Supply Chain Management Coordination Mechanisms

There is growing interest from industry and academic disciplines regarding coordination in supply chains, particularly addressing coordination mechanisms available to eliminate sub-optimization within supply chains. However, there is a disconnect between what is known in academic research about coordination mechanisms and what mechanisms practitioners apply and consider useful. This research fills a gap in the literature by conducting an in-depth qualitative study of supply chain coordination mechanisms, primarily price, non-price, and flow coordination mechanisms. Results suggest that: (1) managers prefer flow coordination mechanisms over price and non-price coordination mechanisms; (2) supply chain orientation and learning orientation are important for the implementation of flow coordination mechanisms; and (3) technology, capital, and volume are not pre-requisites for flow coordination mechanisms.