Supply chain complexity and delivery performance: an international exploratory study

As just‐in‐time delivery has become increasingly commonplace and customer demands continue to tighten, the importance of fast, reliable delivery performance cannot be overstated. This is particularly true for organisations competing internationally, where the complexity of the supply chain must be managed within a global network. A conceptual model is presented that identifies three basic dimensions of this complexity. Results support the linkage of uncertainty with performance, however, no evidence was found that increased technological intricacy or more complicated organisational systems hamper delivery performance. Managers appear to have adopted mechanisms to accommodate these last two dimensions of complexity.