پیوند سرمایه گذاری های زنجیره تامین پیشرو و معکوس: نقش عدم اطمینان کسب و کار

This paper explores managerial efforts in reverse supply chains (RSC), where the focus is on the capture and exploitation of used products and materials. The RSC can potentially reduce negative environmental impacts of extracting virgin raw materials and waste disposal. If so, investment in the reverse supply chain should not be made in isolation, but instead must be integrated with investments selected to improve the forward supply chain. After defining and operationalizing these constructs, a survey of plant managers was used to empirically assess the linkages between supply chain investments, organizational risk propensity (i.e., willingness to take risk) and business uncertainty. Reverse supply chain investment had two primary dimensions: reconditioning (i.e., high-value recovery) and recycling and waste management (i.e., low- or no-value recovery). Ongoing investment in the forward supply chain was significantly related to investment in recycling and waste management, but not to investment in reconditioning. Moreover, risk propensity was found to mediate the relationship between the external business uncertainty and investment in the forward and reverse supply chain.

In today's business climate, managers are facing increased pressures to form sustainable supply chains that address increasing environmental concerns (Klassen and Vachon, 2003), expanding sales opportunities in secondary markets (Meyer, 1999), proliferation of take-back laws, particularly in the European Union (Fishbein, 1994 and Toffel, 2003), and growing consumer pressure for environmentally friendly operations. As these pressures intensify, managers must choose from a daunting array of possible alternatives that develop new capabilities, change interactions with customers and suppliers, and require adjustments in existing supply chain partnerships, which, in turn, affect firm performance. Given these complex issues, supply chain management must expand from its traditional focus on the forward flow of materials, components and products to explicitly address the disposal, recycling, reconditioning and remanufacturing of used products. The forward supply chain (FSC) is composed of a series of activities in the process of converting raw materials to finished goods. The manager's objective of investing in the forward supply chain is to improve performance in areas such as procurement, demand management and order fulfillment, amongst others (Cooper et al., 1997). Improvement initiatives can take several forms, including supplier development programs and customer relationship management. In contrast, the reverse supply chain (RSC) refers to the series of activities necessary to retrieve a product from a customer and either dispose of it or recover value (Guide and van Wassenhove, 2002 and Prahinski and Kocabasoglu, 2006). An obligation to manage this return flow of products, often years after their initial sale, has recently been imposed as the European Union directive for all Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), which came into force in the last half of 2005. From the perspective of sustainable development, closing the loop between the manufacturer and customers offers the potential to make significant gains in environmental performance. Yet, firms also face enormous risks in their RSC management involvement. Well-developed systems and capabilities can offer greater customer loyalty and product feedback, while poorly designed and operated systems add significant cost and slow responsiveness. The purpose of this study is to explore investment in the RSC. In particular, we examine the RSC investment as it relates to the FSC, the managers’ perceptions of their organization's risk propensity and the managers’ perceptions of business uncertainty. Thus, this paper makes three contributions. First, our understanding of the RSC is still very limited. Drawing on earlier case-based research and analytical models, RSC investment is defined and operationalized using a survey instrument. Second, the theoretical basis for the antecedents to RSC investment is identified. Particular attention is paid to FSC investment, as well as contextual factors related to business uncertainty and internal factors related to the willingness to accept the risk resulting from that uncertainty, termed organizational risk propensity. Finally, the relationships between RSC investment, FSC investment, risk propensity and business uncertainty are examined. Collectively, this research lays the groundwork for improved operational practice in designing and managing more effective reverse supply chains, which should yield stronger performance. This paper is organized as follows. A review of the literature relevant to this study is provided in Section 2. The theoretical model and hypotheses are introduced in Section 3. Data analysis is presented in Section 4. The discussion of empirical results is presented in Section 5. Conclusions and future research directions are summarized in Section 6.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the factors that may influence RSC investment—an important element of building more sustainable operations and supply chains. Broad-scale, empirical research using a survey methodology is relatively novel as the field of operations management seeks to better understand reverse supply chains. Specifically, we considered whether four dimensions of business uncertainty, namely munificence, dynamism, hostility and heterogeneity, influenced investments in both forward and reverse supply chains. In addition, we investigated whether managers’ perceptions of the organizational risk propensity, either in the FSC or RSC, mediated the relationship between business uncertainty and investment outcomes. Our survey and empirical analysis identified a number of interesting results. First, valid and reliable scales were developed for RSC investment. Of significance for both future research and practice, this investment construct split into two distinct dimensions. Reconditioning, including collection, testing and refurbishment, aim for high-value recovery. In contrast, recycling and waste management captured little or no value from used materials. Modified scales were also validated for organizational risk propensity, or the willingness to accept risk, for investments in the FSC and RSC. These constructs laid the foundation for the second major contribution regarding mediation. For the most part, management's perception of the business uncertainty was not directly related to the investments. The only exception occurred for hostility, where a more hostile business climate was directly related to investment in low- or no-value recovery, i.e., recycling and waste management. The overall tendency toward support of the mediated models is aligned with the contention that risk perception does not directly influence risk behavior (Sitkin and Pablo, 1992). Thus, organizational risk propensity was a significant mediating factor between business uncertainty and investment. In the strategy literature, researchers have typically considered strategy to be the mediating variable in the relationship between business uncertainty and company practices. Although risk propensity has been overlooked in many prior studies linking uncertainty and management practices (Sitkin and Pablo, 1992), our results suggest that managers’ perceptions of the organization's willingness to accept or seek risk were an important determinant of the investment patterns. Finally, the empirical results identified positive linkages between FSC investment and investment in recycling and waste management, which tends to recover little or no value. However, given the early stage of development of reconditioning, recovery and remanufacturing processes, it is not surprising that these high-value recovery options are lagging and that closed-loop supply chains are still a challenge to many companies. We may expect to see the investment linkages develop as manufacturing plants continue to build these capabilities. Several potentially rewarding research opportunities flow from the study. Additional research is needed to understand the performance outcomes associated with these investments, including both economic and environmental performance. Previous studies have suggested that RSC investment should improve operational performance and satisfaction with channel partnerships (Prahinski and Kocabasoglu, 2006), but empirical support is limited. Second, time-series data can provide additional insights on the causal relationships between business climate, risk propensity and investments. Finally, we suggest that future studies include organizational risk propensity in examining investment strategies and patterns as this construct clearly influences managerial decisions. Doing so will enhance ability to influence managers to make strategically important decisions in the face of uncertainty and without undue conservatism.