• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.107-122
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• 2020

Purpose - This paper investigates the relations among exploratory and exploitative supply chain management practices, competitive advantage, and firm performance. Design/methodology/approach - This study takes a hypothesis-generating study to capture the tradeoffs between exploration and exploitation and develops some hypotheses which involve the relations among SCM practices, competitive advantage, and short-term and long-term performance. Findings - Exploitative SCM practices have more positive effects on short-term performance rather than long-term performance, whereas exploratory SCM activities affect long-term performance. Further competitive strategy, environmental dynamism, and organizational slack moderates the relationship between SCM and performance. Exploitative SCM is more desirable when a firm uses low cost strategy, lacks slack resources, and faces stable environment, while exploratory SCM is more effective when a firm employs differentiation strategy, has slack resources, and confront dynamic environment. Research implications or Originality - In order to understand the performance effects of a variety of SCM practices, we should distinguish between exploitative and exploratory SCM activities. Further the relationship between SCM and performance may differ depending upon some contingent variables such as external environment, competitive strategy and organizational slack.