Importance of Green and Resilient SCM Practices for the Competitiveness of the Automotive Industry: A Multinational Perspective

Among the various supply chain paradigms, the green and the resilient paradigms are considered critical for supply chain competitiveness and success. In the current business environment, the competitiveness of companies and their supply chain depends not only on lowest cost, high quality, reduced lead time, and high service level, but also on their ability to avoid and overcome the numerous disturbances that jeopardize their performance. There is evidence that the tendency of many automotive companies to seek out low-cost solutions may have led to leaner but also more vulnerable supply chains. The automotive supply chain is also under pressure to become more sustainable and, therefore, more environmentally friendly while also gaining economic benefits from greener practices. This chapter aims to explore the importance of green and resilient supply chain management practices in the competitiveness of the automotive supply chain. To attain this objective a worldwide panel of academics and professionals from Portugal, Belgium, China, Germany, Switzerland, and USA, involved in the automotive industry, were used to evaluate these paradigms in varying countries using descriptive and multivariate statistics. The results, contrary to expected, indicate that the resilient paradigm is considered more important than the green paradigm. Moreover, the importance given to green and resilient paradigms does not vary between academics and professionals nor among countries.

Importance of Green and Resilient SCM Practices to the Competitiveness of the Automotive Industry: A Multinational Perspective (PDF Download Available). Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263388771_Importance_of_Green_and_Resilient_SCM_Practices_to_the_Competitiveness_of_the_Automotive_Industry_A_Multinational_Perspective [accessed Jan 31 2018].