Exploring the Complex Social Processes of Organizational Change: Supply Chain Orientation From a Manager's Perspective

Effective supply chain management strategies can lead to substantial improvements in customer value and reductions in system wide costs for each participant. Implementing supply chain management strategies, however, is not possible without embracing supply chain orientation (SCO) as a managerial philosophy. Organizational theorists have argued that organizations change only when the people in them change, yet we know little about the complex social processes occurring in the minds of the individuals involved in creating an SCO. The current literature lacks research that describes the transition to an SCO from a supply chain managers perspective. Our objective is to fill this gap by delving into the minds of operations managers, who must carry out an interpretation process to set goals, process information, perceive their environment, and actively solve problems when confronted with the organizations decision to implement supply chain initiatives. We adopt an interpretivist ontology through utilizing grounded theory to provide an in-depth analysis of interviews from seven manufacturing organizations and 121 supply chain managers to provide a rich description of those managers perceptions and challenges throughout the transition. Managerial and research implications as well as future research opportunities are provided.