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PurposeCatastrophic supply chain disruptions can significantly damage the operational and financial performance of firms. While a growing body of literature on supply network structures has studied what influences supply networks' vulnerability to supply chain disruptions and capability to recover from them, it remains unclear how supply network structures change after major supply chain disruptions. We aim to provide an understanding of how these changes occur.Design/methodology/approachUsing a natural experiment approach and supply network data from Factset, this study investigates how firms' supply network structures change after experiencing the catastrophic supply chain disruptions caused by the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan. We capture post-earthquake supply network changes using the measures of degree centrality and ego network density.FindingsThe results of the analysis suggest that compared to unaffected firms, the affected firms experience changes in their supply network structures tending toward lower complexity measured by in-degree centrality, out-degree centrality and ego network density.Originality/valueThis study contributes to social network theory and the complex adaptive supply network literature by providing empirical evidence of structural changes in supply networks after catastrophic supply chain disruptions. A managerial contribution is made by providing a reflection on why these changes might be occurring and alert firms to the challenges of managing complexity in their supply networks.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the behavioral tendencies of supply managers when they are faced with uncertainty in making multi-tier sourcing decisions.Design/methodology/approachThis paper uses the literature on multi-tier supply chains and behavioral decision making to develop a theoretical framework for examining factors influencing a supply manager's decision to retain control over sourcing in the multi-tier context. An experimental vignette methodology is used to gather data from 259 supply managers.FindingsResults suggest that supply managers choose to exert less multi-tier control when they have high levels of interpersonal trust in the tier-1 supplier's sales representative. This effect is accentuated by a high level of familiarity with potential lower-tier suppliers. Under high levels of familiarity with potential lower-tier suppliers, supply managers will exert greater levels of multi-tier sourcing control as the behavioral uncertainty of the tier-1 supplier increases.Practical implicationsBuying firms can enhance their understanding of supply managers' multi-tier sourcing decision making and the potential biases associated with it. Suggestions for a more effective use of multi-tier sourcing are provided in the Discussion section.Originality/valueMulti-tier sourcing is an increasingly important area of research, and this paper is the first to examine individual supply managers' behavioral decision making in the multi-tier context. This paper also contributes to the outsourcing literature by investigating behavioral factors influencing the outsourcing of sourcing activities.

AbstractFirms increasingly engage in mergers and acquisitions (M&As) to improve their network positions and enhance performance. Yet, how the fundamental structure of the merged supply base changes after the M&A and how the structural changes affect the performance are largely unknown. Building upon the strategy‐structure‐performance framework, this study investigates dual roles of supply base structural changes in M&A events, namely, as an outcome and as a moderator to post‐M&A performance. In particular, we examine how the size and the country diversity of the merged supply base change after M&As, as well as how these structural changes affect the merged firm's operational performance. We conduct a difference‐in‐differences analysis by comparing firms that engaged in M&A events (treatment group) with those comparable firms that did not engage in any M&A events (control group). The results show that the merged firms tend to reduce the size of their supply bases after M&As. In addition, our results demonstrate that both supply base consolidation (i.e., reducing the number of suppliers) and country diversification (i.e., spreading suppliers across multiple countries) improve the merged firms' post‐M&A operational performance, an effect that becomes stronger for horizontal M&As. We also explore how the type of M&As (i.e., horizontal vs. nonhorizontal), industry relatedness between the two merging firms, and the purposes of M&As affect the post‐M&A structural changes to the supply bases. This study helps inform supply managers the important roles of supply base in M&As to enhance post‐M&A operational performance or to limit the synergies when not properly done.

PurposeThis study investigates the extent to which structural equivalence between acquiring and target firms is associated with post-merger and acquisition (M&A) performance—a relationship that is proposed to be moderated by industry-level vertical relatedness between acquiring and target firms.Design/methodology/approachApplying social network analysis and regression, this study analyzes a buyer–supplier relationship network dataset of 279 M&A deals completed between 2010 and 2017 to test the hypotheses. Structural equivalence is measured as the proportion of common customers and suppliers between an acquiring firm and a target firm.FindingsSupporting a view about the importance of supply chains in explaining M&As outcomes, the results suggest that the structural equivalence in the supplier network is positively associated with post-M&A firm performance. The results also show that the effect of the structural equivalence in the customer network is moderated by vertical relatedness between two merging firms (i.e. structural equivalence contributes to post-M&A performance when vertical industry relatedness is high).Originality/valueThis study contributes to the M&A and supply network literature by investigating the performance implications of structural equivalence in supplier and customer networks, demonstrating the importance of taking a supply chain view when explaining M&As outcomes. Specifically, the authors suggest considering structural equivalence as a new type of relatedness between merging firms (i.e. relatedness in network resources in explaining post-M&A performance). It also indicates how industry-level vertical resource relatedness, which is about relatedness in internal resources between the two firms, could interact with firm-level network resource relatedness, which is about relatedness in external supply chain resources between the two firms, in affecting post-M&A performance.