Acting as Expected: Global Leadership Preferences and the Pursuit of an Integrated Supply Chain

• Published date: 01 July 2019
• Author: Frank Wiengarten,Damien Power,Piyush Shah,Thomas Kull
• Date: 01 July 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jscm.12208

ACTING AS EXPECTED: GLOBAL LEADERSHIP

PREFERENCES AND THE PURSUIT OF AN INTEGRATED

SUPPLY CHAIN

THOMAS KULL

Arizona State University

FRANK WIENGARTEN

ESADE Business School

DAMIEN POWER

The University of Melbourne, and

University of Groningen

PIYUSH SHAH

Arizona State University

While research has extensively explored the potential benefits companies

gain with integrated supply chains, the topic of why some companies are

better at pursuing supply chain integration (SCI) is relatively under-exam -

ined. We take the perspective that SCI is associated with preferred forms

of leadership using leadership preference derived from path–goal logic. By

combining global data sources, we examine the relationships among lead-

ership style preferences, internal integration (i.e., between sales and pur-

chasing) programs, and external integration (i.e., supplier side) programs.

Our country-level results challenge the assumption that the choice to pur-

sue internal and external integration has similar origins. Specifically,

while collaborative-style leadership preferences relate to internal integra-

tion programs, societies preferring individualistic-style leaders will be pre-

disposed toward external integration programs. Our study’s contribution

is in the novel use of theories on leadership to explain variations in

approaches toward supply chain integration.

Keywords: leadership; supply chain integration; secondary data; multilevel analysis

INTRODUCTION

Orchestrating an increasingly complex global supply

chain landscape requires certain managerial

approaches operating as a sequence of actions for inte-

gration (herein referred to as Supply Chain Integration—

SCI)—both internally (i.e., cross-functionally between

sales and purchasing department) and externally (i.e.,

through supplier integration; Vickery et al., 2003). We

conceptualize internal integration as collaboration

and cooperation in terms of information sharing and

joint decision making between sales and purchasing

departments to facilitate mutually acceptable out-

comes (Pagell, 2004). For external integration, we

adopt the definition of Vanpoucke et al. (2014) who

describe external integration as partnering with suppli-

ers in a collaborative way so as to synchronize interor-

ganizational strategies and processes. This study seeks

to better characterize the managerial and leadership

aspects of these SCI programs by investigating facilita-

tors at the societal level.

Implementing SCI programs can be particularly diffi-

cult given the various stakeholders to the programs.

For example, employees of organizations with

entrenched silos may refuse to cooperate. Employees

who do not strongly identify with the organization

may refuse to participate in the change processes that

Volume 55, Number 3

24

Journal of Supply Chain Management

2019, 55(3), 24–44

©2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

integration demands (Pagell, 2004). Moreover,

because supply chain members are different organiza-

tions with differing incentives, their programmatic

participation is even more difficult (Fawcett et al.,

2012). Given these challenges, conditions that align

stakeholder preferences with leadership efforts toward

SCI are likely to facilitate SCI programs. However, this

role of preferences for leadership actions in establish-

ing SCI programs continues to be under-researched.

We use path–goal logic and implicit leadership the-

ory to suggest that leaders adopt SCI programs

because SCI reflects a style of leadership preferred by

followers. Research has found correspondence

between the extent of SCI and collaborative/coopera-

tive approaches for managing supply chains (Ellinger,

Keller, & Hansen, 2006; Paulraj & Chen, 2007). Here,

leadership style describes characteristics and traits that

are either possessed by leaders or which people per-

ceive are possessed by leaders (House et al., 2004). A

preference sets one thing above another because of a

notion of superiority (Brown, 1984; Von Wright,

1972). And, collaboration and cooperation are under-

stood as “socially contrived mechanisms for collective

action” (Ring & Vandeven, 1994: 96). Taken together,

we argue that SCI programs are more likely to exist

where followers exhibit a preference for leadership

styles consistent with such management approaches.

In this study, we adopt the idea that leadership pref-

erences are societal; that is, different societies prefer

certain specific leadership styles. We take a country-

level perspective using the leadership preference scores

of the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior

Effectiveness (GLOBE) study (House et al., 2004) to

determine if such preference scores relate to differ-

ences in the existence of SCI programs across coun-

tries. As such, we follow a theory-driven approach to

test the field’s prevailing view linking collaboration

with SCI by, specifically, examining whether societal

preferences for collaborative leadership styles associate

with the presence of internal and external SCI pro-

grams. Our specific research questions are (1) To what

extent does a societal preference for collaborative-type

leadership styles facilitate SCI program existence, and

(2) do these preferences increase the presence of sup-

plier integration programs given the presence of inter-

nal integration programs? While recent research has

shown that a country’s cultural traits will predict alli-

ance formation (Choi & Contractor, 2016), we

hypothesize that a country’s leadership preferences are

also predictive. That is, in countries preferring

collaborative-type styles of leadership, firms (and

managers) will be more likely to accept and adopt

both internal, cross-functional integration between

sales and purchasing departments and external, sup-

plier integration.

Our findings indicate some support for a positive

association between preferences for collaborative-type

leadership styles (i.e., participative and team-based

styles) and an organization’s internal integration pro-

grams (limited to sales and purchasing integration

programs). However, these relationships do not hold

for external, supplier integration programs. Further-

more, preferences for a collaborative leadership style

do not positively moderate the association between

internal integration programs (i.e., sales and purchas-

ing) and external integration programs. Interestingly,

preferences for what can be considered individualistic

leadership styles (i.e., self-protective and autonomous

styles) are found to positively moderate this relation-

ship. Our results demonstrate the need for greater

interdisciplinary research between global leadership

and supply chain disciplines (Sanders, Zacharia, &

Fugate, 2013).

Our research makes two important contributions to

the supply chain literature. First, we show the impor-

tance of leadership concepts to SCI research. We show

that preferences for specific leadership styles are con-

sistent with differing levels of SCI, thereby introducing

important noneconomic drivers to the field. More

importantly, supply chain literature has historically

been technique-focused, with concerns for who was

leading or for leadership style being out of scope. By

our study connecting preferences for leadership styles

to forms of SCI, we highlight the connections between

SCM policy and leadership.

Second, we demonstrate that preferences for differ-

ent leadership styles are associated with both external

(in this study with suppliers specifically) integration

programs and internal (in this study between sales

and purchasing departments) integration programs.

Through this, we question the current belief that

external integration is homogenous with internal inte-

gration, at least in its enactment. Thus, a situational

leadership perspective is implied, showing that inter-

nal and external SCI programs present very different

challenges, requiring different managerial and leader-

ship approaches.

LITERATURE AND HYPOTHESES

DEVELOPMENT

Supply Chain Integration: Internal and External

Considerations

The supply chain literature states that SCI programs

have multiple dimensions; meaning there is an inter-

nal focus to SCI that considers integration across a

firm’s departments and an external focus that consid-

ers integration between a focal firm and its upstream

and downstream trading partners (Flynn, Huo, &

Zhao, 2010). SCI has regularly been defined as the

July 2019

Leadership and Supply Chain Integration

25