Supply chain disruptions and sourcing strategies
This policy brief reviews existing literature on supply chain disruptions and examines buyers' sourcing strategies, using the garment sector as a testing board.
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Grossi et al. Policy Brief September 2024.pdf
PDF document • 168.49 KB
- Since the COVID-19 pandemic, many companies have seen their supply chains disrupted and tested more than ever before.
- Recent literature has found that long-term sourcing relationships might help mitigate the impact of supply chain disruptions.
- Using the garment industry as a testing board, this study presents empirical proxies for two distinct dimensions of a buyer's sourcing strategy – namely, the extent to which buyers follow a spot versus a relational approach to sourcing and the extent to which buyers follow just-in-time (JIT) inventory systems.
- Results show that: a) the variation in both measures is mostly explained by across-buyer variation rather than product or country variation, b) the two measures are highly correlated with each other, and c) certain buyers' characteristics correlate with the type of sourcing system.