Maqsood, T and Akintoye, A (2002) Supply chain management: More than a new name for management of relationships. In: Greenwood, D (ed.) Proceedings of 18th Annual ARCOM Conference, 2-4 September 2002, Northumbria, UK.
Abstract
Management of multiple relationships across the supply chain is, increasingly, being referred to as supply chain management. In the UK construction industry, supply chain management has replaced partnering as a latest buzz word. The concept has been raised to deal with the arms length adversarial relationships ingrained in the construction industry with a belief that working in collaborative environment would increase industry productivity and profitability. Partnering/partnerships and relational contracting are the means to achieve these aims. The paper argues that replacing these approaches, to obtain collaborative environment among trading partners, with the terminology of supply chain management is not an appropriate strategy as supply chain management differs from the management of relationships, currently practiced in the industry, in two distinct ways. Firstly it considers management of relationship as one of its components that is required as a medium to drive supply chain management and secondly it does not focus only on the immediate trading partners but takes into account all trading members comprising a supply chain from one end of it to the other. The concept of the supply chain management has already been overloaded with a profusion of confusing terminologies for over a decade. It is important to prevent it from getting into further confusions that may hinder the establishment of its problem domain and recognition as one of the management paradigms.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | collaborative relationships; partnering; relationship management; supply chain management |
| Index terms: | construction industry, relationship management, paradigm, profitability, partnership, strategy, productivity, partnering, relational contracting |
| Subjects: | economic analysis, contractual arrangements, education and knowledge transfer, management, industry analysis, partnership management |
| Topics: | Human Resources, Stakeholder Management, Procurement, Business Strategy, Research Practice |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCT |
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