Purpose The purpose of this paper is to deal with the transfer of lean practices between different units in multi-plant organizations with different levels of adoption of lean practices. It investigates how certain influential contextual variables – i.e. lean standards development, lean...

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...

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...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate routes towards supplier and production network internationalisation. Design/methodology/approach – Multiple case‐study analysis has been applied to a sample of 11 Italian footwear and apparel companies with headquarters located in the...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study whether a fast supply network structure interacts with customer integration (CI) by positively moderating the relationship between CI and efficiency performance. Design/methodology/approach – The authors developed two hypotheses, incorporating...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study whether just in time (JIT) supply practices interact with JIT production practices by positively moderating the relationship between JIT production and efficiency/delivery performance. Design/methodology/approach – In total, six hypotheses are...

Purpose – This research intends to investigate whether there are synergies that a firm could or should exploit by simultaneously implementing customer and supplier integration. In particular, the aim is to analyze the impact of customer integration on efficiency, and the moderating role of...