JSCM Video: Order from Chaos

Editor’s note: This video is collaboration between the Journal of Supply Chain Managementand Supply Chain Management Review. Each month, we bring SCMR readers a video interview from the pages of JSCM.

In this month’s video, we hear from Melek Akin and Robert Suurmond about their recent work with Davide Luzzini and Daniel Krause titled Order from Chaos: A Meta‐analysis of Supply Chain Complexity and Firm Performance.

If we’ve learned anything over the past 18 months, it’s that supply chains are complex. Or, as this months researched note: ”Increased globalization, varying customer requirements, extended product lines, uncertainty regarding supplier performance, and myriad related factors make supply chains utterly complex.

While previous research indicates that supply chain complexity plays an important role in explaining performance outcomes, the accumulating evidence is ambiguous.”

To put this to the test, Akin, Suurmond, Luzzni and Krause, analyzed 123 empirical studies. Among their conclusions is that complexity can improve performance, writing that “although supply chain complexity has a negative effect on operational performance, it has a positive effect on innovation performance and financial performance.”

Be sure to click on the video. You can access the full article here.