Conclusion
The importance of this study stems from the scarcity of interdisciplinary research. Despite the theoretical and practical need for relevant interdisciplinary studies, supply chain and innovation management remain two important streams of research with little communication. Recent studies (e.g. Lo and Power, 2010; Pero et al., 2010) offer beneficial insights into the alignment between innovation introduction and supply chain design. Yet, to the authors’ knowledge, this paper is one of the earliest attempts—along with Arlbjørn et al. (2011)—to incorporate the dimensions of both product and process innovation. The majority of the available scholarly publications focuses on new product development and its impact on a few of the supply chain functions, while overlooking the process innovation dimension. Furthermore, the present research contributes in investigating the supply chain from a holistic perspective instead of the functional perspective currently followed. The provided analyses help innovation researchers and managers in better understanding of the actual tangible impact of innovation implementation throughout the supply chain. One can conclude that successful implementation of innovation practices that ensures streamlined value creation along the entire supply chain should be characterised by: (1) a change in the mind-set and developing a clear innovation strategy that should be communicated beforehand to all the supply chain members; (2) seeing transformation as a long-term process and transformative innovation as cyclical, taking place after a number of trials and (3) having a cross-functional and inter-organisational nature. The research results offer beneficial insights to supply chain and innovation practitioners for their decision-making when implementing innovation; it guides them to leverage on collaboration to overcome the potential shortcomings of supply chain misfit. This will help improve the innovation management and will help achieve and sustain an improved supply chain performance.
