Development and validation of an instrument for measuring innovative supply chain strategies (ISCS)

Businesses are constantly seeking to improve their competitivity because of the current climate of economic crisis and ever present constraints. Inter-organizational innovation is a lever frequently used by companies to achieve this end. In this context, supply chain management is a vital key in the quest for development and deployment of new supply chain strategies like Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI), collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment (CPFR) and supplier Kanban. This research conceptualizes, develops and validates an instrument to measure these innovative supply chain strategies (ISCS). Three measurement scales (conditions and context of the deployment of ISCS, organization´s capacity for innovation, and performance of the ISCS) are validated via a structural equation methodology applied to the data from a questionnaire administered to 170 supply chain managers. The measurement instrument resulting from this research represents a major contribution to the field and allows us to identify the main factors that characterize innovative supply chain strategies.