Supply Chain Management in Emerging Markets: Critical Research Issues
聚焦新兴市场供应链管理的特殊挑战，通过两篇案例研究探讨传统与现代供应链并存现象，为跨国企业应对制度压力提供实践启示。
In today's global economy, it would be difficult to find a supply chain that does not cut across national boundaries at some point. Global supply chains offer many significant advantages to multinational customers, including access to diverse sources of knowledge and innovation, access to new customers and materials, and cost advantages due to less expensive labor, and bolstered by government incentives. Some of the most attractive locations for suppliers are in emerging markets, which are characterized by companies and governments that are eager to attract global customers. However, these emerging markets benefits may come at a price. This special topic forum (STF) focuses on critical research issues surrounding supply chain management in emerging markets. Recent news events related to quality in global supply chains have called heightened attention to the need for more research on global supply chains, particularly in emerging economies. Such economies are often characterized by a blending of new and traditional approaches, as they transition. This may render typical approaches for managing supply chains ineffective, often to the confusion of multinational customers. For example, in “Implementing Supply Chain Technologies in Emerging Markets: An Institutional Theory Perspective,” Saldanha, Mello, Knemeyer, and Vijayaraghavan describe what they refer to as the juxtaposition of traditional and modern supply chains in India. The traditional supply chains are driven by the logic of social welfare, providing jobs to employees with low levels of skills. This logic is common in emerging markets, supported by their governments, which ban modernization initiatives that are taken for granted in Western countries, such as automated toll booths and self-service gas, to provide jobs. Although such initiatives are common in Communist and former Communist countries, whose governments are strongly focused on supporting individual workers, they are also seen in other emerging markets, such as India and Brazil. Juxtaposed with traditional supply chains are modern supply chains, which are driven by market logic and dominated by the desire for increased competitiveness, attraction of multinational customers, and support for domestic industry. Countries such as India, Russia, Brazil, and China have developed modern supply chains at a rapid pace, to support companies that do business as suppliers of multinational customers. Both traditional and modern supply chains often exist side-by-side in emerging economies, a situation which Saldanha and coauthors describe as incompatible, yet inevitable. The logic of both the social welfare perspective and market logic is attractive to emerging market governments; however, they work at cross purposes in many supply chains. This issue of the juxtaposition of traditional and modern supply chains is at the heart of the two articles that comprise this STF. Both use in-depth case research, driven by a strong theoretical foundation, to investigate critical issues related to dealing with the juxtaposition of traditional and modern supply chains in emerging markets. While these articles make a strong contribution to advancing theory related to their topics, they also have important practical implications for multinational companies that are working with suppliers in emerging economies. Saldanha and coauthors examine the implementation of supply chain technologies in emerging markets, particularly among early adopters in those countries. They describe the unique context of India, which is characterized by minimal use of information technology in most firms, poor data quality, a reluctance to share information, and a shortage of logistics talent that is driven by the lack of training opportunities. Using a Straussian grounded theory approach, they applied the technique of constant comparison while conducting 50 interviews used to inductively derive themes. In particular, they describe the unorganized and fragmented supply chain networks in India that combine to exert coercive and normative institutional pressures that influence supply chain technology implementation. The emergent themes relate to coping mechanisms that can mitigate these pressures, such as retrospective data entry and bypassing, shadow systems, and handholding. Understanding the importance of these coping mechanisms is critical for multinational firms that have supply chains in emerging markets. Similarly, Darkow, Weidmann, and Lorentz, in “Adaptation of Foreign Logistics Service Providers' Resources and Capabilities to a New Institutional Environment,” focus on how these institutional pressures interact for logistics services providers (LSPs). The study of LSPs in emerging markets is very important, as these are often the first international entrants into an emerging market, developing the infrastructure to support operations of other multinational firms. While the international firms have their own unique capabilities and resources, it is important to understand how they interact with unique, country-specific factors, and the extent of market liberalization in emerging markets. For example, in Russia, the complexity of the system and legal environment, along with varying levels of enforcement, can be very challenging for multinational firms to effectively navigate. While the political system sets the formal rules for national markets, social systems influence characteristics of the workforce. They describe the specific example of “blat”—a system of favor exchange practices that is similar to guanxi in China. However, understanding guanxi, which might help in China in finding partners, suppliers, customers, and all levels of employees, would be insufficient in Russia, where blat is primarily a tool for the elite to exploit resources and take advantage of marketization. Thus, the authors point out that, although there are many commonalities between supply chains in emerging economies, it is important to understand these nuanced differences. Set in Russia, this study uses purposive sampling and grounded theory to develop detailed frameworks for understanding the ways that foreign LSPs' resources, and capabilities are adapted to an emerging market business context. Combined, the articles in this STF strengthen the foundation of research on supply chains in emerging markets. They apply existing theory, primarily developed in a Western context, to the unique characteristics of emerging markets by both contextualizing it and extending it. Both articles use very detailed analysis of rich qualitative data to develop an enhanced understanding of important supply chain issues in emerging markets.