Micro-foundations of supply chain integration: An activity-based analysis

Usman Ahmed, Muhammad; Pagell, Mark; Kristal, Mehmet Murat; Gattiker, Thomas F. Article Micro-foundations of supply chain integration: An activitybased analysis Logistics Provided in Cooperation with: MDPI – Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, Basel Suggested Citation: Usman Ahmed, Muhammad; Pagell, Mark; Kristal, Mehmet Murat; Gattiker, Thomas F. (2019) : Micro-foundations of supply chain integration: An activity-based analysis, Logistics, ISSN 2305-6290, MDPI, Basel, Vol. 3, Iss. 2, pp. 1-17, https://doi.org/10.3390/logistics3020012 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/310052 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your personal and scholarly purposes. You are not to copy documents for public or commercial purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ logistics Article Micro-Foundations of Supply Chain Integration: An Activity-Based Analysis Muhammad Usman Ahmed 1,*, Mark Pagell 2, Mehmet Murat Kristal 3and Thomas F. Gattiker 4 1School of Management, University of Michigan Flint, 303 E. Kearsley St, Flint, MI 48502, USA 2School of Business, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4 D04 V1W8, Ireland; Mark.page[email protected] 3Schulich School of Business, York University, 4700 Keele St, Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada; [email protected] 4College of Business, Boise State University, 1910 University Drive, Boise, ID 83725, USA; T[email protected] *Correspondence: [email protected] Received: 3 January 2019; Accepted: 25 February 2019; Published: 28 March 2019   Abstract: A large body of literature has studied supply chain integration (SCI) at the macro (firm or dyad) level. However, the micro-foundations of SCI that highlight the range of different activities and choices firms have in implementing integration have not been studied. This paper identifies and analyzes integrative activities or practices that form the micro-units of firm-level SCI. Qualitative analysis yields nine elements of integration that emerge from the large number of integrative practices. In doing so, the paper maps out the structure of the broad SCI construct and discusses the theoretical repercussions of this new approach. New theoretical insights and research directions are identified based on this new micro-level activity-based view of SCI. This paper shifts the focus from where integration is done (customer vs. supplier integration) to what integration entails. SCI has become a very broad construct over time. This paper is a significant and systematic step in unraveling the structure of this broad conceptual domain. It improves nascent ideas about the multiple dimensions of integration by identifying elements based on a comprehensive list of different integrative activities that firms undertake. Keywords: supply chain integration; supply chain relationship management; theory development 1. Introduction Firms are increasingly relying on collaboration with their supply chain partners to be competitive [ 1 ]. Supply-chain integration (SCI) research has shown that firms can create superior value by partnering with key suppliers and customers rather than using purely transactional or auction based mechanisms [ 2 – 4 ]. SCI is so fundamental to the study of supply chains that several authors have defined supply chain management (SCM) in terms of integration [ 5 , 6 ]. Over time firms have started to establish a large number of collaborative activities with their supply chain partners [ 7 ] which has increased the breath of the SCI concept manifold. This has necessitated looking at the micro-foundations of integration that are comprised of the detailed processes and practices that constitute day-to-day activities in supply chain management [ 8 , 9 ]. Analyzing micro practices and activities that make up integration can enable greater insight into why, when, and how integration enables greater performance. In the strategy literature, focusing on low level routines and processes rather than higher level capabilities has yield new insights [ 10 ]. Ray et al. [ 11 ] acknowledge that “Activities, routines, and business processes are the mechanisms through which resources and capabilities get exposed to market processes where their ultimate value and ability to generate Logistics 2019,3, 12; doi:10.3390/logistics3020012 www.mdpi.com/journal/logistics Logistics 2019,3, 12 2 of 17 competitive advantage are realized.” In the same spirit, we focus on integrative practices to shed grater light on how integration works in supply-chain relationships. An integrative practice, in the supply chain context, is a shared activity or process that involves personnel, data, or resources in both the buyer and supplier firms. Integrative practices are the micro-units of SCI that we examine in this paper, in contrast to traditional SCI studies that focus on the high level constructs of customer and suppler integration [12,13]. To address the increased breath of the SCI concept, some authors have taken a multi-dimensional view of SCI [ 14 – 16 ]. However, there have been no attempts to systematically map out the entire conceptual domain of SCI using more micro units such as integrative practices. Without a systematic study of what constitutes SCI, researchers will either be left with an outdated unidimensional view or a multi-dimensional view used in a specific study that may not be sufficient for other studies. A thorough exploration of what SCI entails at the micro activity level is much needed to understand the various ways firms can implement and benefit from SCI. Increasingly, researchers are pointing out limitations of the macro SCI construct, due to ambiguity in what it represents [ 8 , 9 , 17 – 19 ]. These studies call for a review of the SCI concept and identification of its important micro-components [ 8 , 9 ]. This paper seeks to bring greater clarity to the SCI literature by studying the following fundamental questions: What are the micro-units, integrative practices, that comprise SCI? Does a structure of the macro SCI construct emerge from an analysis of these micro-practices? What are the theoretical implications of this new approach to SCI? We find that 140 integrative practices comprise SCI and form its micro-foundations. This large number of practices is part of the reason why SCI can mean very different things to different researchers and practitioners [ 1 ]. Since managers work at the micro-level, they need make decisions about integrative practices in particular supply-chain relationships [ 20 ]. Thus, understanding the complementarities and differences between these practices is of great practical importance. In addition to identifying 140 integrative practices, qualitative analysis is used to identify the groupings of these practices that may reflect sub-constructs of SCI. These groupings are termed elements of integration, and they lead to a more fine-grained understanding of how SCI operates in supply-chain relationships. The discussion section focuses on the theoretical implications of analyzing the micro-foundations of SCI and how it can resolve some of the limitations of existing literature. The approach of this study is similar to that of Shah and Ward [ 21 ] who used a large body of existing literature to clarify and improve the micro-constructs that comprise lean production. The contribution of this paper is of three types: (1) we map out the SCI conceptual space by identifying a comprehensive list of integrative practices, (2) we identify groupings of integrative practices (elements of integration) at the relationship level that capture different aspects of SCI; and (3) we show how our analyzing the micro-units of SCI ameliorates limitations of existing work and contributes to SCI theory. Our work is timely and relevant because several reviews of SCM literature have called for efforts to synthesize research findings that are based on different conceptualizations of SCI [ 8 , 9 , 22 ]. Our analysis of inter-firm integrative practices, that form the micro-foundations of SCI, provides such a synthesis as it lays out a structure that maps out the SCI conceptual domain and shows how studies that use different operationalizations of SCI fit together. In addition, we improve the relevance of SCI research to practitioners by identifying a comprehensive yet parsimonious “menu” of nine elements of integration. Managers can make combinations of these elements to have a different form of integration in each supply-chain relationship. Such an approach towards selective SCI is promising as some studies have indicated that selective integration can outperform broad-based integration [20]. The paper is structured as follows: In Section 2we provide a review existing literature to identify a comprehensive list of integrative practices that comprise SCI. The qualitative analysis process used to identify and define the new elements of integration is explained in Section 3. In Section 4we show how our elements of integration view advances our understanding of inter-firm integration. Section 5 concludes with the limitations of this study. Logistics 2019,3, 12 3 of 17 2. Identifying Integrative Practices In order to determine what integrative practices constitute SCI, we needed to create a comprehensive list of such practices that firms implement in their SC relationships. An important source of these integrative practices is the operationalizations of integration constructs by empirical papers. In empirical studies, authors devise a list of questions that measure the level of integration of a firm on a list of integrative practices. The list of integrative practices is identified by relying on past literature, as well as interviews with groups of practitioners and researchers who are knowledgeable about the subject [ 23 ]. Each empirical paper provides a small sample of all possible integrative practices. By combining these smaller samples used in individual studies a comprehensive list of integrative practices can be created. A literature review is a useful method to summarize the conceptual space and operationalization of a construct, when a significant body of research exists [ 21 ]. Our methodological approach in selecting articles for review is similar to that of Parmigiani and Rivera-Santos [ 24 ] because we focus on existing literature reviews and papers from top journals. Bibliographies of existing literature reviews are an important source of relevant papers as chosen by other authors. Using bibliographies chosen by others reduces any researcher specific bias. Secondly, to complement those bibliographies, we select articles from top empirical journals in the field, as we believe the strict review process at such journals ensures quality. The literature review process is illustrated in Figure 1. We started by examining the bibliographies of 11 relevant literature reviews published since 2000. These literature reviews were identified by searching for literature reviews on buyer-supplier relationships (BSRs), SCI, or supply chain management. We found 684 references in the bibliographies of the 11 literature review papers listed in Table S2 in Supplement A [7–9,12,17,22,25–29]. We then selected the Journal of Operations Management and the Journal of Supply Chain Management to search for papers on SCI and BSRs. These journals have the highest impact factors amongst journals that publish empirical papers on the topics relevant to our research and are broadly recognized for publishing high quality empirical work [ 28 ]. We searched for papers that had the terms “supply chain integration” or “buyer supplier relationship” in the paper and that were published between 2000 and 2018 in the selected journals. This led to a list of 321 papers. The search engine ABI/Inform was used to search for papers, and the search results were verified using Google Scholar. We examined each of the 1005 papers (684 + 321) to select empirical papers that provided a list of integrative practices. For all articles in the search result the abstract was examined to determine if the paper related to integration, collaboration or buyer-supplier relationships. For all papers on relevant topics the entire paper was downloaded and checked for measurement of any integration related construct using a list of integrative practices. This led to a list of 127 relevant papers. The integrative practices found in these papers were copy pasted into an Excel sheet. Duplicate practices were removed as new practices were added. We found 140 different integrative practices in these 123 papers. As a check to ensure our list was comprehensive and representative, we picked an additional journal and repeated the process to see if we would discover additional integrative practices. We did the same search with the International Journal of Production Economics and found 103 papers in the search results. From these we identified 28 empirical papers out of which two were already part of our review and 26 were new. We did not find any new integrative practices in these 17 papers. This check provides credence that we have identified the commonly used integrative practices in supply chains. Table 1 shows the journal representation of our total sample of (127 + 26) 153 articles used to build the list of integrative practices. Table S1 in Supplement A lists the empirical papers used to make the list of integrative practices. The complete list of 140 integrative practices is given in Table S3 in Supplement A. Logistics 2019,3, 12 4 of 17 Logistics2018,2,xFORPEERREVIEW 4of18  Figure1.Processtocreateacomprehensivelistofintegrativepractices. Table1.Journalsourcesofthearticlesintheliteraturereview. JournalNameCount JournalofOperationsManagement49 InternationalJournalofProductionEconomics31 JournalofSupplyChainManagement16 InternationalJournalofOperations&ProductionManagement11 DecisionSciences7 IndustrialMarketingManagement7 JournalofBusinessLogistics6 InternationalJournalofProductionResearch3 JournalofBusinessResearch3 Others20 Total153  Thelonglistof140integrativepracticesagreeswithTerpendetal.’s[7]findingwhoshowed thatfrom1986to2005thenumberandvarietyofintegrativepracticesstudiedintheliterature increased.Recentstudieshaveaddednewpracticestothesameconstructsresultingintheconstructs gettingbroaderinscope.Figure2showsawordcloudoftheseintegrativepractices,withthesizeof eachwordproportionaltoitsfrequencyofoccurrence. Figure 1. Process to create a comprehensive list of integrative practices. Table 1. Journal sources of the articles in the literature review. Journal Name Count Journal of Operations Management 49 International Journal of Production Economics 31 Journal of Supply Chain Management 16 International Journal of Operations & Production Management 11 Decision Sciences 7 Industrial Marketing Management 7 Journal of Business Logistics 6 International Journal of Production Research 3 Journal of Business Research 3 Others 20 Total 153 The long list of 140 integrative practices agrees with Terpend et al.’s [ 7 ] finding who showed that from 1986 to 2005 the number and variety of integrative practices studied in the literature increased. Recent studies have added new practices to the same constructs resulting in the constructs getting broader in scope. Figure 2shows a word cloud of these integrative practices, with the size of each word proportional to its frequency of occurrence. Existing studies have not measured integration consistently. Studies pick and choose their own unique combinations of integrative practices to measure integration, making comparing research findings difficult [ 8 ]. The numerous integrative practices studied as SCI are qualitatively different. For example, information sharing has very different requirements in terms of costs and requisite trust as well as very different objectives and benefits than joint new product development [ 30 ]. Bundling such different practices in the same construct reduces precision, interpretability of results, generalizability and practical application. Fabbe-Costes and Jahre also highlight this issue and state that “it is [...] difficult to provide managers with normative advice over how and what to integrate, the cost of integration, and its possible negative consequences” [26]. Logistics 2019,3, 12 5 of 17 Logistics2018,2,xFORPEERREVIEW 5of18  Figure2.Worldcloudofthe140integrativepractices. Existingstudieshavenotmeasuredintegrationconsistently.Studiespickandchoosetheirown uniquecombinationsofintegrativepracticestomeasureintegration,makingcomparingresearch findingsdifficult[8].ThenumerousintegrativepracticesstudiedasSCIarequalitativelydifferent. Forexample,informationsharinghasverydifferentrequirementsintermsofcostsandrequisitetrust aswellasverydifferentobjectivesandbenefitsthanjointnewproductdevelopment[30].Bundling suchdifferentpracticesinthesameconstructreducesprecision,interpretabilityofresults, generalizabilityandpracticalapplication.Fabbe‐CostesandJahrealsohighlightthisissueandstate that“itis[...]difficulttoprovidemanagerswithnormativeadviceoverhowandwhattointegrate, thecostofintegration,anditspossiblenegativeconsequences”[26]. 3.TheoreticalDevelopment InthissectionasystematicprocessisfollowedtoidentifythestructureofSCI.Thelistof integrativepracticesidentifiedfromthepreviousstepareusedasanempiricaldatasetthatrepresents themicro‐unitsofthebroadSCIconcept. 3.1.DefiningInter‐FirmSupplyChainIntegration Analysisoftheintegrativepracticescollectedfromdifferentpapersmustbeguidedbeaclear definitionofwhatinter‐firmintegrationis.Areviewoftheliteraturerevealsseveraldefinitionsof integrationinthesupplychaincontextfocusingoncollaborationandintegrationofprocesses [2,12,31].Pastcritiquesoftheintegrationliteraturehavebeenvocaltosuggestthatdifferenttypes andlevelsofintegrationmaybepracticedindifferentbuyer‐supplierrelationships[8,18,32].To capturethisnotion,wedefineinter‐firmintegrationinthecontextoftwosupplychainpartners. ExaminationoftheoperationalizationsoftheSCIconstructinexistingstudiesmakesitclearthatthe termSCIisgenerallyusedintheliteraturetodescribevarioussupply‐chainintegrativepractices.An exampleofanintegrativepracticeisjointforecasting,inwhichpersonnelfrombothfirmscome togethertocreateforecaststhatdriveproductionplans.Thus,basedontheanalysisoftheexisting literature,wedefineinter‐firmintegrationintermsofsupply‐chainintegrativepracticesasfollows: Figure 2. World cloud of the 140 integrative practices. 3. Theoretical Development In this section a systematic process is followed to identify the structure of SCI. The list of integrative practices identified from the previous step are used as an empirical dataset that represents the micro-units of the broad SCI concept. 3.1. Defining Inter-Firm Supply Chain Integration Analysis of the integrative practices collected from different papers must be guided be a clear definition of what inter-firm integration is. A review of the literature reveals several definitions of integration in the supply chain context focusing on collaboration and integration of processes [ 2 , 12 , 31 ]. Past critiques of the integration literature have been vocal to suggest that different types and levels of integration may be practiced in different buyer-supplier relationships [ 8 , 18 , 32 ]. To capture this notion, we define inter-firm integration in the context of two supply chain partners. Examination of the operationalizations of the SCI construct in existing studies makes it clear that the term SCI is generally used in the literature to describe various supply-chain integrative practices. An example of an integrative practice is joint forecasting, in which personnel from both firms come together to create forecasts that drive production plans. Thus, based on the analysis of the existing literature, we define inter-firm integration in terms of supply-chain integrative practices as follows: 1. A supply-chain integrative practice is a shared activity between a buyer firm and a supplier firm, with the aim of creating greater value for both firms than what could be achieved without such joint action. 2. A shared activity is one in which each supply chain partner has to do some share of the tasks. A recurring activity is also called a process. 3. A buyer-supplier dyad’s level of integration can be determined based on the use of supply-chain integrative practices. We use value in the same way it is used in strategy literature and in the resource-based theory (RBT), that is value is the difference between what the end customer of the buyer-supplier dyad is willing to pay and the total economic cost of the good or service produced [33]. Logistics 2019,3, 12 6 of 17 This definition distinguishes the SCI concept from unilateral supply management decisions of the focal firm, such as deciding to source each component from two suppliers or top management focus on supplier integration. It distinguishes SCI from some aspects of purchasing; for example, having a strategic orientation to purchasing does not necessarily mean integrated buyer-supplier dyads. A firm with a strategic orientation to purchasing may still have many transactional relationships. It defines the scope of the construct to be between two firms, a buyer and a supplier, (i.e. inter-firm SCI is a dyad level construct) so the confusion regarding integration being the average of a group of supply-chain relationships is resolved. The distinction between supplier and customer integration is removed by defining inter-firm SCI to be a dyadic construct. 3.2. Qualitative Analysis for the Integrative Practices We used the 140 supply chain practices identified in the literature review as an empirical data set. Qualitative analysis was used to discover the underlying constructs. We followed the guidelines of Miles and Huberman [ 34 ] in analyzing textual data. The steps followed are illustrated in Figure 3below. Logistics2018,2,xFORPEERREVIEW 6of18 1. Asupply‐chainintegrativepracticeisasharedactivitybetweenabuyerfirmandasupplier firm,withtheaimofcreatinggreatervalueforbothfirmsthanwhatcouldbeachievedwithout suchjointaction. 2. Asharedactivityisoneinwhicheachsupplychainpartnerhastodosomeshareofthetasks. Arecurringactivityisalsocalledaprocess. 3. Abuyer‐supplierdyad’slevelofintegrationcanbedeterminedbasedontheuseofsupplychainintegrativepractices. Weusevalueinthesamewayitisusedinstrategyliteratureandintheresource‐basedtheory (RBT),thatisvalueisthedifferencebetweenwhattheendcustomerofthebuyer‐supplierdyadis willingtopayandthetotaleconomiccostofthegoodorserviceproduced[33]. ThisdefinitiondistinguishestheSCIconceptfromunilateralsupplymanagementdecisionsof thefocalfirm,suchasdecidingtosourceeachcomponentfromtwosuppliersortopmanagement focusonsupplierintegration.ItdistinguishesSCIfromsomeaspectsofpurchasing;forexample, havingastrategicorientationtopurchasingdoesnotnecessarilymeanintegratedbuyer‐supplier dyads.Afirmwithastrategicorientationtopurchasingmaystillhavemanytransactional relationships.Itdefinesthescopeoftheconstructtobebetweentwofirms,abuyerandasupplier, (i.e.inter‐firmSCIisadyadlevelconstruct)sotheconfusionregardingintegrationbeingtheaverage ofagroupofsupply‐chainrelationshipsisresolved.Thedistinctionbetweensupplierandcustomer integrationisremovedbydefininginter‐firmSCItobeadyadicconstruct. 3.2.QualitativeAnalysisfortheIntegrativePractices Weusedthe140supplychainpracticesidentifiedintheliteraturereviewasanempiricaldata set.Qualitativeanalysiswasusedtodiscovertheunderlyingconstructs.Wefollowedtheguidelines ofMilesandHuberman[34]inanalyzingtextualdata.ThestepsfollowedareillustratedinFigure3 below.  Figure3.Qualitativeanalysissteps. Afterthedatahadbeencollectedinthestructureliteraturereviewphase,thedatawascleaned bycheckingalltheintegrativepracticesforfacevalidity.Thefacevaliditycheckcomparedthe integrativepracticeswithourdefinitionofinter‐firmintegration.Practicesthatwereunilateral decisionsofonefirmwerediscarded,astheydonotrepresentintegrationbetweentwofirms.For example,afirm’sdecisiontoselectsuppliersbasedonqualityratherthanpricewouldnotbe integrationasitisaunilateralpolicydecisionofthebuyer.Thisinitialcleanupbasedonface‐validity ofthepracticesreducedthelistto125practices. MilesandHuberman[34]recommendthataftercollectingandcleaningthedata,thenextstep istocodethedatausingdescriptivecodes.Thiscodingsummarizesthedata;andusinganinductive approachtodevelopthecodesletsthedataspeakforitself.Thenextstepismoreinterpretivein whichpatterncodesarefound.Patterncodescapture“sets,themes,orconstructs”inthedata[34]. Wegenerateddescriptivecodesusingagroundedorinductiveapproach[34,35].Theadvantageof thisapproachisthatitdoesnotbiastheresearchertoexistingviewsandexpectationsaboutthedata. Italsoletsthedataspeakonitsowntermsasotherwisedatacanoftenbeforcedtofitapreconceived setofcodes. Figure 3. Qualitative analysis steps. After the data had been collected in the structure literature review phase, the data was cleaned by checking all the integrative practices for face validity. The face validity check compared the integrative practices with our definition of inter-firm integration. Practices that were unilateral decisions of one firm were discarded, as they do not represent integration between two firms. For example, a firm’s decision to select suppliers based on quality rather than price would not be integration as it is a unilateral policy decision of the buyer. This initial cleanup based on face-validity of the practices reduced the list to 125 practices. Miles and Huberman [ 34 ] recommend that after collecting and cleaning the data, the next step is to code the data using descriptive codes. This coding summarizes the data; and using an inductive approach to develop the codes lets the data speak for itself. The next step is more interpretive in which pattern codes are found. Pattern codes capture “sets, themes, or constructs” in the data [ 34 ]. We generated descriptive codes using a grounded or inductive approach [ 34 , 35 ]. The advantage of this approach is that it does not bias the researcher to existing views and expectations about the data. It also lets the data speak on its own terms as otherwise data can often be forced to fit a preconceived set of codes. Each practice was examined by considering (1) what activities were being done and (2) what were the objectives of doing those activities. This allowed us to group together similar practices. Table 2 shows the codes that emerged from the first pass of coding and the number of practices coded with each code. If a practice seemed applicable to more than one code it was assigned multiple codes, which is why the total in column 3 of Table 2exceeds 125. As we describe next, these first pass codes were subjected to several rounds of refinement and validation. Two researchers did the coding. After each round of coding results were compared and any discrepancies resolved through discussion and mutual agreement. Logistics 2019,3, 12 7 of 17 Table 2. Codes that emerge from first pass of descriptive coding. Codes (High Level) Description Number of Practices Coded COMM-HOW Communication How: Communication is broad term that captures sharing intangible resources. How refers to modes of communication, for example EDI, and face to face meetings. 25 COMM-WHAT Communication What: Communication is broad term that captures sharing intangible resources. What refers to what type of information and knowledge is shared. 65 RES-SHARE Sharing Tangible Resources: Captures sharing and pooling together physical resources. 12 BUS-PRATICES Business Practices: Various business practices that involve of buyer and supplier firms working together. 68 LT-ORIENT Long-Term Orientation: Long-term collaborative arrangements or types of collaboration that suggest long-time horizon 15 A second pass of descriptive coding was done by examining each group from Table 2and coding the practices in that group using more descriptive codes. Again, the same method was followed where the practices were examined and codes generated to reflect similar practices with similar business objectives. The results of the second round of descriptive coding are shown in Table 3. Examination of the data after the second pass of descriptive coding revealed no new descriptive codes. This indicated that we had described the data on its own terms. Before proceeding to the next more interpretive stage of finding pattern codes we reviewed and revised the codes to check for redundancy and duplication [ 34 ]. We examined all the codes and the practices in them and found two instances where codes were duplicating what had already been captured in other codes. The first instance was the COMM-HOW code as all the practices under COMM-HOW were also assigned other more appropriate codes as well. Each integrative practice requires an appropriate communication mechanism that is suitable for it. In that sense the communication medium employed is an attribute of the integrative practice and not another type of integrative practice by itself. Conceptually COMM-HOW should be treated as an attribute of integrative practices and not a separate integrative practice by itself. Thus, we removed COMM-HOW from further analysis. This did not result in any of the practices being dropped as all practices coded as COMM-HOW also had other codes assigned to them. The second instance was that of the Teams codes under Business Practices. Just like COMM-HOW, teams are a communication and collaboration mechanism that is often employed by many types of integrative practices [ 36 ]. It is an attribute of some integrative practices that require close collaboration with face-to-face communication. Thus, all of the Teams codes (Teams-P and C, TeamsNPD, TeamsOpsImp) were removed for reasons similar to the instance of COMM-HOW. Removing these codes resulted in only eight practices out of 125 getting dropped as these eight practices were not assigned to any other code. These dropped practices were only measuring the communication mechanism being used without providing any information about the type of collaborative activity being done. We then proceeded to the next stage of finding patterns or leitmotivs. Pattern codes are “explanatory or inferential codes, ones that identify an emergent theme, configuration or explanation” [ 34 ]. This stage is more interpretive where the researcher must move from the descriptive codes to the underlying constructs [ 34 ]. We make use of data displays to map the descriptive codes along various dimensions related to integration to identify the inter-relationships between the codes. An important part of this stage is “unfreeze and reconfigure” [ 34 ] codes as constructs and relationships between them emerge. We examined the descriptive codes by creating data displays using tables to see if they exhibited any patterns. Logistics 2019,3, 12 8 of 17 Table 3. Codes from further descriptive coding. Code Description Number of Practices COMM-HOW Communication How F2F High Level Face to Face Communication, such meetings, facility visits 13 CompMed Computer Mediated Communication: use of emails, IT systems, EDI, and electronic information sharing 9 CommFreq Communication Frequency: ensuring frequent and timely communication 6 Teams Using Inter-organizational Teams 9 COMM-WHAT Communication What PerfFeedback Sharing performance assessments and providing feedback 24 OpsComm Operational (day-to-day) communication to coordinate material flows and manage production and logistics related processes 34 KnowComm Sharing knowledge 11 NPDComm Communication related to new product development (NPD) 2 StratComm Long-term sensitive and strategic communication 26 RES-SHARE Sharing tangible resources Fin&Tech Providing financial and technological support 6 LogRes Sharing logistics related resources, such as shipping containers. 6 BUS-PRACTICES Business practices P and C Planning and control of logistics, material flows, and manufacturing related activities 26 JIT-Lean JIT and lean related practices that involve supply-chain partners 6 Quality-CI Quality and continuous improvement activities that involve supply-chain partners 22 NPD Jointly conducting new product development (NPD) 8 Teams-P and C Use of teams for planning and control 7 Teams-NPD Use of Teams for new product development 5 Teams-OpsImp Use of Teams for operational improvement 11 LT-ORIENT Long-term orientation CollabOrient Maintaining and strengthening collaborative orientation and a long-term relationship perspective 9 StratPlan Strategic planning with supply-chain partners 8 As a first cut at identifying pattern codes, we wanted to see which theoretical perspectives were represented by the codes. The theoretical perspectives regularly used in the SCI literature are: system dynamics, the extended resource based view (eRBV) [ 12 , 37 , 38 ] along with the relational view [ 39 ], transaction cost economics (TCE) [ 40 ], and the knowledge-based view (KBV) [ 41 , 42 ]. We briefly discuss how these theoretical perspectives underscore the need for shared processes to improve supply chains. A more detailed discussion of how these theoretical perspectives apply to our work is presented in Supplement B to avoid digressing from the qualitative analysis here. In a supply chain the company closest to the end consumer caters to the fundamental demand for the product or service. Upstream firms face derived demand that comes from the inputs required by downstream firms. The system dynamics view shows that if firms that comprise a supply chain work independently using only market-based transactions then they will perform sub-optimally. According to system dynamics, supply chain partners must implement inter-organizational (shared) processes to effectively manage end-customer orders. Processes related to production planning, inventory management, and logistics of all supply chain partners are linked by their goal of serving the end-customer demand. If these processes are not managed in a shared manner then the outcomes will be sub-optimal [43,44]. The extended RBV shows that firms can improve performance and achieve better outcomes by accessing resources and capabilities of inter-linked firms [ 39 ]. In a supply-chain context this theory implies that developing shared processes that allow firms to access the information, knowledge, capabilities, and resources (such as logistics resources) of supply chain partners will lead to superior outcomes [ 45 ]. Thus, supply-chain partners should implement processes that identify and exploit synergies from sharing of resources and capabilities. 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