Special Dossier: inter-functional coordination in the supply chain: myth or reality?

Stock and Boyer (2009, 706) have made the attempt to come up with a consensus definition of Supply Chain Management (SCM). They characterize SCM as the ‘management of a network of relationships within a firm and between interdependent organizations and business units’. In doing so, they also emphasize relationships within organizations. This perspective is not novel. At the beginning of the millennium, Ballou (2000) postulate three dimensions of SCM, namely: (1) intra-functional coordination, (2) coordination of inter-functional activities, and (3) coordination of inter-organizational supply chain activities. Mentzer et al. (2001) support this view and define Supply Chain Management ‘as the systemic, strategic coordination of the traditional business functions and the tactics across these business functions within a particular company and across businesses within a supply chain’. Accordingly, the coordination of business functions within a firm is an indispensable element of the SCM concept.

Consequently, the necessity to incorporate cross-functional considerations into supply chain management research is obvious. Nevertheless, the focus of research in SCM is on inter-organizational coordination. Despite some important contributions (e.g. Ellinger 2000; Min 2001; Stadtler 2005; Mentzer, Stank, and Esper 2008; Oliva and Watson 2011), comparatively little attention has been devoted to the subject of inter-functional coordination inside a particular company in the context of SCM.

What is the reason for that lack of research? Comprehensive managerial knowledge of inter-functional coordination would be essential to achieve cross-functional alignment. The research could contribute to generate this knowledge. Are researchers not interested in this topic? Another reason for this research gap is conceivable. Maybe, the phenomenon of inter-functional coordination in SCM does not exist at all. In this case inter-functional coordination in supply chains would be a myth rather than a reality.

There is limited evidence concerning the extent to which companies actually coordinate their internal functions like manufacturing, logistics, purchasing and marketing inside Supply Chain Management. Furthermore, we do not know, whether supply chain managers consider the inter-functional coordination of manufacturing, logistics, purchasing and marketing as their very own personal challenge.

This special dossier of the Supply Chain Forum: An International Journal strives to contribute to the answering of these questions. The call for papers resulted in a considerable number of submissions and three of them were chosen for final publication.

The first paper by Breitling is entitled ‘Interfunctional coordination of purchasing and logistics: Impact on supply chain performance’. The paper investigates the logistics-purchasing interface from a social perspective using extensive empirical evidence from a web-based survey with 132 purchasing managers on their strategic sourcing decisions and analyses cause-and-effect relationships regarding the effects on supply performance. The paper gives valuable insights into the relationship of interfunctional coordination, conflicts and performance at the logistics-purchasing interface. The results highlight that a distinct establishment of communication and cooperation processes does not necessarily lead to a higher performance, when the interactions in the relationship remain socially unattractive. On the other hand, interaction at the logistics-purchasing interface could lead to increased supply performance, and an essential preliminary step to achieve SCM success.

The second paper by Glas, Lipka and Eßig is entitled ‘Misperceptions in inter-functional supply management: Work-share coordination vs. integrated cooperation’ Accordingly, the paper focuses on the distinction between coordination of work-sharing activities and integrated collaboration as the two basic approaches to inter-functional coordination. Based on a series of matched-pair interviews the authors identify heterogeneous practices and a limited degree of integrated coordination. In most cases, only the representative of one of the functions considered classifies a particular instrument as helpful. The key message of this research is that intra-firm coordination could be characterized as the lean coordination of distinct activities rather than an integrated collaboration based on common values. The authors thus make a significant contribution to the study of the state of inter-functional coordination.

The third paper by Viale is entitled ‘Intra-functional coordination: the case of Purchasing innovation in Agri-food sector’. The paper explores factors that foster the intra-organisational coordination between marketing, purchasing and R&D innovation departments and the involvement of purchasing early in the innovation process. The qualitative study is based on five in-depth case studies, selected from their ability to propose significant innovation on the agri-food industry and the involvement of their purchasing department. The results suggest that intra-organisational coordination plays an important role in the innovation process and confirm the relevance of factors as the quality of intra-organisational relations and intra-organisational alignment. The analysis of case studies also identifies emergent factors such as ‘purchaser’s internal attractiveness’, a willingness attitude and the importance to manage the anticipation of customer demand.

The three papers support the position that managers make efforts to coordinate functions within a company, and that these efforts are particularly central in a strategic context (strategic sourcing, innovation process…). In this sense, inter-functional coordination seems to be more than a myth. Nevertheless, this special dossier could only make a modest contribution to this field of research. Further research is needed to answer the questions raised. We propose the following topics:

• The contribution of behavioral research to the explanation coordination inside the firm.

• The role of advanced planning systems in inter-functional coordination.

• Human resources efforts to support inter-functional coordination.

• The impacts of inter-functional coordination on supply chain performance

We appreciate the voluntary work of the reviewers for this special dossier. Without their critical and constructive work, the publication of this dossier would not have been possible.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.