Development of new supply chains : insights from strategic niche management

The extant supply chain literature devotes remarkably little attention to possible strategies and instruments of supply chain design associated with the development of radically new innovations. The main argument put forward in this paper is that an analytical framework derived from evolutionary innovation studies, Strategic Niche Management, is helpful for this purpose. The framework offers a set of concepts with which one can shed light on three key dynamic processes that have to form an integral part of the setting up of a new supply chain, namely networking, learning and the management of actor expectations. It also helps to understand how these processes are embedded into a wider societal context, which forms the setting within which supply chain design decisions have to be made. We illustrate these points with a case study about the setting up of a new supply chain in the biofuels sector in East Africa. Some implications for strategic managerial decision making are also addressed.