A supply chain collaboration created purely for business reasons is difficult to sustain. It is more likely to succeed if the supply chain partners share the same ideals or maintain a warm personal relationship. So argues Prof Robert Jan Blomme of Nyenrode Business University. He spoke about leadership at the Supply Chain Excellence Leadership Platform (SCELP). "Cooperation based on shared values has a more solid foundation than cooperation where only economic motives play a role."
Blomme is a professor of Organisation Behaviour at Nyenrode Business University. He gave SCELP's supply chain professionals an insight into fields such as sociology and behavioural psychology. In those disciplines lies much of the explanation of why some collaborations are more successful than others. According to Blomme, it has to do with which interests are served by cooperation. And these need not only be economic interests, he reminded the SCELP participants.
Social exchange
Blomme argues that companies will only cooperate if there is a mutual interest. All parties want to make an effort in the expectation that they will also get something in return. In other words, a 'social exchange' takes place. Science distinguishes between three forms of social exchange:
- Transactional (economic): people have a financial interest in the collaboration e.g. if the supplier provides a service and he is paid for it;
- Relational (psychological): people may enjoy working together because they appreciate each other's attention, because they can tell each other meaningful things or because they can do fun things together, et cetera;
- Ideological (congruence of values): people feel a connection with each other because they share certain values (such as sustainability) and want to work together to further these values.
In the supply chain, partners are sometimes condemned to cooperate because it gives them higher sales or profit margin. "But cooperation based on shared values has a firmer foundation than cooperation involving only economic motives. If the partners then also do fun things that involve the relational aspect, it leads to a more sustainable form of cooperation," says Blomme.
Sustainability as an ideal
Jack van der Veen has gained a lot of experience with chain cooperation in construction in recent years. The professor of Supply Chain Management at Nyenrode and initiator of SCELP experienced a first wave of chain cooperation that mainly involved transactional exchange. The economic principle was leading. "The results were meagre. In the second wave of chain cooperation, there is a shared ideology, namely sustainability (energy transition, circularity). That seems to lead to more commitment for the time being," Van der Veen states.
That sustainability is alive and well is also evident from a survey during the SCELP meeting. Many participants would like to know more about sustainability in relation to the field of supply chain management. One question is whether supply chain professionals have a pioneering role to play when it comes to sustainability. In any case, it now appears that supply chain cooperation is more likely to succeed if all partners pursue a social goal such as sustainability in addition to cost savings or revenue enhancement.
From trust to contract
Another question is how to perpetuate a successful collaboration. The problem is that many successful collaborations are based on trust between the people involved. It happens all too often that trust disappears when these individuals leave. As a result, the collaboration often stranded as well, practice shows.
"That remains a problem," argues Blomme. "The fact that companies grant each other something often has to do with a friendly relationship between the determining persons. This can be perpetuated by formalising the collaboration in the form of a contract. A formal relationship in one form or another - often in the form of a potential transaction - must be present for a successful collaboration to take place."
SCELP pools knowledge
With the twentieth meeting, SCELP concluded its first cycle of five years. The platform was founded in 2012 with the aim of advancing the field of supply chain management by underpinning the practical knowledge of supply chain professionals with theory. This has led to many new insights, which will be published in a series of white papers in the coming months. In addition, several tools are under development, including to measure supply chain maturity, determine culture, check supply chain strategy and determine leadership style.
In 2018, SCELP will start a new cycle with new themes. The first meeting is on 12 March, again at Nyenrode Business University. Then the new themes will be identified, which will then be explored in the quarterly meetings using theoretical insights, practical cases, guest speakers and table discussions.
