Work

Theorizing Cross‐Boundary Strategizing as Situated in Multilayered Supply Chains: A Strategy‐as‐Practice Approach to Supply Chain Management

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: ABSTRACT Supply chain strategy is increasingly recognized as a multilayered phenomenon, with firms strategizing not only within their own boundaries but across supply chain tiers, jurisdictions, and wider regulatory and ecological systems. Yet most existing supply chain management research tends to treat these tiers, jurisdictions, and systems as contexts for strategizing rather than as something strategizing helps to constitute, leaving the cross‐boundary character undertheorized. This article introduces the strategy‐as‐practice (SAP) lens as an epistemic tool for theorizing cross‐boundary strategizing in multilayered supply chains. Drawing on SAP's tripartite framework of practices, practitioners, and praxis (three Ps), we show that strategizing is inherently cross‐boundary, both implicitly through the knowledge practitioners draw on beyond their organization and explicitly through direct interaction with counterparts in other firms and institutions. We introduce three approaches SAP scholars use to conceptualize the complex systems within which strategizing is situated: a “tall” ontology separating intraorganizational from extraorganizational practice, a “flat” ontology treating strategizing as a web of practices stretching sideways, and a zoom‐in/zoom‐out approach tracing connectivity and identifying consequentiality across layers. Using a heuristic case of a European solar company and its Chinese supplier network, we show how each approach can shape the research orientation and theoretical payoff. We close with a research agenda for cross‐boundary strategizing in supply chains and argue that supply chains have the potential to extend SAP's own theoretical apparatus.

Source: Journal of Supply Chain Management

DOI: 10.1111/jscm.70035

Authors: Qian Li, Julia Grimm, Paula Jarzabkowski

Institutions: University of Warwick, Stockholm University, Stockholm School of Economics, The University of Queensland, City St George's, University of London

Language: English

Topic: Quality and Supply Management

Subfield: Management Information Systems

Field: Business, Management and Accounting

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,700

OpenAlex ID: W7211846586

FWCI:

Cites:

Cited by:

Related to: