A multidimensional analysis of supply chain integration in Canadian manufacturing.

Supply chain management is a key element in companies' competitiveness. We surveyed 512 Canadian manufacturers, most of which were small or medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Our survey was structured around four dimensions of supply change integration, namely: nesting, collaboration, financial incorporation, and distancing. In this paper we describe the use of supply chain management practices and show that their use is dependent on the nature of the business partners (i.e., upstream or downstream positioning of partnership in chain logistics of businesses studied), business field (i.e., sector of activities in which the business operates), and organizational size. Our findings suggest that supply chain practices were used more intensively with clients than with suppliers. They also show that practitioners and scholars need to qualify the concept of integration which is often used in a one-dimensional perspective. Copyright © 2010 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]