Validation of suply chain integration scales and the effect that size, level of vertical integration, industry and country have on their value

Abstract

Academic literature would appear to indicate that supply chain integration is a major factor in explaining the performance of companies. The results are nevertheless inconclusive. Certain authors put forward the idea that the vast range of results obtained are due, amongst other things, to the fact that there is no exactness to the group of scales used, no-one has yet published an analysis of the measurement models nor clear benchmarks. In this paper, we present the theoretical definition of four supply chain integration scales (clients, suppliers, external and internal) and the convergent and discriminant validity of a measurement instrument based on a list of items taken from earlier papers. We also propose a benchmark to interpret the scales by percentiles, using a diverse international sampling broken down into sub-samples based on sector, type of company, size of company and degree of vertical integration.