Improving Supply Chain Collaboration through Planned Change Towards an approach for change management in supply chains

Abstract

To mitigate disruptions in supply chains, organizations must consider not only risks affecting their operations but also those which affect their partners. As a consequence, supply chain disruptions can only be dealt with through a collaborative effort by the supply chain as a whole. To improve their management of disruptions and ensure their continued existence, organizations need to increase collaboration in their supply chain. This requires changes to be made both internally and externally in the supply chain. Yet scholars provide little advice regarding how planned changes can be implemented and maintained outside organizational boundaries. This thesis aims to help organizations improve their supply chain collaboration by attaining an increased understanding of how planned changes can be implemented in a supply chain context. The results of the study show that an extraordinary event, such as a major disruption, was sometimes required for the change process to start. A crisis may thus present an opportunity for organizations to improve their supply chain collaboration. Furthermore, the process of improving collaboration differed when buyers and suppliers were more or less dependent on each other. Collaboration improved with more ease when there was a mutual dependency between partners, while independence prevented it from developing. Practitioners have to consider this when implementing planned change initiatives, preferably by using different strategies for different partners. However, this approach means that some existing change models may become difficult to apply in practice. More research needs to be conducted to make these applicable to supply chains.