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We study service triads by examining the member-to-member exchanges underpinning service formation, functioning, and feedback. A service triad comprises two serviced customers from the supplier's standpoint and two service providers from the end user's standpoint, which can cause operational complexity and challenges. We view the service triad as an operating entity and study four information-rich cases to improve our understanding of this operational complexity. Leveraging scholarly knowledge related to service operations management and ecosystems theory, we uncover several interesting patterns related to the formation, functioning, and feedback exchanges. First, the formation exchanges depend on the value creation goal of the service triad. Second, the service buyer engages in operational coordination, despite delegating the delivery of services to the supplier. Third, feedback exchanges allow the service triad to monitor service performance for further improvement and innovation. Our qualitative inquiry focusing on the visualization and codification of members’ participation in exchanges advances our collective understanding of service triads beyond the dominant focus on structure and governance.

Mental simulation of future scenarios is hypothesized to affect future behavior, but a large and inconsistent literature means it is unclear whether, and under what conditions, mental simulation can change people’s behavior. A meta-analysis was conducted to synthesize the effects of mental simulation on behavior and examine under what conditions mental simulation works best. An inclusive systematic database search identified 123 (N = 5,685) effect sizes comparing mental simulation to a control group. After applying a multilevel random effects model, a statistically-reliable positive effect of Hedges’ g = 0.49, 95% CI [0.37; 0.62] was found, which was significantly different than zero. Using a taxonomy to identify different subtypes of mental simulation (along two dimensions, class [process, performance, outcome] and purpose [whether an inferior, standard, superior version of that behavior is simulated]), it was found that superior simulations garnered more reliable beneficial effects than inferior simulations. These findings have implications for integrating theories of how mental simulations change behavior, how mental simulations are classified, and may help guide professionals seeking evidence-based and cost-effective methods of changing behavior. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.3758/s13423-021-01880-6.

In this editorial, we introduce the four best papers selected from the IPSERA 2021 conference for this special issue of the Journal. We discuss how a double-blind crowd review (CR) process was used as an alternative to the traditional "two reviewer " double-blind peer review system. After a brief review of the literature and the existing debate around academic peer review, we introduce the main characteristics of CR. Next, at the core of our discussion, we report on the results of a pilot CR project that we conducted to review JPSM articles associated with the 2021 IPSERA Conference. We describe in detail the review process, and we illustrate the feedback received from reviewers and authors on the CR process, as well as our perspective as guest editors. Finally, we draw some conclusions and present recommendations for CR in the Purchasing and Supply Management (PSM) field. The CR pilot contributes to the wider debate around peer-reviewing by offering insights into the experience of different stakeholders and by highlighting the benefits and pitfalls of CR.

textabstractWe study the relationship between supplier involvement in new product development and performance. The current literature is scattered and fragmented with studies reporting mixed empirical evidence for a variety of concepts related to “Early Supplier Involvement.” We conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis of the existing literature to reconcile conflicted findings, revise and refine theoretical perspectives, and provide evidence-based scholarly and practical implications. To achieve these aims, we unravel the general relationship by considering three factors. First, we delineate different types of performance outcomes, mainly related to NPD efficiency (e.g., speed) and NPD effectiveness (e.g., product quality). Second, we distinguish between the moment and the extent of supplier involvement, related to different theoretical perspectives on external knowledge integration. Third, we disentangle multiple levels of analysis that are seemingly obscured in the literature, specifically the project and organizational levels. We find that extensive supplier involvement has positive effects on NPD efficiency and effectiveness, whereas earlier supplier involvement only to some degree affects NPD efficiency and not effectiveness. In conclusion, our meta-analysis based on 11,420 observations from 51 studies provides strong theoretical and practical insights on the important phenomenon of supplier involvement.

Increased globalization, pressure to meet varying customer needs and requirements, extended product lines, uncertainty in supplier deliveries and a myriad of related factors make supply chains utterly complex. Extant literature shows that Supply Chain Complexity (SCC) plays an important role in explaining several performance outcomes. However, the accumulating evidence is ambiguous. To better understand SCC and its consequences under specific boundary conditions, we conducted a meta-analytical synthesis of the extant literature. Meta- analytic results from 23,810 observations across 85 independent samples from 103 empirical studies indicated that rather than an aggregate analysis of SCC’s effect on performance, a finer-grained analysis of the relationships between sub-components of both SCC and performance is required. While the majority of previous studies seem to advocate that complexity in supply chains is detrimental to firm performance, our results demonstrate that SCC only has a negative effect on operational performance, but an overall positive effect on innovation performance and financial performance. We further decompose SCC into sub-dimensions (i.e. upstream/downstream/internal) illustrating how exactly complexity in the supply chain of a firm affects its performance across a range of relevant outcomes. Our findings also reveal moderating effects of construct operationalization and study characteristics. We discuss the implications of the findings for theory and practice."

Most scholars of purchasing and supply management (PSM) are familiar with some form of a purchasing process model (PPM). A PPM is the visual representation of the sequence of activities that constitute purchasing and supply management. Such a visual representation can be a tool in teaching PSM since it gives students an overview of an otherwise intangible process. Moreover, a PPM can also be viewed as a representation of the identity of PSM, providing a schema of what is PSM (and what it is not). In this notes and debates article, a systematic overview of different types of PPMs, and their evolution, is presented, based on a literature review and a survey, with the models being classified as tactical/operational, strategic, cyclical, or decision-making processes. Our first aim is to inspire PSM scholars and educators when they are considering various PPMs to be used in their teaching of PSM. Our second aim is to debate the question where the evolution of PPMs is heading and explore whether a single holistic model can provide an accurate and representative framework to structure purchasing activities both today and in the future.

Since the 1960s, research on Purchasing and Supply Management (PSM) has grown substantially, but in recent times various scholars have challenged the actual progress and coherence of the field. In delivering such critiques, the underlying, dominant view of PSM research is that it constitutes an academic discipline. In contrast, we offer an alternative perspective that views PSM as a multi-disciplinary field of research, drawing from Operations Management, Marketing and Strategy & Organization as reference disciplines. Adopting this perspective, we conduct a review of 2522 purchasing and supply management publications in a multi-disciplinary set of 18 high-impact management journals, published in the period 1995–2014. We analyse how PSM research has developed over time; quantitatively and content-wise, in terms of the topics and theories being addressed. We find that across the three reference disciplines and the specialist PSM journals, there is diversity, with distinct features of each journal group in terms of the one or two most popular topics or theories. Still, considering the full base of PSM publications in each journal group, there is considerable overlap. Supplier Relationship Management is a popular topic throughout, and the top-5 of topics for each of the journal groups demonstrates a high degree of overlap, in any given lustrum period. With one exception, TCE is the most popular for all journal groups for all periods and of the 17 different theories identified, only four have been applied by just one journal group. Thus, we conclude that PSM research is characterised by ‘unity in diversity’: “E Pluribus Unum”, and offer recommendations how this multi-disciplinary composition of the field can be leveraged in future research.

We present a new tool for meta?analysis, Meta?Essentials, which is free of charge and easy to use. In this paper, we introduce the tool and compare its features to other tools for meta?analysis. We also provide detailed information on the validation of the tool. Although free of charge and simple, Meta?Essentials automatically calculates effect sizes from a wide range of statistics and can be used for a wide range of meta?analysis applications, including subgroup analysis, moderator analysis, and publication bias analyses. The confidence interval of the overall effect is automatically based on the Knapp?Hartung adjustment of the DerSimonian?Laird estimator. However, more advanced meta?analysis methods such as meta?analytical structural equation modelling and meta?regression with multiple covariates are not available. In summary, Meta?Essentials may prove a valuable resource for meta?analysts, including researchers, teachers, and students. Metrics Article has an altmetric score of 19 Details © 2017 The Authors. Research Synthesis Methods published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

In this paper, we undertake an exploratory investigation of how service innovation is achieved in the context of a service triad arrangement. The service triad refers to end customer-service buyer-service supplier arrangements that emerge when a service supplier is contracted by a service buyer to directly fulfill the outsourced services and servicing demands of the service buyer’s end customer. We examine how the processes and structures of service triad innovation endeavors can influence the service supplier’s efforts to design and deliver apt quality services and servicing, as well as enable the realization of value both for and from customers (i.e., service buyer and end customer). Data are collected through multiple-case study of innovation initiatives involving service triads at public universities in The Netherlands. Examination of the multiple-case study data provides exploratory insights that advance scholarly theorization and managerial understanding on the innovation processes and structures in service triads, allowing for the development of testable research propositions relating the processes and structures of service triad innovation, service characteristics, and innovation-based performance.