Purpose – The aim of this paper is to investigate which integrative planning and control practices are used in hospitals and what their effects are on patient flow. Design/methodology/approach – The study is based on a three‐hospital multi‐case study carried out in The Netherlands. The...

Quality management ignores organizational culture to a great extent. Establishes the relationship between organizational culture and quality management and presents a method for measuring organizational culture, illustrating the relationship in a case study. Gives recommendations for using the...

Purpose – Buyer‐focused operations aim at a high level of supply chain alignment by singling out resources for one buyer in order to serve this buyer optimally. The purpose of this paper is to identify what business characteristics make suppliers choose buyer‐focused operations as a supply...

Purpose – The concept of buyer focus has recently been introduced as a new supply chain strategy, although the design and operation of buyer‐focused cells have hardly been investigated. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how buyer‐focused cells realise responsiveness....

Purpose – The objective of this paper is to gain a better understanding of the impact of context on the adoption of e‐commerce in supply chains. Design/methodology/approach – A literature review, 45 semi‐structured interviews in four different supply chains in the UK healthcare sector,...

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to analyse the extent of the integration between manufacturers and third party logistics (TPL) providers at present and how the integration is expected to develop in the near future. The focus is on studying what tasks are part of the cooperation, what...

Purpose – In successful purchasing relationships, effective communication is a key factor. The purpose of this paper is to explore whether the choice of communication media is affected by different stages in the relationship development process and by different purchasing contexts: product and...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of three different dimensions of customer‐induced uncertainty and task uncertainty on the mix of physicians' coordination practices. Design/methodology/approach – An improvement and research project are combined resulting in...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review and classify survey‐based research connecting information and communication technology (ICT), supply chain management (SCM), and supply chain (SC) performance. The review evaluates present empirical results and aims at detecting explanations...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effectiveness of supply chain integration in different contexts. More specifically, it aims to show that supply chain integration is only effective in buyer‐supplier relationships characterised by high supply complexity....