Identifying Critical Success Factors for Supply Chain Excellence

This paper presents a research framework for studying supply chain excellence, emphasizing two distinct paths of knowledge acquisition, that is qualitative inquiry through interviews with senior supply chain executives in Taiwan and quantitative inquiry through data collection from companies that operate in Taiwan. Four factors are considered as the antecedents of supply chain excellence, such as collaboration, organizational conditions, technology adoption, and operations. The authors use the grounded theory approach to further understand those four critical factors and relevant concepts. Organizational condition was ranked by our senior supply chain executives as the most important factor based on this qualitative investigation. The effect of four critical factors on organizational performance is also assessed through regression analyses, and the results help supply chain professionals in Taiwan determine which factors and concepts of supply chain management to focus on to improve business performance. Although these findings are situation-dependent, the proposed framework is different from existing literature and can be adopted in other international studies to enhance the body of knowledge on supply chain management.