外文原稿Perspectivesonriskmanagementinsupplychains.docx

1、外文原稿PerspectivesonriskmanagementinsupplychainsPerspectives on risk management in supply chainsAbstractManaging risk in supply chains is an important topic in supply chain management. The topics importance is due to several industry trends currently in place: increase in strategic outsourcing by firm

2、s, globalizations of markets, increasing reliance on suppliers for specialized capabilities and innovation, reliance on supply networks for competitive advantage, and emergence of information technologies that make it possible to control and coordinate extended supply chains. This article identifies

3、 some important aspects of risk management in supply chains and summarizes the four articles that are in this special issue. This emerging area of research interest deserves considerable attention and it is our hope that the articles in this special issue would spur additional research on this impor

4、tant topic.1 IntroductionManaging risk in supply chains has emerged as an important topic in supply chain management. The topic derives its importance due to several industry trends currently in place: increase in strategic outsourcing by firms, globalizations of markets, increasing reliance on supp

5、liers for specialized capabilities and innovation, reliance on supply networks for competitive advantage, and emergence of information technologies that make it possible to control and coordinate extended supply chains. These trends have manifested themselves in an increase in outsourcing and off-sh

6、oring of manufacturing and R&D activities, low cost country (LCC) sourcing, and collaboration with international supplier partners (Fisher, 1997; Lee, 2002). While these increase the strategic options for firms, they also increase the probability of experiencing adverse events in supply chains that

7、significantly threaten normal business operations of firms in the supply chains. Along with the increase in these initiatives, there has been an increase in the potential and magnitude of supply chain risks (Blackhurst et al., 2005). Recent events involving food supply chains (for example, Melamine

8、in infant formula and powdered milk sourced from China) underscore risks of extended supply chains. Supply chain disruptions can also adversely affect the financial performance of firms. The study by Hendricks and Singhal (2005) showed how media announcements of supply chain disruptions can affect s

9、tock price and shareholder value. Supply chain risks, their impact and management are receiving much attention among practitioners and academicians alike. The objectives of this special issue are to: (1) highlight supply chain risk management as an important area of investigation in operations and s

10、upply chain management; and (2) to present a compendium of articles that break new ground in addressing methodological and theoretical issues dealing with supply chain risk management. Supply chain risk management (SCRM) can be viewed as a strategic management activity in firms given that it can aff

11、ect operational, market and financial performance of firms. Organizational efficiency and performance are enhanced when strategy to reduce uncertainty takes into account context and environmental realities (Duncan, 1972). In the case of SRCM, context can be interpreted to refer to sources of risk, m

12、agnitude of risk and its relationship to business objectives, and threat of disruption in supply chains. Environmental realities can be interpreted to mean the degree of exposure to adverse events, scope of extended supply chains, supplier management practices, etc. Therefore, the essence of SCRM is

13、 to make decisions that optimally align organizational processes and decisions to exploit opportunities while simultaneously minimizing risk (Miles and Snow, 1978; Venkatraman and Camillus, 1984). Supply chain disruptions can materialize either inside or outside a supply chain. As Wagner and Bode (2

14、008) point out, the financial default of a supplier and an earthquake that destroys production capacity are situations with completely different attributes and therefore have different effects on the supply chain. This observation points to the need for effective methodology for anticipating, identi

15、fying, classifying and assessing risks in supply chains. The papers in this issue seek to address these aspects of supply chain risk management. We briefly discuss the four papers in this special issue by way of introduction to the special issue and to motivate the issues examined in each.2 Value fo

16、cused process engineeringSupply chain risks contribute to the overall business risks. An example that illustrates this arises in strategic outsourcing engagements. Firms outsource for a variety of reasonscost reduction, need for strategic agility, innovation and to increase their ability to respond

17、to rapidly changing customer demands. In the case of innovation based outsourcing engagement, achieving business objectives requires effective use of integrative supply management practices. These include information integration, knowledge integration and design integration. It is apparent that in t

18、hese engagements, there is risk of knowledge leak, since the firms cannot have complete control over knowledge inflows and knowledge outflows. In this situation, while the firm might achieve its innovation objective, it might run the risk of disclosing proprietary knowledge that might reduce its com

19、petitiveness in the future or the firm might find itself in a lock-in situation with the supplier. These supply management risks must be carefully identified and evaluated vis-a-vis the business objectives. Some of these issues have been considered in the literature (Christopher and Peck, 2004; Nara

20、simhan et al., 2008; Gaudenzi and Borghesi, 2006). The strategic outsourcing context is but one instance where the need to identify and relate risks to supply chain activities is manifested.In the article Supply Chain Risk Identification with Value-Focused Process Engineering, the authors explicate

21、a novel methodology for identifying process-based supply chain risk. The importance of supply chain risk identification methodology has been recognized in the literature. As the authors comment, it is important to have a coherent representation of supply chain structure and use it to express how dif

22、ferent risks are related to the various components of the supply chain structure. It is also essential to classify the nature of the risks before embarking on full blown risk assessment and developing risk mitigation strategies. The paper addresses supply chain risk management under the rubric of ma

23、naging organizational uncertainty.Much of the literature on supply chain risk has dealt with various types of risk and sources of such risk (Norrman and Lindroth, 2004; Speckman and Davis, 2004). They have not taken a multidimensional view of risk that encompasses supply management processes, object

24、ives and risk source. It is recognized in the literature that risk can be studied as a mathematical construct (Cachon, 2004; Tomlin, 2006), conceptual construct (Svensson, 2004; Zsidisin and Smith, 2005) or a combination of the two approaches (Wu and Knott, 2006). As pointed out by the authors, the

25、conceptual view of risk might be very useful in the risk identification stage.The general approach to risk management should start with the identification of business objectives and performance goals and associated risks. Identifying risk, thus increasing its visibility in the performance evaluation

26、 process, leads to risk minimization strategies that can contribute to performance gains (see for example, Ritchie and Brindley, 2004). In this analysis stage, understanding the hierarchy of business risks is essential.Extant literature has focused on identifying sources of uncertainty and the risks

27、 that emanate from them. To do this effectively, it is necessary to develop a consistent methodology for risk identification. Several authors have addressed this issue (see, for example, Chopra and Sodhi, 2004; Wu and Knott, 2006). Risk identification is succeeded by quantification of risks that can

28、 be used in deriving risk mitigation strategies (Cachon, 2004; Sodhi, 2005). Another aspect of supply chain risk management is that supply chain risks manifest themselves in the disruption of supply chain flows. These can be disruptions to material flows, information flows, knowledge flows, and cont

29、rol and coordination flows. This perspective of supply chain risks requires that sources and types of risk be related to the flows that occur within the supply chain. The literature on this aspect of risk identification is not extensive (Juttner, 2005; Paulson, 2004). The Value-Focused Process Engin

30、eering (VFPE) methodology seeks to fill this gap in the literature. VFPE is based on the extended-event-driven Process Chain (e-EPC) representation of business activities and processes (Scheer, 1999). VFPE methodology integrates value-focused thinking (VFT) developed by Keeney (1992) and e-EPC (Sche

31、er, 2000). Nieger, Rotaru and Churilov, in their article, define a five-step process for risk identification in supply chains. These are: (1) Activity driven identification of risk objectives; (2) Objective driven identification of risk objectives; (3) Synchronized decomposition; (4) e-EPC taxonomy

32、of risk sources, and (5) combining events structure to the objective structure. The authors illustrate these five steps of the VFPE methodology by considering a generic supply chain from Scheer (1999).After explicating the five steps of the VFPE process, the authors identify how the proposed methodo

33、logy conforms to the properties of supply chain risk identification process. They argue that the suggested approach conforms to the following properties: objective driven identification and assessment of risk, risks included as part of objective structure, risks linked to supply chain activities, risks linked to individual sources,