Paper info

Resource Interdependence In Supply Chains

Anna Dubois , Kajsa Hulthén , Lars-Erik Gadde and Viktoria Sundquist

The paper was published at the 19th IMP-conference in Lugano, Switzerland in 2003.

Over the last two decades business researchers have paid considerable attention to the supply and demand chains of companies. Primarily, the research efforts have been focused on the processes and activities in the chains and the attempts of firms to make them more efficient. The aim of this paper is to analyse how the interplay among the different resource elements in a supply chain shapes the features of the end product of a specific chain. For this analysis we apply the framework developed in Håkansson and Waluszewski (2002) and Wedin (2001) where four main types of resources are identified: ? Products: the products, systems and services subject to business transactions ? Facilities: plants, equipment, etc. used for production and distribution of products? Business units: firms, or parts of firms, involved in the business transactions? Business relationships: the long-term relations that constitute crucial resources. The empirical context of our study is the supply chains and networks involved in shirt manufacturing. In this paper we describe and discuss the supply chain of a shirt with specific features and explore how these features are created through the interplay among the various resources involved. Owing to the space limitations of the paper the focus of the analysis is on the interaction between the product in its various intermediate forms and the facilities in the supply chain.