Marco Formentini | Audencia Nantes School of Management (original) (raw)
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Papers by Marco Formentini
Research on the pricing process in the agrifood industry ha underlined the need for pricing mecha... more Research on the pricing process in the agrifood industry ha underlined the need for pricing mechanisms to evolve as the nature of markets and supply chains modifies itself towards higher product differentiation, competition and integration. Despite scholars have advanced Quality Based Pricing techniques as viable tools to increase product quality and foster collaborative supply chain relationships, the literature still lacks of studies that investigate this beneficial influence. Drawing on a multiple case study in the Italian agrifood industry, this explorative study analyzes the implementation of Quality Based Pricing techniques to support the collaboration between supply chain members and proposes a tool to measure it.
An effective sustainability management requires the development of a holistic approach, thus cons... more An effective sustainability management requires the development of a holistic approach, thus considering social, economic, as well as environmental dimensions and simultaneously adopting a supply chain perspective. This exploratory study intends to investigate through a multiple case study how contextual factors influence the adoption and the implementation of sustainability practices along a company’s supply chain. Moreover, a contingency perspective is adopted to examine the certification and collaboration mechanisms developed in three different supply chains managed by a focal firm operating in the coffee industry.
Purpose – Research on business-to-business (B2B) pricing has been mainly focused on the supplier’... more Purpose – Research on business-to-business (B2B) pricing has been mainly focused on the supplier’s pricing process, thus adopting traditionally an internal perspective and perceiving pricing as a profit distribution parameter rather than an opportunity for collaboration with customers. Recently, the opportunity to develop win-win, collaborative relationships in the B2B pricing process by embracing a supply chain perspective has started to attract the attention of scholars across several research streams, who have highlighted the emergence of this topic using different definitions, perspectives and methodologies. This paper addresses the need for integrating the fragmented body of knowledge on B2B pricing towards supply chain collaboration.
Design/methodology/approach – This critical literature review adopts an interdisciplinary approach, focusing on Industrial Marketing and Operations & Supply Chain Management areas.
Findings – We provide a critical synthesis and discussion structured in four streams clustered around two dimensions, i.e. the “extension” of the collaboration in the pricing process along the supply chain and the “direction” of collaboration.
Research implications - This paper addresses the need for integrating the fragmented body of knowledge on business-to-business pricing towards supply chain collaboration. Drawing on the literature gaps, the paper concludes by proposing an agenda for future research for a relevant topic both for academics and practitioners.
Originality/value – This article offers a novel comprehensive view of the supply chain collaboration in the B2B pricing process and provides opportunities for intensifying dialogue across different research areas.
The role of governance from a sustainable supply chain management perspective is receiving more a... more The role of governance from a sustainable supply chain management perspective is receiving more attention from scholars and practitioners. However, several aspects still remain unclear including how corporate sustainability approaches are implemented and aligned with governance mechanisms at the supply chain level. With the aim of filling this gap in the literature, an empirical investigation is proposed by analysing seven case studies through the lenses of contingency theory, the strategic alignment perspective and the resource-based view of organisations. Findings include the characterisation of three sustainability profiles, namely sustainability leaders, sustainability practitioners and traditionalists; a classification of the governance mechanisms on the basis of their level of collaboration and formalisation; the identification of factors that enable governance mechanisms. The empirical results are useful to practitioners seeking to implement sustainability initiatives at the supply chain level, and to scholars for further theory development and refinement.
The aim of this research is to develop a framework to support cost transparency implementation. T... more The aim of this research is to develop a framework to support cost transparency implementation. Though cost transparency is a well-known practice in supply chain management literature, there is a lack of guidelines supporting managers to effectively implement it. The study has been developed using empirical findings from an action research, the authors conducted in close collaboration with an Italian manufacturer of modular kitchens and 19 suppliers. This research discusses a methodology to support (1) the selection of those customer–supplier relationships worth being developed into cost transparency, and (2) the identification, for each of these relationships, of appropriate forms of actions/incentives to stimulate suppliers to share cost information. The key outcome lies in the theoretical framework emerging from on-field empirical evidences supporting managers in cost transparency implementation. The proposed model fills some gaps found in supply chain literature and explicitly addresses an unusual variable to be considered in the suppliers’ selection phase: the buyer’s interest. From a managerial point of view our model provides a framework buying companies use to select and classify the subset of suppliers willing and worth being engaged in cost transparency initiatives, and to identify appropriate actions to implement cost transparency. The findings of a single action research cannot be generalized to the overall population of manufacturing entities. Large sample data collection efforts will be needed to test the proposed findings and make our prescriptions more robust. Additionally, the proposed model could be tested in other industries outside the modular kitchen industry.
Finanza Marketing e Produzione, Jun 1, 2012
Value Analysis is a structured technique aimed at improving product functionalities and reducing... more Value Analysis is a structured technique aimed at improving product functionalities and
reducing related costs. Despite being an established methodology, there is a lack of investigation on how the knowledge base acquired and created during the execution of
a Value Analysis study can be effectively transferred and reused in following projects in order to support decision making. This paper describes the development and the implementation of a Value Analysis-based decision support system, which has been performed in the complex multi-project environment of the shipbuilding industry in close collaboration with Fincantieri S.p.A., the world leading company in the construction of cruise vessels.
pomlearning.org
Literature on Supply Chain Management emphasizes the adoption of a collaborative attitude towards... more Literature on Supply Chain Management emphasizes the adoption of a collaborative attitude towards process management. Production planning, logistics, quality management, new product development are all business processes that can benefit from a collaborative supply chain perspective. Instead, scholars have not devoted as much research to the pricing process.
Transportation Research Part E: …, 2013
This study reveals that in supply networks both external and internal integration practices have ... more This study reveals that in supply networks both external and internal integration practices have a significant and positive impact on responsiveness. The use of an international supplier network acts as a contingency factor on the relationship between external integration practices and responsiveness, as in an international context the effect on performance is amplified. Conversely, the impact of internal integration on responsiveness is not moderated by the use of international suppliers. These evidences suggest managers how to properly tune the level of adoption of integration practices according to the degree of supplier network internationalization.
This doctoral dissertation focuses on the investigation of collaborative Supply Chain Pric-ing, n... more This doctoral dissertation focuses on the investigation of collaborative Supply Chain Pric-ing, namely the interaction of a firm with one or more other supply chain counterparts not only in the determination of its price, being influenced by the parties involved in the col-laboration, but also in their pricing process. Traditionally, pricing has been considered as a process for dividing profit between two bargaining parties facing each other in negotia-tions, without considering the opportunity to act collaboratively in price definition in order to ...
International Journal of Production Economics, 2012
Though Open Book Accounting (OBA) is a well-known practice in supply chain management, the lack o... more Though Open Book Accounting (OBA) is a well-known practice in supply chain management, the lack of guidelines to support managers to implement it effectively has been highlighted in the literature. This paper discusses a methodology to support the selection of suppliers with whom to successfully cooperate in OBA projects and the identification, for each buyer–supplier dyad, of appropriate incentives to enable cost data disclosure. The methodology has been developed using empirical findings from an action research the authors have conducted in close collaboration with an Italian manufacturer of modular kitchens and 19 of its suppliers. It emerges that the sourcing strategy and the nature of cost data disclosed should drive the buyer's decisions on how to use disclosed account data and how to select the most appropriate set of incentives to encourage suppliers' participation. In particular, the sourcing strategy mainly affects the supplier's reaction to incentives and the uses of cost data shared, while the nature of open books agreements primarily influences the buyer's attitude to commit resources to specific suppliers and, therefore, to activate the more costly incentives. These findings have interesting implications for the identification of the suppliers with whom to collaborate in open books programs, for the selection of incentives to mitigate suppliers' natural reluctance to disclose cost data, and for restrictions in the use of disclosed data to ensure that they are not abused within and outside the relation.
International Journal of Production Economics, 2011
This paper investigates how formalized methodologies can effectively support the implementation o... more This paper investigates how formalized methodologies can effectively support the implementation of knowledge transfer practices in the multi-project setting. We propose a knowledge collection and transfer model grounded on the Value Analysis technique, empirically developed and validated through an action research in the shipbuilding industry. The proposed model facilitates decision making across multiple projects in the cruise ship design by stimulating the reuse of the available knowledge base and the exploitation of information needed to identify design solutions to solve the trade-off between functional requirements and available resources.
International Journal of …, 2010
In the cruise ship industry product development and production activities are really complex and ... more In the cruise ship industry product development and production activities are really complex and must follow strict rules imposed by naval registries. Designers are frequently required to choose among several alternative solutions (e.g., materials, components, layouts, etc.). Because of time constraints, as a matter of fact, design decisions are made fast and in a reactive way, according to the particular case, without considering decisions made in the past and without using specific decision support tools. The final choice is often left to a single designer's experience, whose selection criteria are unknown and not formalised. As a consequence there is no shared knowledge justifying the reason why a design solution has been chosen and whether it is the best one. We developed and implemented in Fincantieri S.p.A. – a leading company in the cruise ship industry – an original decision support tool, based on value analysis, designers can use to document and formalise their choices. Value analysis is a well known structured method to increase product value and/or cut costs, thus supporting the selection of the most valuable solution by means of objective parameters. We demonstrate that the proposed tool can also facilitate reuse of the available knowledge base on decisional criteria, increase interactions between people (design staff, buyers, shipyard personnel, etc.) involved in different stages of different value analysis projects, and reduce decision time.
Research on the pricing process in the agrifood industry ha underlined the need for pricing mecha... more Research on the pricing process in the agrifood industry ha underlined the need for pricing mechanisms to evolve as the nature of markets and supply chains modifies itself towards higher product differentiation, competition and integration. Despite scholars have advanced Quality Based Pricing techniques as viable tools to increase product quality and foster collaborative supply chain relationships, the literature still lacks of studies that investigate this beneficial influence. Drawing on a multiple case study in the Italian agrifood industry, this explorative study analyzes the implementation of Quality Based Pricing techniques to support the collaboration between supply chain members and proposes a tool to measure it.
An effective sustainability management requires the development of a holistic approach, thus cons... more An effective sustainability management requires the development of a holistic approach, thus considering social, economic, as well as environmental dimensions and simultaneously adopting a supply chain perspective. This exploratory study intends to investigate through a multiple case study how contextual factors influence the adoption and the implementation of sustainability practices along a company’s supply chain. Moreover, a contingency perspective is adopted to examine the certification and collaboration mechanisms developed in three different supply chains managed by a focal firm operating in the coffee industry.
Purpose – Research on business-to-business (B2B) pricing has been mainly focused on the supplier’... more Purpose – Research on business-to-business (B2B) pricing has been mainly focused on the supplier’s pricing process, thus adopting traditionally an internal perspective and perceiving pricing as a profit distribution parameter rather than an opportunity for collaboration with customers. Recently, the opportunity to develop win-win, collaborative relationships in the B2B pricing process by embracing a supply chain perspective has started to attract the attention of scholars across several research streams, who have highlighted the emergence of this topic using different definitions, perspectives and methodologies. This paper addresses the need for integrating the fragmented body of knowledge on B2B pricing towards supply chain collaboration.
Design/methodology/approach – This critical literature review adopts an interdisciplinary approach, focusing on Industrial Marketing and Operations & Supply Chain Management areas.
Findings – We provide a critical synthesis and discussion structured in four streams clustered around two dimensions, i.e. the “extension” of the collaboration in the pricing process along the supply chain and the “direction” of collaboration.
Research implications - This paper addresses the need for integrating the fragmented body of knowledge on business-to-business pricing towards supply chain collaboration. Drawing on the literature gaps, the paper concludes by proposing an agenda for future research for a relevant topic both for academics and practitioners.
Originality/value – This article offers a novel comprehensive view of the supply chain collaboration in the B2B pricing process and provides opportunities for intensifying dialogue across different research areas.
The role of governance from a sustainable supply chain management perspective is receiving more a... more The role of governance from a sustainable supply chain management perspective is receiving more attention from scholars and practitioners. However, several aspects still remain unclear including how corporate sustainability approaches are implemented and aligned with governance mechanisms at the supply chain level. With the aim of filling this gap in the literature, an empirical investigation is proposed by analysing seven case studies through the lenses of contingency theory, the strategic alignment perspective and the resource-based view of organisations. Findings include the characterisation of three sustainability profiles, namely sustainability leaders, sustainability practitioners and traditionalists; a classification of the governance mechanisms on the basis of their level of collaboration and formalisation; the identification of factors that enable governance mechanisms. The empirical results are useful to practitioners seeking to implement sustainability initiatives at the supply chain level, and to scholars for further theory development and refinement.
The aim of this research is to develop a framework to support cost transparency implementation. T... more The aim of this research is to develop a framework to support cost transparency implementation. Though cost transparency is a well-known practice in supply chain management literature, there is a lack of guidelines supporting managers to effectively implement it. The study has been developed using empirical findings from an action research, the authors conducted in close collaboration with an Italian manufacturer of modular kitchens and 19 suppliers. This research discusses a methodology to support (1) the selection of those customer–supplier relationships worth being developed into cost transparency, and (2) the identification, for each of these relationships, of appropriate forms of actions/incentives to stimulate suppliers to share cost information. The key outcome lies in the theoretical framework emerging from on-field empirical evidences supporting managers in cost transparency implementation. The proposed model fills some gaps found in supply chain literature and explicitly addresses an unusual variable to be considered in the suppliers’ selection phase: the buyer’s interest. From a managerial point of view our model provides a framework buying companies use to select and classify the subset of suppliers willing and worth being engaged in cost transparency initiatives, and to identify appropriate actions to implement cost transparency. The findings of a single action research cannot be generalized to the overall population of manufacturing entities. Large sample data collection efforts will be needed to test the proposed findings and make our prescriptions more robust. Additionally, the proposed model could be tested in other industries outside the modular kitchen industry.
Finanza Marketing e Produzione, Jun 1, 2012
Value Analysis is a structured technique aimed at improving product functionalities and reducing... more Value Analysis is a structured technique aimed at improving product functionalities and
reducing related costs. Despite being an established methodology, there is a lack of investigation on how the knowledge base acquired and created during the execution of
a Value Analysis study can be effectively transferred and reused in following projects in order to support decision making. This paper describes the development and the implementation of a Value Analysis-based decision support system, which has been performed in the complex multi-project environment of the shipbuilding industry in close collaboration with Fincantieri S.p.A., the world leading company in the construction of cruise vessels.
pomlearning.org
Literature on Supply Chain Management emphasizes the adoption of a collaborative attitude towards... more Literature on Supply Chain Management emphasizes the adoption of a collaborative attitude towards process management. Production planning, logistics, quality management, new product development are all business processes that can benefit from a collaborative supply chain perspective. Instead, scholars have not devoted as much research to the pricing process.
Transportation Research Part E: …, 2013
This study reveals that in supply networks both external and internal integration practices have ... more This study reveals that in supply networks both external and internal integration practices have a significant and positive impact on responsiveness. The use of an international supplier network acts as a contingency factor on the relationship between external integration practices and responsiveness, as in an international context the effect on performance is amplified. Conversely, the impact of internal integration on responsiveness is not moderated by the use of international suppliers. These evidences suggest managers how to properly tune the level of adoption of integration practices according to the degree of supplier network internationalization.
This doctoral dissertation focuses on the investigation of collaborative Supply Chain Pric-ing, n... more This doctoral dissertation focuses on the investigation of collaborative Supply Chain Pric-ing, namely the interaction of a firm with one or more other supply chain counterparts not only in the determination of its price, being influenced by the parties involved in the col-laboration, but also in their pricing process. Traditionally, pricing has been considered as a process for dividing profit between two bargaining parties facing each other in negotia-tions, without considering the opportunity to act collaboratively in price definition in order to ...
International Journal of Production Economics, 2012
Though Open Book Accounting (OBA) is a well-known practice in supply chain management, the lack o... more Though Open Book Accounting (OBA) is a well-known practice in supply chain management, the lack of guidelines to support managers to implement it effectively has been highlighted in the literature. This paper discusses a methodology to support the selection of suppliers with whom to successfully cooperate in OBA projects and the identification, for each buyer–supplier dyad, of appropriate incentives to enable cost data disclosure. The methodology has been developed using empirical findings from an action research the authors have conducted in close collaboration with an Italian manufacturer of modular kitchens and 19 of its suppliers. It emerges that the sourcing strategy and the nature of cost data disclosed should drive the buyer's decisions on how to use disclosed account data and how to select the most appropriate set of incentives to encourage suppliers' participation. In particular, the sourcing strategy mainly affects the supplier's reaction to incentives and the uses of cost data shared, while the nature of open books agreements primarily influences the buyer's attitude to commit resources to specific suppliers and, therefore, to activate the more costly incentives. These findings have interesting implications for the identification of the suppliers with whom to collaborate in open books programs, for the selection of incentives to mitigate suppliers' natural reluctance to disclose cost data, and for restrictions in the use of disclosed data to ensure that they are not abused within and outside the relation.
International Journal of Production Economics, 2011
This paper investigates how formalized methodologies can effectively support the implementation o... more This paper investigates how formalized methodologies can effectively support the implementation of knowledge transfer practices in the multi-project setting. We propose a knowledge collection and transfer model grounded on the Value Analysis technique, empirically developed and validated through an action research in the shipbuilding industry. The proposed model facilitates decision making across multiple projects in the cruise ship design by stimulating the reuse of the available knowledge base and the exploitation of information needed to identify design solutions to solve the trade-off between functional requirements and available resources.
International Journal of …, 2010
In the cruise ship industry product development and production activities are really complex and ... more In the cruise ship industry product development and production activities are really complex and must follow strict rules imposed by naval registries. Designers are frequently required to choose among several alternative solutions (e.g., materials, components, layouts, etc.). Because of time constraints, as a matter of fact, design decisions are made fast and in a reactive way, according to the particular case, without considering decisions made in the past and without using specific decision support tools. The final choice is often left to a single designer's experience, whose selection criteria are unknown and not formalised. As a consequence there is no shared knowledge justifying the reason why a design solution has been chosen and whether it is the best one. We developed and implemented in Fincantieri S.p.A. – a leading company in the cruise ship industry – an original decision support tool, based on value analysis, designers can use to document and formalise their choices. Value analysis is a well known structured method to increase product value and/or cut costs, thus supporting the selection of the most valuable solution by means of objective parameters. We demonstrate that the proposed tool can also facilitate reuse of the available knowledge base on decisional criteria, increase interactions between people (design staff, buyers, shipyard personnel, etc.) involved in different stages of different value analysis projects, and reduce decision time.