Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse the interactions that are engaged in when specialist organizations collaborate in business networks organized around global value chains. Interaction costs are defined as including transaction costs plus the costs for exchanging information and...

Purpose: Customer service provision is a growing phenomenon on social media and parcel shipping companies have been among the most prominent adopters. This has coincided with greater interest in the development of analysis techniques for unstructured big data from social media platforms, such...

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the egocentric network-based strategies used by upstream firms to ensure their own resilience when the disruptions originate with downstream partners. Design/methodology/approach: The paper adopts a case study approach as this is well-suited to...

Purpose – The success of e-retailers is intrinsically linked to the effectiveness of their logistics processes which, inevitably, involve third party service providers. As the most tangible representative of the e-retailers it is inevitable that customers expect the e-retailer to resolve...

The term “value chain” encompasses a variety of ideas and concepts. This paper identifies two major themes: a “macro” perspective of how markets operate and, at the other extreme, a process‐driven “micro” view of the individual firm itself. Focusing on the latter in particular, it...

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to argue that a number of organisations focused their efforts on developing sophisticated supply chains such that their managerial focus became myopic, and many lost sight of their markets and their customers, missing the fact that the customers,...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to briefly review earlier contributions to partner/cooperative innovation with the aim of evaluating the application of the concept to the increasingly popular virtual/value chain business model. Design/methodology/approach – A number of example cases...

This monograph considers recent developments in management techniques and proposes their use in physical distribution system planning. The recent developments in physical distribution management are reviewed and the author considers how such techniques as missions analysis and systems thinking...

There are a number of environmental pressures working to develop a pattern for future grocery retailing. Urban congestion is forcing re‐development of city centres to exclude the private car, but at the same time restriction of delivery activities is likely. Combined with this is the pressure...