Supply Chain Integration and Performance: the Impact of Business Conditions

Over the past decade, one of the main themes in the Supply Chain Management literature has been the impact of integration on performance. Many authors agree that integrative practices have a positive impact on corporate and supply chain performance. However, very few researchers have considered the different underlying constructs of supply chain integration and different business conditions. The main objectives of this paper are: to analyze the different dimensions under the integration construct and to analyze integration under different business conditions (high and low demand and technology uncertainty). We present the results of a survey conducted among Dutch and Spanish companies. The results show that there are different dimensions under the integration construct (practices, patterns and attitudes) and that these are correlated. The results also show that under environments characterized by high demand and technology uncertainty higher levels of integration lead to improvements in performance, while under low uncertainty environments very few integration practices lead to performance improvements. Thus, the main conclusion is that supply chain integration needs a more tailored approach in order to be successful.