Power, value and supply chain management

Explains some of the thinking that informs both the case study articles that appear in the same issue of Supply Chain Management: An International Journal and the EPSRC funded research project currently being undertaken at the Centre for Business Strategy and Procurement. A review is provided of the dominant ideas that currently inform “supply chain management thinking”. This paradigm is characterised as operational effectiveness and efficiency. A case is made for understanding supply chains from a strategic as well as from an operational perspective. Current supply chain management thinking is criticised for being atheoretical and descriptive, and a case is made for an analytical approach to supply chain thinking based around the concepts of power and value appropriation. A more analytically robust way of understanding supply chains is laid out.