- Title
- Firm performance under conditions of environmental turbulence and dependence in supply chain contexts
- Creator
- Kalubanga, Matthew
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2019
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- Understanding the relationship between the firm and the environment in which it operates has been central to most research in the field of management. Such research advocates the view that varying environments depict different importance and value impact of certain firm capabilities. Drawing on the dynamic capabilities view (DCV) (Teece, 2007; Teece, Pisano, & Shuen, 1997), this thesis contributes to ongoing research endeavours by considering how firms in supply chains are able to achieve sustainable competitive performance amidst conditions of change. The DCV provides a theoretical lens through which to explain how firms are able to create and maintain competitive performance by adapting their resources and capabilities to the changing environments in which they operate. Although the DCV has been widely applied, it has not been clearly specified how firms in supply chains, which are often unstable, characterised by conditions of environmental turbulence and dependence, are able to achieve and retain competitive performance. Augmenting the DCV with insights from the resource dependence theory (RDT) (Pfeffer & Salancik, 1978, 2003), this thesis advocates the view that firms in supply chains rely on two complementary ordinary capabilities: ordinary supply chain integration capabilities and ordinary supply chain collaboration capabilities. Ordinary supply chain integration capabilities (OSCICs) concern the firm’s abilities to configure its interdependent resources and associated capabilities within its supply chain in performance-driven patterns. Conversely, ordinary supply chain collaboration capabilities (OSCCoCs) facilitate the firm’s efforts to use its configurations of the interdependent resources and capabilities within the supply chain to create performance differentials. Application of the DCV suggests that a firm’s use of OSCICs and OSCCoCs can only lead to temporary performance advantages, tenable in relatively unchanging environmental conditions. However, these OSCICs and OSCCoCs attenuate in their value creation potential when the context within which they are deployed changes, such that capability gaps arise between the actual configuration of each capability (OSCICs and OSCCoCs) and their corresponding value-maximising configurations. As such, firms must modify their OSCICs and OSCCoCs to fill the emerging gaps and ensure that the modified OSCICs and OSCCoCs remain congruent to the changing environment, through the dynamic capabilities processes of sensing, seizing and reconfiguring. This thesis adopted a cross-sectional survey, using a self-administered questionnaire to collect quantifiable data from senior managers of manufacturing firms in Uganda, and employed partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to analyse 414 valid responses (representing 20.7% of the original statistical sample). In support of the predictions of the DCV, the findings suggest that dynamic capabilities strongly influence firm performance, but indirectly through OSCICs and OSCCoCs, and that different elements of environmental turbulence positively moderate the positive effects of dynamic capabilities on OSCICs and on OSCCoCs. The moderating effects were more prevalent under external environmental turbulence. Thus, firms benefited more from their deployment of dynamic capabilities when faced with greater external environmental turbulence. In addition, the results revealed a positive interaction effect between OSCCoCs and OSCICs, suggesting that the positive influence of OSCICs on firm performance is greater as the OSCCoCs become stronger. Thus, we argue that a firm’s OSCICs and OSCCoCs exist and function in a mutually exclusive fashion and positively interact such that the two capabilities (OSCICs and OSCCoCs) jointly influence firm performance. As such, firms that integrate internally and externally, and can effectively collaborate, have greater potential to attain stronger competitive positions and retain such positions, and ultimately outperform their rivals. In addition, the findings suggest that firms in supply chain contexts benefit more from their deployment of dynamic capabilities, when faced with greater dependence, and focussing their attention on closing capability gaps in OSCICs and OSCCoCs. This thesis provides several implications for theory development and practice by suggesting a lens through which to explain how firms in supply chains can attain and sustain competitive performance by adapting their interdependent resources and ordinary supply chain capabilities (OSCICs and OSCCoCs) when facing varying conditions of environmental turbulence and dependence. The theoretical reasoning underpinning the conceptualisations and empirical findings presented in this thesis enhances the understanding of the DCV through clarifying how dynamic capability deployment in highly changing supply chain environments can lead to sustainable firm performance differentials in situations of environmental turbulence and when facing dependence. This understanding is very important from a supply chain perspective where firms are viewed as operating in unstable supply chain environments, with firm performance dependent on resources and capabilities, and/or performance of other firms in the supply chain (s). In such circumstances, the capabilities by which firms acquire interdependent resources, and configure such resources into competitive bundles, complemented with capabilities to effectively use the existing configurations of interdependent resources and related capabilities within the firm’s supply chain, determine the focal firm’s performance, success and survival.
- Subject
- dynamic capabilities; dependence; environmental turbulence; ordinary supply chain collaboration capabilities; ordinary supply chain integration capabilities; path dependencies; performance
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1406149
- Identifier
- uon:35598
- Rights
- Copyright 2019 Matthew Kalubanga
- Language
- eng
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