In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, it became apparent that the way organizations conduct business activities within and between themselves would be forever altered. Specifically, the way the firms share and distribute goods became an important area of interest to ensure the security of their supply chain partners and ultimately, society in general. Supply chain security (SCS) is defined as activities that protect supply chains from damage, terrorism, and contraband. This dissertation adds to an emerging knowledge base – SCS efforts. More specifically, this dissertation attempts to address three key areas concerning SCS: 1) understand what type of SCS activity taxonomy exists; 2) understand what is driving those taxonomy categories to exist; and 3) understand what, if any, relationship between the SCS taxonomy categories and organizational performance exists. To gain this knowledge, inductive and deductive techniques were utilized. First, in-depth semi-structured interviews with 19 executives across a variety of industries concerning SCS issues were conducted to help frame the research and develop research hypotheses. Through content analyzing the interview transcripts, it became salient that institutional environmental pressures were what respondents indicated were the causes of security activities. As such, Institutional Theory was used as a theoretical framework for the dissertation. Second, a survey method was used to collect data concerning supply chain security activities, pressures that cause them, and organizational performance. In the empirical examination of SCS, it was found that three categories of security exist. The taxonomy that emerged had three categories that were named Security Pros, Follow-the-Leaders, and Necessary Evils. The next part of the empirical examination was to determine which, if any, of the identified drivers impact the SCS categories. Using multiple discriminant analysis, it was determined that customers and societal pressures are significant in impacting the SCS categories. Finally, a multiple analysis of variance was conducted to determine if different types of SCS categories were associated with different types of organizational performance. The results indicated that different groups were not related to different levels of firm, customer, market, and supply chain performance.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:MSSTATE/oai:scholarsjunction.msstate.edu:td-5153 |
| Date | 03 May 2008 |
| Creators | Williams, Zachary |
| Publisher | Scholars Junction |
| Source Sets | Mississippi State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Theses and Dissertations |
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