How U.S. Businesses are Adapting to New Economic Realities

The transaction volume between the supply chain partners contributes to the overall business volume of the firm. This measure represents the proportion of a company's sales revenue or purchasing value that is attributed to the buyer's firm or the supplier's product/service, depending on the perspective.Time to talk about relationships. The duration of the relationship was assessed using a six-item scale, which included options ranging from less than one year to 21 years or more, with each additional option representing a five-year increment. Collaborative standards. Research has demonstrated that cooperative norms are crucial in creating a positive relationship atmosphere that promotes performance improvements (Malhotra et al. 2007). We utilized a one-item measure to assess cooperative norms.

Focus on the future. 

A measure was used to assess the long-term orientation between the supply chain partners, specifically focusing on whether they had long-term relationship goals. Believe. The study utilized a simplified measure of trust, where participants were asked about the foundation of trust in their relationships with partner firms. Uncertainty in the environment. Market volatility and market diversity are indicators of environmental uncertainty (Achrol and Stern 1988; Ganesan 2004; Palmatier et al. 2007). Market volatility refers to the frequency at which market forces fluctuate, while market diversity pertains to the varying needs and preferences of end users. The measures of environmental uncertainty were derived from the works of Selnes and Sallis (2003) and Ganesan (1994). The participants were requested to express their level of agreement with three statements that describe the market environment for the product(s)/service being exchanged in the study. Supply chain partnership. We utilized a five-point Likert scale that spanned from "Strongly Disagree" to "Strongly Agree." Unpredictability of the product. Product volatility can have a negative effect on supply chain performance. The complexity of the product and the ever-changing specifications make it difficult to predict how the product will perform. Therefore, two items were used to measure the unpredictability of the product, with each item capturing one dimension of the construct. We utilized a five-point Likert scale that spanned from "Strongly Disagree" to "Strongly Agree."

Example

Information was gathered through an online survey spanning five months. The survey was distributed to supply chain professionals with the help of two supply chain professional associations - the Association for Operations Management (APICS) and the Institute for Supply Management (ISM). As a reward for taking part in the survey, participants who completed it were given a chance to win one of five prizes $50 Amazon gift certificates. The researcher initially gathered data from a randomly selected group of 2,480 APICS members. The informants selected for this study were middle or senior managers who held direct responsibilities for the supply chain management function in their organizations. APICS chose not to reveal the email addresses of the selected members due to privacy concerns. Nevertheless, it was willing to send an email on behalf of the researcher to those members, inviting them to participate. In order to stimulate responses, the researcher kindly offered to supply APICS and interested members with an executive summary of the findings. The survey invitation email was sent in two rounds in mid-July, with the second round serving as a friendly reminder after one week of the initial round. We received a grand total of 83 responses. The response rate was only 3%. Out of the 83 responses, A total of 76 usable responses were obtained after filtering out the ones with significant missing information. There were 46 responses from customers and 30 responses from suppliers. Additionally, the researcher reached out to the board of directors and officers of 145 ISM affiliates via email, requesting their participation in the survey. Furthermore, participants were requested to share the survey link with other ISM members who may have an interest in the research topic. 

Finally, the Executive Officers of each affiliate were reached out to via e-mails and telephone calls to request their support in distributing the survey to the members of their affiliates. 

In order to boost engagement, the researcher proposed offering an executive report of the study's findings to ISM affiliates and their interested members. 14 affiliates granted permission for the researcher to distribute the survey. We received a grand total of 97 responses from the ISM population. Out of the 97 responses, 9 had to be removed because they were missing too much information. This left us with a total of 88 usable responses. The customer responses totaled 80, while the supplier responses amounted to 8. The APICS sample and the ISM sample were compared in terms of supply chain characteristics, such as the duration of the supply chain relationship, the annual dollar transaction value within the supply chain, and the proportion of the responding firm's overall transaction value attributed to the supply chain. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) was utilized to perform the comparison. The results indicated that the supply chain data collected from the two supply chain associations exhibited no significant differences in terms of supply chain characteristics. Furthermore, the duration of the respondents' experience in the field of supply chain management was compared between the APICS sample and the ISM sample using ANOVA. There was no notable distinction between the two samples in terms of statistical significance. Regarding the individual's experience in supply chain management. Thus, there were no concerns about sample bias in the data, allowing for the combination of the APICS sample and ISM sample for further analysis. Here are the results of the ANOVA tests, as displayed in Table .