact with managers and each other to integrate knowledge and information. The purpose of this research is to examine the antecedents to cross‐functional integration across demand and supply functions in multiple social networks of the FLE. Mixed methods, including social network analysis, structural equation modeling, and analysis of variance, are applied to test social capital theory hypotheses regarding the impact of relational embeddedness and social mechanisms, socialization and shared interpretation, on individual demand and supply integration across friendship, key enabler, and ideation networks of the frontline employee.