Suppliers' network analysis under the perspective of structural, relational and cognitive embeddedness: an exploratory study

Capioto, Guilherme Rotta; Barbosa, Danilo Hisano; Kurumoto, Juliana Sayuri; Cotrim, Syntia Lemos

doi:10.1590/0103-6513.20180041

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Research Article • Prod. 29 • 2019 • https://doi.org/10.1590/0103-6513.20180041 copy

Suppliers' network analysis under the perspective of structural, relational and cognitive embeddedness: an exploratory study

Authorship SCIMAGO INSTITUTIONS RANKINGS

Abstract

Paper aims

To analyze and characterize a supplier network under the analytical perspective of structural, relational and cognitive embeddedness.

Originality

Analysis of a network of suppliers in a soft drink industry using Social Network Analysis (SNA) techniques.

Research method

The case study was used as a research strategy. The analysis of structural perspectives, relational and cognitive embeddedness and their respective variables were considered, as well as measures of centrality and density of the network of suppliers.

Main findings

The analysis allowed to establish the characteristics of the network of suppliers regarding structural, relational and cognitive embeddedness and their respective variables. However, it should be noted that the manuscript addresses a single case study, and it is not possible to generalize the results obtained.

Implications for theory and practice

The findings of this paper can be used as a basis to understand how to use the main metrics of social network analysis to investigate the structural, relational and cognitive characteristics of a company and your network.

Keywords
Enterprise networks; Supplier management; Embeddedness

Types of Embeddedness	Variables	Concepts	Authors
Structural Embeddedness	Centrality Degree	It indicates the intensity in which one company is connected to the others. The degree of a vertex v (a network point), is the number of edges incident on v, that is, the number of neighbors of v, and is denoted by dv. The average degree of the network modeling graph can be denoted by dG, according to Equation 2 $d G = \sum_{i = 1}^{n} d G (v i) / n$ (2)	( Balestrin & Verschoore, 2016 Balestrin, A., & Verschoore, J. (2016). Redes de cooperação empresarial: estratégias de gestão na nova economia (2. ed.). Porto Alegre: Bookman. ; Cerqueira et al., 2014 Cerqueira, C. H. Z., Costa, J. M. S., & Carvalho, D. M. A. (2014). Aplicação de análise de redes sociais em uma cadeia de suprimentos de uma empresa do setor elétrico brasileiro. Sistema & Gestão, 9(4), 418-429. https://doi.org/10.7177/sg.2014.V9.N4.A1. https://doi.org/10.7177/sg.2014.V9.N4.A... )
	Closeness Centrality	It is related to the proximity or distance of an actor in relation to other actors in a network (sum of geodesic distances). The calculation of a vertex proximity is done by the ratio of the total number of other vertices (n-1) by the sum of all the distances between that vertex and each of the other vertices, as can be seen in Equation 3: $C c (v) = n - 1 / \sum t \in V \ v d G (v, t)$ (3)	( Borges & Mourão, 2013 Borges, L. O., & Mourão, L. (2013). O trabalho e as organizações: atuações a partir de psicologia. Porto Alegre: Artmed. )
	Betweenness Centrality	The equation representing the centrality of a node is related to the quotient of the shortest number of paths between nodes in a network, which includes the node in question and also the number of all the short paths of this network. Equation 4: $B e t (v) = \sum i \neq j \neq v, i \neq v \frac{σ i, j (v)}{σ i, j}$ (4) where: σi,j is the number of geodetic paths that connect the vertices i and j ; σi,j(v) represents the number of geodetic paths that connect the vertices i and j through v.	( Borges & Mourão, 2013 Borges, L. O., & Mourão, L. (2013). O trabalho e as organizações: atuações a partir de psicologia. Porto Alegre: Artmed. ; Cerqueira et al., 2014 Cerqueira, C. H. Z., Costa, J. M. S., & Carvalho, D. M. A. (2014). Aplicação de análise de redes sociais em uma cadeia de suprimentos de uma empresa do setor elétrico brasileiro. Sistema & Gestão, 9(4), 418-429. https://doi.org/10.7177/sg.2014.V9.N4.A1. https://doi.org/10.7177/sg.2014.V9.N4.A... )
	Density	Proportion of the ties in a network divided by the possible number of ties that could be sent and received. The density of a network can be calculated according to Equation 1 presented in section 2.1.	( Johnson, 2010 Johnson, T. (2010). Nos Bastidores da Wikipédia Lusófona: percalços e conquistas de um projeto de escrita coletiva on-line. Rio de Janeiro: E-papers. )
	Stability	Frequency of entry and exit of actors in the network.	( Gobbo Junior & Vasconcellos, 2008 Gobbo Junior, J. A., & Vasconcellos, M. A. (2008). Proposal of a framework for the analysis of the innovation process in networks. In POMS Annual Conference (pp. 1633-1647). Tokyo: Gakushin University. )
	Size	Corresponds to the number of actors in the network.	( Sluzki, 1997 Sluzki, C. E. (1997). A rede social na prática sistêmica (Trad. Claudia Berliner). São Paulo: Casa do Psicólogo. )

Category	Centrality Degree				Closeness Centrality				Betweenness Centrality
Category	Node	Value	Node	Value	Node	Value	Node	Value	Node	Value	Node	Value
Main Actor	F9	33.846			H	56.522			H	46.585
I	H	23.077	F12	27.692	F9	52.846	F14	50.781	F6	17.740	F13	15.529
	F1	21.538	F13	21.538	F10	50.781	F14	50.781	F9	16.886	F13	15.529
	F10	26.154	F14	26.154	F11	50.388	F15	50.781	F11	12.423	F14	14.362
	F11	26.615	F15	26.154	F12	51.181	F15	50.781	F12	15.104	F14	14.362
II	F3	15.385	F8	10.769	F1	49.618	F13	49.618	F3	9.151	F10	5.806
	F4	10.769	C1	10.769	F3	41.139	C44	43.046	F4	6.130	F15	8.157
	F6	10.769	C44	15.385	F3	41.139	C44	43.046	F5	9.087	F15	8.157
III	F2	4.615	C24	7.692	F2	34.143	C30	34.759	F1	4.014	F8	1.685
					F4	38.690	C31	33.679
					F5	38.922	C32	33.679
					F6	38.922	C33	33.679
					F7	39.394	C34	34.031
	F5	7.692	C25	7.692	F8	39.634	C35	34.031	F2	3.135
					C1	39.394	C36	34.031
					C17	36.723	C37	34.946
					C18	36.723	C38	34.031
					C19	37.143	C39	33.333
	F7	9.231			C20	35.135	C40	33.333			C44	3.179
					C21	34.759	C41	33.333
					C22	34.759	C42	33.333
					C23	36.723	C43	33.333
					C24	38.235	C45	33.854
	C19	6.154	C49	7.692	C25	38.235	C46	33.854	F7	1.072
					C26	35.135	C47	33.854
					C27	34.211	C48	33.854
					C28	36.313	C49	37.143
					C29	34.946	C50	33.854
IV	C2	1.538	C27	3.077	C2	27.197	C10	29.139	C1	0.000	C27	0.000
	C3	3.077	C28	4.615					C2	0.000	C28	0.000
	C4	3.077	C29	3.077					C3	0.000	C29	0.000
	C5	3.077	C30	3.077	C3	29.412	C11	29.139	C4	0.000	C30	0.000
	C6	3.077	C31	1.538					C5	0.000	C31	0.000
	C7	3.077	C32	1.538					C6	0.000	C32	0.000
	C8	1.538	C33	1.538	C4	29.412	C12	28.139	C7	0.000	C33	0.000
	C9	1.538	C34	1.538					C8	0.000	C34	0.000
	C10	1.538	C35	1.538					C9	0.000	C35	0.000
	C11	1.538	C36	1.538	C5	29.412	C13	28.139	C10	0.000	C36	0.000
	C12	1.538	C37	3.077					C11	0.000	C37	0.000
	C13	1.538	C38	1.538					C12	0.000	C38	0.000
	C14	1.538	C39	1.538	C6	29.412	C14	28.139	C13	0.000	C39	0.000
	C15	1.538	C40	1.538					C14	0.000	C40	0.000
	C16	1.538	C41	1.538					C15	0.000	C41	0.000
	C17	4.615	C42	1.538	C7	29.412	C15	28.139	C16	0.000	C42	0.000
	C18	4.615	C43	1.538					C17	0.144	C43	0.000
	C20	3.077	C45	1.538					C18	0.144	C45	0.000
	C21	1.538	C46	1.538	C8	28.139			C19	0.148	C46	0.000
	C22	1.538	C47	1.538					C20	0.000	C47	0.000
	C23	4.615	C48	1.538					C21	0.000	C48	0.000
	C26	3.077	C50	1.538	C9	28.139	C16	28.139	C22	0.000	C49	0.000
									C23	0.000	C50	0.000
									C24	0.000
									C25	0.000
									C26	0.000

Main Problems Identified	Proposed Solutions
The location of the suppliers is distant. With this, the contacts usually occur by telephone, not allowing more detailed information exchange	The use of information technology (IT) helps to bring the company closer to its suppliers. The goal of IT is to provide companies with the main input generated by information technology and then transformed into a subsidy for market actions ( Mckenna, 1992 Mckenna, R. (1992). Marketing de relacionamento: estratégias bem sucedidas para a era do cliente. Rio de Janeiro: Campus. ). In the case of marketing, products and services are invented through collaboration between companies in digital corporate networks ( Brum, 2017 Brum, A. M. (2017). Endomarketing estratégico: como transformar líderes em comunicadores e empregados em seguidores. São Paulo: Integrare. ).
Little sharing of information and knowledge among packaging suppliers	The dissemination of cognitive culture may be the progress toward a system of collaboration between these companies. Some actions should be taken, such as defining a radar of external competences, aiming at accessing specialized knowledge with competitive interest, establishing a structured process based on decision gates ( Marques, 2015 Marques, B. (2015). Colaborar para vencer: gerir parcerias nos seguros . Porto: Vida Económica. ).
The departmentalization in some supplier companies creates internal barriers. This prevents them from getting a clear view of their own processes, not concentrating efforts on the needs and requirements of customers	To structure the organization by processes, allowing more autonomy and polyvalence of the workers so that they can solve problems without having to resort to another department (flexible organization) ( Gonçalves, 2000 Gonçalves, J. E. L. (2000). As empresas são Grandes Coleções de Processos. Revista de Administração de Empresas, 40(1), 6-19. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0034-75902000000100002. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0034-7590200... ).
Lack of indicators for strategic selection of supplies	It could be used, for example, the model of Handfield et al. (2000) Handfield, R., Krause, D., Scannell, T., & Monckza, R. (2000). Avoid the pitfalls in supplier development. Sloan Management Review, 41(2), 37-49. . The ultimate objective of the matrix is to optimize the relationship between costs and risks. The matrix crosses two dimensions: impact on the financial result and uncertainty of supply, generating four quadrants for the categorization of commodities

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Research Question	How is the supplier’s network of a soft drink company characterized under the analytical cut of structural, relational and cognitive embeddedness?
Unit of analysis	Structural, relational and cognitive embeddedness of an ego-centered network.
Organization	Soft drink Factory
Time Limit	2016 and 2017
Data Sources and Reliability	Interviews, direct observations and secondary sources (database of company suppliers, publications and reports related to the área).
Validity of constructs	Multiple sources of evidence (direct observation, interviews and documents) Validation of responses by respondents
Internal validity	Triangulation of data sources and compliance with the standard
External aalidity	Use of theory in a single case study
Examples of key issues	What are the top tier company’s suppliers? Are these suppliers involved in advanced collaborative practices such as R & D partnerships? How is the relationship between the company and suppliers related to the structural, relational and cognitive variables of a supplier’s network characterized? How is the relationship between first and second tier suppliers? Is there a contractual relationship or just business relationships?