Three Essays on Psychological Distance in Supply Chains

Operations management research predominantly models humans as rational and self-interested, with the ability to optimise objectively. However, human decision-making typically deviates from prescribed profit-maximising behaviour. For instance, decision biases in supplier and retailer contracting can lead to lower profits for suppliers, due to preferences for a more equitable distribution of profits between supply chain partners. Supply chain decisions and strategies are ultimately crafted and implemented by managers who are influenced by contextual elements of the decision-making environment. This thesis focuses on contextual factors like lead times, supplier locations, social relationships, and probable disruptions, which all influence perceptions of psychological distances. Using controlled experiments, this thesis addresses the research question of whether psychological distances affect the supply chain managers’ decision making and if so, how? The first study evaluates how psychological distance impacts managers’ trade-offs between cost and sustainability that were accentuated by the pandemic. The second study explores the effect of naturally occurring social and spatial psychological distances in domestic and international collaborations. The third study examines the effects of temporal and hypothetical psychological distances on inventory orders and allocations when engaging in dual sourcing. Overall, this work establishes that psychological distances arising in supply chains significantly influences managerial decisions.

Grantor dc:publisher

UNSW, Sydney

Year dc:date

2022

Author dc:creator

• Balaguer Mercado, Alain ; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9583-2699

• Psychological distance
• Construal Level Theory
• Supply chain
• Decision making
• Behavioural operations management
• anzsrc-for: 3507 Strategy, management and organisational behaviour
• anzsrc-for: 350909 Supply chains
• anzsrc-for: 350712 Production and operations management
• anzsrc-for: 520402 Decision making

Statement dc:rights

• open access
• CC BY 4.0
• free_to_read

Licence

• https://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2
• https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Language dc:language

en

Identifier

https://doi.org/10.26190/unsworks/24356

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:unsworks.library.unsw.edu.au:1959.4/100649