Career Patterns of Supply Chain Executives: An Optimal Matching Analysis

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jbl.12150
• Date: 01 March 2017
• Author: Kai Hoberg,Christoph Flöthmann
• Published date: 01 March 2017

Career Patterns of Supply Chain Executives: An Optimal Matching

Analysis

Christoph Fl€

othmann

1,2

and Kai Hoberg

1

1

K€

uhne Logistics University

2

Copenhagen Business School

This exploratory study analyzes the careers of 307 supply chain executives (SCEs). Motivated by career theory, our findings create new

knowledge about the educational backgrounds and career paths that lead to SCE positions. Based on an optimal matching analysis, we are

able to distinguish among six career patterns for SCEs. They differ in terms of the individuals’previous professional experience, educational

background, and the time they needed to arrive in an executive position. By characterizing the backgrounds and career paths of SCEs, we show

that supply chain management (SCM) is truly a cross-functional profession. Our findings suggest that previous staff responsibility appears to be

a more important hiring criterion than extensive SCM experience. While 56% of the executives had prior staff responsibility, only 12% of the

cumulated careers were actually spent inside the SCM function.

Keywords: career patterns; supply chain management; executives; optimal matching analysis; human resources

INTRODUCTION

Mounting evidence indicates a shortage of qualified supply chain

personnel on a global scale (Cottrill 2010). Given the fact that

the complexity of global supply chains is increasing, it is not

surprising that the demands on supply chain managers have

changed (Harvey and Richey 2001). A recent global survey of

almost 600 supply chain management (SCM) professionals

revealed that organizations lack an understanding of their supply

chain talents and how to support their recruitment, succession

planning, training, and development (John 2015). This lack of

understanding of the people who manage supply chains deserves

attention (Wieland et al. 2016) because SCM is driven by human

interaction (Sweeney 2013). Companies are now aware that supe-

rior SCM competency positively influences firm financial perfor-

mance (Ellinger et al. 2011). This competency is directly related

to supply chain personnel. Despite standardized processes and

extensive technological support systems, humans must make cru-

cial supply chain decisions (McCarter et al. 2005). In particular,

supply chain executives (SCEs)—decision makers with high-

level management responsibility—heavily influence company

performance. Acquiring knowledge about the backgrounds and

career paths that are associated with the SCM function is a

means of learning more about key SCM talent, which should be

of particular interest to scholars and practitioners for two reasons.

Bird (1996) highlights that through their evolving careers, people

accumulate information and knowledge, which are embodied in

skills, expertise, and relationship networks. This information and

knowledge add value to a firm. In other words, previous career

positions serve as sources of the competence and experience that

SCEs use to make the right decisions.

A career can be defined as “cumulative work experience over

the entire life span”(Hall and Las Heras 2010, 449). Spilerman

(1977) describes the term more technically: as a sequence of job

positions over time. Careers constitute a rich source of data,

making them highly valuable for academic studies. Given the

extraordinary nature of SCM, the lack of knowledge about the

backgrounds of SCEs is particularly surprising: The profession

breaks down functional silos and connects many different entities

across intra- and intercompany boundaries (Lambert and Cooper

2000). To be successful in SCM, executives must possess pro-

found cross-functional knowledge of various business fields,

strategic decision-making and communication skills, and strong

analytical competencies, all of which are necessary to manage

the manifold tasks that these executives face on a daily basis

(Gammelgaard and Larson 2001; Hohenstein et al. 2014). More-

over, its global connectivity and intercultural teams and relation-

ships distinguish SCM from other departments (Cottrill 2010).

As the distinctions we outline indicate, SCM demands diverse

skills of its employees. As careers shape individuals’skills and

knowledge, it is worthwhile to investigate their characteristics. In

this study, we focus particularly on the “executive”level. SCEs

already have well-established careers, and their histories contain

large amounts of information in the form of previous job posi-

tions, functions, industries, and companies. In addition, they are

decision makers with the power to heavily influence their firms’

success. And managers that have advanced to an SCE position

can be regarded as examples of successful careers.

In particular, we focus on a set of three research questions in

this study:

•What are the educational backgrounds of SCEs?

•Are there career patterns among SCEs and if so, what are their

characteristics?

•What are the drivers of rapid career advancement into SCE

positions?

The remainder of the study is structured as follows: In the first

section, we present an overview of the relevant literature on

career theory and managerial/SCM career research and elaborate

on our research questions. In the second section, we provide a

Corresponding author:

Kai Hoberg, K€

uhne Logistics University, Großer Grasbrook 17,

20457 Hamburg, Germany; E-mail: kai.hoberg@the-klu.org

Journal of Business Logistics, 2017, 38(1): 35–54 doi: 10.1111/jbl.12150

© Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals

comprehensive overview of the data collection and sample selec-

tion processes. In the third section, we present optimal matching

analysis (OMA) as an appropriate research methodology and

describe the methodology in detail. In the fourth section, we pre-

sent our empirical results. Finally, we conclude and discuss the

limitations of this study and future research opportunities.

LITERATURE REVIEW AND DEVELOPMENT OF

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

Career theory and research

Career theory can be defined as “the body of generalizable

attempts to explain career phenomena”(Arthur et al. 1989, 9). It

takes an interdisciplinary approach across various social sciences

fields, including psychology, sociology, economics, and history.

From a psychological viewpoint, for example, career theory can

guide individuals and organizations to fill job openings in a

mutually beneficial way (e.g., Holland 1997) and enable econo-

mists to study the long-term accumulation of human capital (e.g.,

Becker 1993). One impactful career theory that emerged in the

1990s is the “boundaryless career,”which was developed by

Arthur (1994), DeFillippi and Arthur (1994), and Arthur and

Rosseau (1996). Arthur and Rosseau (1996) describe careers as

boundaryless in many ways: People move through different func-

tions, organizations, industries, and locations during their careers.

The revolutionary concept of the boundaryless career stands in

stark contrast to earlier theories that assumed a lifelong

employer–employee relationship and a strong focus on a specific

type of job throughout a career (Super 1957).

Another main characteristic of career theory is that it encour-

ages the study of individuals, institutions, and their coherence

(Arthur et al. 1989). A career is described by the traits of the

individual, the characteristics of the working environment, and—

most importantly—the person–environment match (Betz et al.

1989). Both employee and employer will only experience ade-

quate job performance if there is congruence and correspondence

between the individual’s traits and the working environment’s

requirements. Finding congruence, therefore, is of essential inter-

est to both employee and employer. Human resource manage-

ment (HRM) departments in particular are compelled to learn

more about which people match the job requirements best in

order to derive staffing strategies and design career systems

(Sonnenfeld 1989). In this study, we advance the knowledge of

the backgrounds and career movements of SCEs who are in

place today as a means of supporting the two groups of stake-

holders in career and staffing decisions. We also aim to show

whether SCE movement supports the boundaryless career theory

in terms of constant movement through different functions and

industries.

Supply chain executives

The developmental career view describes executives as individuals

who “provide direction for a significant part of the organiza-

tion, exercise significant formal and informal power, and sponsor

promising individuals to (...) prepare them for key roles in the

organization in the future”(Dalton 1989, 97). These traits make

executives particularly interesting for career studies. Researchers

have applied several definitions of “executives”and have

researched various target groups (Menz 2012). They have inves-

tigated top management teams (TMTs) (e.g., Hambrick and

Mason 1984), CEOs (e.g., Hambrick and Cannella 2004), CFOs

(e.g., Zorn 2004), and supra-TMTs (e.g., Finkelstein et al. 2009),

among others. However, SCEs have been the targets of relatively

little research because the term “SCE”is not unambiguously

defined, and the perception of SCM and its tasks in practice

remain fuzzy (Fawcett et al. 2008). It is not surprising that dif-

ferent definitions have been applied in the literature. For

instance, Wagner and Kemmerling (2014) study the presence of

chief supply chain officers (CSCOs) in corporate upper echelons.

In their sample, they consider the job titles “CSCO,”“executive

vice president,”and “vice president”as SCEs. Hendricks et al.

(2014) investigate the stock market reaction to appointments of

supply chain and operations executives. They extend the search

terms for SCEs to “chief,”“(vice) president,”“director,”and

“head.”Likewise, the Council of Supply Chain Management

Professionals (CSCMP) advocates a broader definition of “execu-

tives,”proposing a model that distinguishes among three primary

levels in SCM: “executives,”“managers,”and “analysts”(CSCMP

2010). According to the council, an SCE “leads the development

and implementation of supply chain strategy to support enterprise

goals”(CSCMP 2010). This definition complies with the descrip-

tion by Dalton (1989) and is also applicable to the labels used by

Hendricks et al. (2014). In line with those authors and the

CSCMP’sdefinition (2010), we consider “CSCOs,”SCM “(execu-

tive/senior) vice presidents,”“directors,”and “heads”(and the

equivalents “principals,”“leaders,”and “Leiter”

1

) to be SCEs in

this study. Table 1 provides an overview. Moreover, we list the

manager and analyst levels according to the CSCMP definition that

were deliberately excluded from this study (see also section “Data

collection”).

Development of research questions

Educational background

SCM is a relatively young discipline. Despite the rapidly grow-

ing recognition of SCM that emerged in the 1980s, the debate on

how to define it still continues (Mentzer et al. 2008). The lack of

a clear definition also affects SCM education: Universities have

established programs for SCM only recently (Korn 2013), and

the university programs that do exist differ significantly in vari-

ous ways. While SCM programs are under the umbrella of the

business schools or business administration programs of some

universities, they are part of the engineering schools at others

(Cottrill and Rice 2012). Therefore, the field of study and/or

which type of degree today’s SCEs hold is unclear. Advanced

education should provide people with greater knowledge that will

enable them to perform their tasks and jobs successfully. Studies

have shown that academic or educational qualifications can pre-

dict job performance in management-related and other skilled

occupations (Singer and Bruhns 1991; Myers et al. 2004). Edu-

cation can be considered the foundation for a person’s later

career, as it provides the theoretical tools necessary to fulfill the

1

German term for “head.”

36 C. Fl€

othmann and K. Hoberg