Balancing Priorities: Decision-Making in Sustainable Supply Chain Management - Article Example

A critique of the research paper: Balancing priorities: decision making in sustainable supply chain management”   By (name)   Subject Professor University Date Abstract Supply chain management (SCM) is the oversight of information, materials, and finances throughout the process from the supplier to the manufacturer to the retailer and finally to the consumer (Harland, 1996). The process entails coordination and integration of such flows within and between companies. The end goal of any effective supply chain management system is to cut down on inventory assuming that products are there whenever needed (Harland, 1996). This paper scrutinizes the paper “Balancing priorities: decision making in sustainable supply chain management.” Focus             The title of the article is “Balancing priorities: decision making in sustainable supply chain management” by Zhaohui Wua and Mark Pagell. The title of this article by itself is already a summary and outline of the study. It captures the interest of readers on sustainable supply chain management in the field of management. Background The paper “Balancing priorities: decision making in sustainable supply chain management” was developed to analyze the need for environmental protection and the rising demands for natural resources that compel various companies to restructure their business models and their supply chain operations. More sustainable supply chains have been developed by scholars and various companies. The study, “Balancing priorities: decision making in sustainable supply chain management” notes that how organizations deal with short-term pressures has not been addressed for them to remain viable economically while using the new supply chains. The study employs theory-building by use of various case studies to answer questions such as: how organizations balance profitability at the short-term and long-term environmental sustainability when making supply chain decisions in various conditions of uncertainty. The study presents five sets of propositions that give an explanation “how exemplars in green supply chain management make decisions and balance short and long term objectives.” The study has also identified four environment postures that expounds on various decisions made by organizations when handling strategic trade-offs among the “economic, environmental and social elements of the triple-bottom-line” (Wua and Pagell, 2011). Zhaohui Wua and Mark Pagell have employed positivism. This approach is identified with empiricism. Empiricism is where importance of observation and the compilation of facts are acknowledged, with the assumption that they existed before theories. However, Jean Piaget associated the expression constructivism in Psychology. Constructivism defines the process by which the cognitive configurations that shape our understanding, of the world develop through the relations of subject and environment (Peter, 1982). Critique of the Article The dynamic nature of commodity pricing and the increasingly unpredictable climate are some of the economic and environmental drawbacks that have triggered the organizations to re-evaluate their supply chain (Wu and Pagell 2011, 577). According to the Wu and Pagell (2011, 577), it is believed that organizations are able to attain their business portfolios and overcome various environmental impediments. However, most of the environmental practices could increase the cost of production for the organization on short-term basis. Such environmental challenges practices of management that tries to make maximum profit for the businesses while at the same time saving the environment for future generations. This places any organization in a very complicated and dynamic mode due to uncertainty of information that is involved and instability of decision parameters and boundaries. Because of this, organizations end up trading on uncertainty and risk. The environmental changes have much impact on the social life thus, the two are inseparable. This makes the non-governmental organization to get involved in the decision making process of the organization. This in the end, results in an increased number of organization stakeholders (Wu and Pagell 2011, 577).This is not supply chain management but the author concentrates on decision making process, principles and standard, including challenges that are encountered by the manager in decision making. As a result, the research does not disseminate information regarding the supply chain management. It is because of this that supply chain management is always concerned with oversight inputs, material and information as they are conveyed from the manufacturer down to the wholesaler further down to the retailer and end consumer (Wu and Pagell 2011, 577). Therefore, the Supply Chain Management role facilitates the smooth flow by way of coordinating and integrating them among one or various organizations. The supply chain management is in fact grouped into different flow categories, which comprise of the product flow, information flow, and finances flow. This is not discussed in the introduction of the research. Nevertheless, the product flow is concerned with the flow of goods from the manufacturer to the customer through the supplier. The flow of information is concerned with the transmission of orders and the updates of delivery while the financial flow is concerned with the payment schedules, credit term, consignment and the ownership arrangements (Wu and Pagell 2011, 577). Therefore, there are challenges such as customer challenges and the environmental impact. However, this research does not in particular elaborate issues that are concerned with the supply chain management but instead addresses various environmental challenges and their impact to the functioning of businesses. The research has failed to handle supply chain management as claimed by Wu and Pagell (2011, 578). In addition, the research argues that the operational strategy is usually driven by the organizational strategy. The implication of this is that during the supply chain of goods and services there are various that can be simultaneously incorporated. However, the study fails to explain which particular stage of the supply chain flow is particularly affected by the environmental issues, the manufacturing stage or the supply stage. The research examines some out dated literature review on issues relating to the challenges posed to the management. These issues comprises of balancing economic and environmental priorities. The organization has to meet the environment, social and economic dimensions framework. This has in fact nothing to do with the supply chain management as defined earlier. The literature used is too old for instance WCED (1987), Elkington (1998), March and Simon (1993), chechile (1991) and very many others used. Putting into consideration the length of time and various changes in the decisions that have been made, these references should not be included in a modern research decisions. Critique on the grounded theory approach that is used. In the methodology, Wu and Pagell (2011, 579), presumed that the method used was ground theory approach. This methodology is not a grounded theory approach because as Ng and Hase (2008) puts it, grounded theory approach is a systematic and inductive approach that helps in the disseminating of complicated social processes and understands them. This is aimed at developing theory that could bring out a substantive theory from the information encoded from the data collected in a natural setting. Therefore, by development of a grounded theory, a researcher is enabled to clearly understand the problem experienced by the research participants and understand the way the participants deal with such a problem. As indicated by Ng and Hase (2008, 155) the main intention of the grounded theory approach is to develop a theory that is close to data that is coherent to a situation at hand in the research. However, the researcher in this case claims to adopt the principles of the grounded theory approach that is founded on case studies. The research sampling The research sampling focuses on the companies that have environment decisions and there were companies that were the target sample. The main method used was the level of regulatory compliance in their environmental efforts. This method does not meet the objectives reiterated by the grounded theory approach, which is the basis for the understanding of the basic human patterns common in social life. The interpretation of data depicted is not as an interactive process as required by the grounded approaches thus a poor theory or no theory at all emergences from the data provided. It all comes out as forced on the data. Therefore, the version of grounded theory used in this research is not clear, as there is massive use of a semi structured interview protocol. Furthermore, multiple interviewers collected the research at six of the eight companies there fore enabling the process for data analysis. This enables the comparison of like and like according to the fundamental method of data analysis that is required in the grounded theory method. Conclusion In conclusion, the research is limited by the idiosyncratic nature of the case studies. The study fails in investigating the supply chain management. Instead, the study focuses on the impact of the environmental issues undertaken by the organizations and their linking factors to the traditional method of doing business. This research does not effectively investigate various managerial roles in the decision making process in the supply chain model hence leading to a sub-optimal results in a more critical environment. References: Harland, C.M. (1996) Supply Chain Management, Purchasing and Supply Management, Logistics, Vertical Integration, Materials Management and Supply Chain Dynamics. In: Slack, N (ed.) Blackwell Encyclopedic Dictionary of Operations Management. UK: Blackwell. Halfpenny, Peter (1982). Positivism and Sociology: Explaining Social Life. London: Allen and Unwin. Wua, Z and Pagell, M (2011). Balancing priorities: Decision-making in sustainable supply chain management. Journal of Operations Management 29 (2011) 577–590 Ng, K and Hase, S., (2008).Grounded Suggestions for Doing a Grounded Theory Business Research. 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