Luxury retailers emphasize aesthetic value of their products and sell them at ultra-high margins. Therefore, they are less sensitive to supply–demand mismatches than fast-fashion retailers. Luxury brands have different supply chain priorities than perfectly matching supply with demand. This chapter presents crucial aspects of luxury supply chains that are centered around demand management, supply chain transparency, and circular operations management. It also discusses the potential of blockchain for luxury supply chains as this technology can address the problems regarding supply chain transparency and circularity.

Frequently asked questions and answers from practice are provided in this chapter.

This chapter offers an illustrative case of theory development from transcultural ethnography in a completely different industry, going from a soft industry like Disney and entertainment to a hard industry – ball-bearings. Theory development around knowledge sharing and challenges based on different types of knowledge are discussed.

This chapter surveys economic perspectives of supply chain management and discusses their practical implications. It compares Adam Smith’s view of self-functioning supply chains with Ronald Coase’s theory of the firm that leads to supply chain management being perceived as a factor of production. Supply chain management dominated by Coase’s perspectives suffers from misguided investments, network externalities, myopic monetary policies, and incomplete market analysis. This chapter argues that supply chain management must be at the center of economic policies to create wealth for nations. It shows how Switzerland prioritized supply chain management and became one of the wealthiest and most innovative countries in the world.

This section offers a review and frequently asked questions regarding ethnography in international business.

This chapter offers an illustrative example of a large food retailer, Tesco PLC, using insider ethnography from its Asian subsidiary managers to reinvigorate its home operations in the UK. The technique of strategic ethnography and learning from Others along with its challenges and opportunies for growth and renewal are discussed.

Although digital technologies play a vital role in improving the efficacy of supply chain management, companies often fail to transform digital aspects of their supply chains. To minimize the failure risk, digital transformation must begin with a design phase. This chapter introduces four aspects of the design phase: (1) operational due diligence, (2) data management strategy, (3) comprehension of business analytics, and (4) expansion of the potential of digital solutions. It shows how to achieve digital transformation of supply chains by addressing prominent issues in the design stage.

The focal ethnography is the starting-off point from which general understandings and the inklings of new constructs are gleaned. It is usually carried out within a single division, plant, or project of a company that is undergoing change. In order to induce theory, several within-methods triangulations are used to check for internal reliability. This chapter offers an illustrative case of a focal intracultural ethnography around negotiating culture in a takeover by Japanese management of a US paper plant. Individual-level outcomes from cross-cultural adjustment and synergistic learning, on the positive side, to work alienation, on the negative side, are explored. Unsuccessful navigation of these outcomes leads to failed integration that can seriously affect successful technology transfer, knowledge sharing, and the general realization of global growth. By means of an iterative between-methods triangulation, the study surfaces cross-cultural work alienation as a phenomenon that can limit the overall success of such ventures, and identifies interventions that help to promote successful post-merger integration.

Preparing oneself to thoughtfully engage in intracultural ethnography within today’s multifaceted and dynamic cultural settings is no small task. To document and theorize the cultural undercurrents at work in today’s multicultural work settings requires an understanding of the complexity of culture as expressed, enacted, and negotiated across interconnected levels of analysis and spheres of influence. The following tools and practice opportunities are designed to consolidate your learning from the previous chapters, using practical aids for sifting through the various layers of culture while allowing for and giving voice to individual variance.