Supply chain integration and visibility in global supply chain operations : current practices and outcomes

Researchers, and practitioners in industry have recognized whilst there is significant use of supply chain integration (SCI) technology over the last decade, there is an apparent lack of supply chain visibility (SCV) within organizations and across supply chain (SC) partners. The apparent lack of visibility has raised the question of information sharing between SC partners. The objective of this research is to understand and analyse current directions taken by organizations to incorporate SCV into their businesses through SCI. This research contributes to the knowledge on broader supply chain operations through in-depth investigation of management, and organizational issues surrounding SCV and SCI. A deductive reasoning approach was used to carry out the research and draw conclusions. The research found that SCV, and SCI is affected by the size of an organisation, whilst the level of management, and the number of end-to-end SC partners play a critical role in redefining internal business processes to meet SCV. Furthermore, SCV impacted on the outcomes of SCI such as a shift in power bases along the SC, the level of SCI determines the level of information sharing between SC players, and finally redefining internal business processes to meet SCV will directly increase SC costs. The limitations of this research included the use of categorical data, and non-parametric tests, whilst there are opportunities for researchers in the future to expand this research with continuous data targeting specific industries.