THE ROLE OF FOLLOWERS IN SUPPLY CHAINS

Significant attention has been given to the contribution of supply chain leader organizations in the logistics literature. However, the majority of supply chain member firms are not leaders, and the contribution of these supply chain followers has not been described. Arguably the contribution of follower organizations is greater than that of a single supply chain leader since they are found in greater numbers in most supply chains. This paper identifies a conceptual framework of supply chain followership, classified on the basis of the behaviors exhibited by follower organizations. Data was collected via an interactive simulation, using executives as participants. Structural equation modeling was used to evaluate the proposed model. Results indicate that follower organizations make a greater contribution to overall supply chain performance than leaders when transformational behaviors are present.