Supply Network Design and the Competitive Position of Leadership

Abstract

Extant studies consistently illustrate the unidimensional and interdisciplinary measurement of leadership, mostly at an individual level. However, leadership with incontrovertible benefits in supply networks cannot be measured based on the previous perspectives realistically in current dynamic and complex situations. Utilizing theoretical-conceptual research based on a review in prior theories and methodologies with grounding our study in a proposed performance framework, we examine how to investigate leaders comprehensively with integrating existent theories in three interrelated aspects of the network in which leadership will emerge. While in general, we find that previous studies employing limited strategies to estimate leadership through performance analysis, such an approach is not universal, and consequently, the results will be far away from reality. Rather, this research aims to leverage different theories into multilevel analysis framework with a multidimensional assessment approach to investigate leadership which is highly contingent upon not only three aspects of network relations, network structure, and organizational functions, but also some capacities and capabilities that make each organization eligible to be a leader in the supply network context. Our results, therefore, suggest that it would be advantageous for network design or modification to take a multilevel, multidisciplinary, and multidimensional perspective and strategically incorporate integrated theories and effective characteristics concerning leadership when determining where the position of leadership in our supply network is.