Public Policy and Global Supply Chain Capabilities and Performance: A Resource-Based View

In increasingly competitive and global markets, public policy should be customer focused in terms of stressing resources, capabilities, and performance that are most important to the private sector and to other stakeholders. Although this requires a balancing act, it will help ensure successful public/private partnerships, performance outcomes that are customer driven, and planning and policy oversight that is performance based. The authors investigate the relative importance and availability of supply chain capabilities and performance measures for more than 3500 firms in three global regions: North America, Europe, and the Pacific Basin. The authors present additional analyses for best-practice firms that score the highest on an excellence index. The study finds that public policy–enabled customer service or, more broadly, demand-oriented performance capabilities may confer greater competitive advantages than cost- and supply-oriented performance capabilities, though both are important. The study findings have important implications for international public policy, such as trade policies, and for linking policy priorities with private sector requirements for specific capabilities, resources, and performance. The authors discuss additional managerial implications and recommendations for the integration of international marketing and global supply chain strategies with supporting marketing capabilities of standardization, adaptation, or customization and for governmental planning, policy formulation, and data availability.