Complexity and Commitment in Supply Chain Management Initiatives

While the benefits of supply chain management have been widely reported within industry, adoption of supply chain management initiatives have been slow and below industry expectations. To better understand and effectively address this problem of adoption within industry, this paper takes a closer look at the individual supply chain management initiatives to achieve a new understanding on the barriers that hamper the adoption process. This paper presents a framework that categorises different SCM initiatives according to a complexitycommitment continuum. By analysing three initiatives from the grocery industry, we argue that the inherent complexity of SCM initiatives poses barriers to adoption due to the degree of organisation commitment required.