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Knowledge‐intensive business services (KIBS) provide industry‐changing inputs to the business processes of other organizations that face complex tendering procedures. Service triads emerge as a response to resource and capability constraints due to high procedure benchmarks. Despite calls, research remains fragmented. Recent challenges driven by a pandemic and conflicts call for a systematic literature review that coherently integrates and describes the body of knowledge on sourcing KIBS triads. Employing the SPAR‐4‐SLR protocol to systematically review 205 articles, we integrate and describe key areas such as sourcing strategies, service delivery, ante‐contract considerations, and overarching relationship dynamics. We highlight future research avenues toward bridging domain linkages including the development of an integrated model and the exploration of environmental uncertainties and individual behaviors in the sourcing of KIBS triads. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Customer pressure has been widely discussed as the primary driver of green supply chain management (GSCM) practices. However, relatively little is known about supplier capabilities as a key mediator for GSCM practice adoption. Drawing from the resource dependence theory (RDT), we investigate how the interplay between customer pressure and supplier capabilities affects GSCM practice adoption along multi-tier supply chains. We test our hypotheses using multiple regression analysis based on a sample of 284 manufacturing firms operating at different tiers of a supply chain. Our results indicate that the supplier capabilities mediate the direct effect of customer pressure on the adoption of GSCM practices for focal firms. Specifically, we find a full mediation effect of supplier capabilities for higher-tier (i.e. OEM and system supplier) firms and a partial mediation effect for lower-tier (i.e. component and raw material) firms. Our findings provide support for the RDT perspective regarding GSCM. The focal firm's adoption of GSCM practices as a response to customer pressure is dependent on the level of green resources and capabilities available from their suppliers. The level of such resource dependence varies between focal firms at higher- and lower-tier positions in a multi-tier supply chain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both lean and agile practices have emerged as dominant organizational strategies to improve supply chain and firm performance. In addition, combinations of lean and agile, so‐called leagile practices, have developed. Most extant studies have tested the effects of specific subsets of lean, agile, or leagile practices on performance. This study proposes a comprehensive framework to investigate the complementary versus mutually exclusive performance gains of lean, agile, and leagile practices and their combinations. We review the literature and conduct a meta‐analysis of 127 empirical studies, yielding a total of 969 effect sizes across 30,741 firms. Our results indicate support for the positive link between lean, leagile, and agile practices and firm performance. Further analyses provide support for some aspects of cumulative capability theory, while others support aspects of trade‐off theory. We thereby enlighten the discourse about the cumulative and comparative effects of lean, leagile, and agile leveraging our comprehensive framework of practices. Specifically, our contribution identifies practice combinations that can be considered more valuable performance enhancers than others. Furthermore, our research guides managers on aligning and adapting lean, leagile, and agile practices with their firms' strategic priorities and performance goals. Finally, we showcase areas that require additional empirical investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organizations often use cross‐functional teams to make key Operations and Supply Chain Management decisions, but doing so risks instigating conflict between team members since cross‐functional delegates often have opposing functional goals. While previous work has explored the effect of functional goals (i.e., external motivation) in cross‐functional team performance, we extend research in this area to incorporate individual team members' psychological needs (i.e., internal motivation). Specifically, we consider how the interplay of these motivational mechanisms can lead to status conflict within the team, and the ensuing implications on team performance. We conduct an experiment of 136 ad hoc team‐based sourcing decisions, complemented with a sequential qualitative study involving interviews with 37 practicing managers. The results show that functional goal misalignment leads to status conflict, as expected. Yet, counterintuitively, this effect can be mitigated with the team's composition in individual psychological needs for dominance, specifically with heterogeneously dominant individuals. Our study contributes to the behavioral operations management literature on sourcing teams and to the team motivation literature. We provide guidance on how managers can compose cross‐functional teams to improve decision outcomes considering the interplay of external and internal motivational mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green investments are crucial mechanisms for translating green operation strategies into managerial action. We examine the impact of external pressures on green investment patterns in terms of their scope, type and time horizon across 251 German and US managers. A scenario-based experiment was conducted using a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design in which managers were assigned to high and low consumer, community, and resource treatment groups before being asked to make green investment decisions. Our hypotheses are developed based on resource advantage theory and tested in a number of regression models. The results demonstrate that German and US managers respond differently to external pressures in their green investment decisions. Regarding the scope of green investments, German and US managers invest differently if end consumer pressure increases and partially differently if resource scarcity increases, but they act in a similar way if community pressure increases. Moreover, we detected specific variations in the type and time horizon of green investments across US and German managers. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings for green operations management research and for firms operating in multinational settings are explained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many strategic decisions concerning firms' operations and supply chain management (OSCM) are executed in teams of multiple functional specialists, to reap the proven benefits of internal integration. However, specialists bring with them not only diverse expertise, but also diverse goals and incentive structures. We examine how functional goal misalignment and the distribution of knowledge of who knows what (metaknowledge) affect self‐serving politics and the performance of cross‐functional teams. To test our model, we develop a vignette‐based social team experiment and analyze data from 468 participants grouped in 156 sourcing teams. Our results provide evidence for both catalyst and inverse‐catalyst effects of the distribution of metaknowledge. Specifically, under goal alignment, centralized metaknowledge leads to the catalyzation of cross‐functional expertise, reducing team politics and enhancing team performance. However, under goal misalignment, centralized metaknowledge significantly amplifies team politics and reduces performance via mediation. We contribute to the growing body of research on behavioral OSCM at the team level of analysis by offering theoretical and practical implications for the design of team integration processes from the perspective of organizational politics and group cognition. We also provide management with clear design recommendations regarding how to govern cross‐functional OSCM teams in terms of functional goals and the distribution of metaknowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strategic sourcing is carried out in cross‐functional teams to account for the complexity and multidimensionality of modern procurement decisions. However, such teams not only enable the integration of distinct interdependent skill sets and viewpoints, they are also characterized by functional goal misalignment. We focus on the resulting behavioral challenges, namely conflict and politics, and their effects on team satisfaction and rationality, which ultimately leads to observed outcomes. We test our hypotheses in a structural equation model based on data gathered from 468 participants in a social team experiment. We find a mediated effect of goal misalignment on political behavior via two types of team conflict. Political behavior, in turn, obstructs rational team sourcing decisions and reduces team members' satisfaction with the process. Our study indicates that behavioral challenges in the framework of Organizational Buying Behavior not only co‐occur but affect each other via mediation. Hence, managers need to closely monitor the escalation chains' origin, task conflict, which constitutes a necessary condition for further emotional dissent and political biasing. We contribute to the understanding of the challenges in cross‐functional sourcing teams, thereby providing advice to executives in their pursuit to rationalize and improve sourcing team decisions and their outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]