Improving performance of supply chains by leveraged hard solutions and business cultures

Abstract

Leveraging hard solutions with business culture is an important but rarely discussed problem. The need to harmonize systems and cultures is well understood in Asia. Western researchers and managers tend to rely on reductionism and prefer to focus only those phenomena, that can be easily modeled in a quantitative manner. This paper presents initial results of an ongoing research project, which aims to develop a well-justified methodology, capable to analyze both, cultural phenomena and material processes, in supply chains. A five-dimensional hybrid model of supply chain management (SCM) practices was developed to support holistic modeling of existing or future phenomena and empirical research. The presented considerations refer to the product development and production flow processes. The obtained and expected outcomes have double, scientific and practical importance. © 2008 International Federation for Information Processing.