Determinants and Dimensions of Supply Chain Evolution Path

Abstract

Vertical integration, as well as outsourcing, are typical make or buy decisions and have been given attention in the academic area and among practitioners. Many previous studies have been done on the determinants of the span of process of a firm and the related choice of appropriate governance structure. In turn, those decisions affect an appropriate structure of supply chain which continually evolves with environmental changes. In this study, we propose an evolution map of supply chains and groups of accelerators and decelerators which accelerate or decelerate the evolution of supply chains. In creating a supply chain evolution map, we define three dimensions of the evolution, namely, span of process, supplier base structure and inter-organizational relationship. Following these dimensions, we propose three stages for each dimension: full spectrum, core and outsourcing and Micro-some for the first dimension, span of process. One-to-one, N-to-one and No-to-N for the second dimension, supplier base structure.