Abstract:
Purpose: This thesis aims to determine and unravel the underlying mechanisms
of how inter-organisational information sharing influences blood safety and
availability in the dyadic blood supply chain in normal, high tempo, and
emergency conditions.
Design/methodology/approach: Grounded in the critical realism paradigm and
the perspective of high reliability theory particularly the collective mindfulness
concept, this thesis uses an embedded multiple case study designed for theory
elaboration. A combined retroductive-abductive and the basic qualitative
description has been adopted as a research strategy. Two contrasting cases with
three embedded cases for each main case are selected using convenient and
context-based approaches, representing a centralised and tightly regulated blood
supply chain in the UK as well as a decentralised and loosely regulated blood
supply chain in Indonesia. The data are collected using the triangulation of semi-
structured interviews, walkthroughs, and other supporting documents including
artefacts and archives. Template analysis coupled with within-case and cross-
case analyses are then used to analyse the data.
Findings: This thesis finds that inter-organisational information sharing
influences blood safety and availability through the dynamic enactments of
collective mindfulness principles that reflect the inter-organisational information
sharing behaviour across the operational conditions. It also finds that the blood
supply chain actors in the centralised and tightly regulated context are collectively
more mindful when sharing information than those in the decentralised and
loosely regulated context, so that more positive changes in the blood safety and
availability performance are observed in the former compared to that in the latter
context. Interestingly, whilst the data reveal an emerging mechanism of heedful
interrelating across a range of operational conditions, this thesis also reveals the
fact that inter-organisational information sharing does not necessarily lead to
positive changes in blood safety and availability. In fact, negatively enacted
collective mindfulness principles can lead inter-organisational information sharing
to unimproved and even potentially worse blood safety and availability
performance.
Originality/value: The primary contribution of this thesis lies in understanding
the underlying mechanisms of how inter-organisational information sharing
influences blood safety and availability in the dyadic blood supply chain across a
range of operational conditions. Whilst offering practical and conceptually
relevant knowledge to the blood supply chain literature, it informs the wider supply
chain literature on the different collective mindfulness principles that make inter-
organisational information sharing influence supply chain performance across a
range of operational conditions. The use of the collective mindfulness concept
offers a novel perspective that extends the current discussion on the
effectiveness of that information sharing for supply chains.