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Global benchmarking networks: the cases of disaster risk reduction and supply chains

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 November 2015

TONY PORTER
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Abstract

While the importance and key features of transnational benchmarking have received increased attention in recent years, the organisational contexts of this benchmarking have not yet been analysed systematically enough. Drawing on actor-network theory, this article identifies two key aspects of these contexts. The first is embeddedness, which refers to the degree to which there are networks that carry information and action from the benchmark to its contexts and back that are sustained institutionally, including by technical artefacts, objects, and routine local practices. Embeddedness is critical to the effectiveness of benchmarking. The second is publicness, which refers to the degree to which these networks exhibit expanding flows of information across widening circles of engagement, or instead are marked by control, domination, and exclusion. The article argues that benchmarking as a form of governance has an inherent impetus toward greater publicness, although this can be prevented by self-interested actors or problems associated with embeddedness. The article then explores the relevance of these conceptual points by examining cases of transnational benchmarking: disaster risk reduction and supply chain management.

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Review of International Studies , Volume 41 , Issue 5: The Politics of Numbers , December 2015 , pp. 865 - 886
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© 2015 British International Studies Association 

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References

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22 Gibbon, Peter and Ponte, Stefano, ‘Global value chains: From governance to governmentality’, Economy and Society, 37:3 (2008), pp. 365–392CrossRefGoogle Scholar. They very usefully look at documents, benchmarks, and training practices, and the ways they can fail, but they do not consider sufficiently the role of technical artefacts and non-humans more generally. The contrast between governmentality and ANT is also discussed in Porter, Tony, ‘Making serious measures: Numerical indices, peer review and transnational actor networks’, Journal of International Relations and Development, 15 (2012), pp. 532–557CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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27 For the application of embeddedness to transnational networks see the references cited in fn. 3 above.

28 Granovetter, ‘Economic action and social structure’, argues that actions are embedded in ‘social relations’. However, since the embedding of these in objects is not discussed, the reader may assume that these are reliant on the type of mysterious social substance that Latour has criticised. Similarly the research reviewed in Granovetter, Mark, ‘The strength of weak ties: a network theory revisited’, Sociological Theory, 1 (1983), pp. 201–233CrossRefGoogle Scholar, does not consider technical artefacts or relationships mediated by communications technologies as significant, perhaps because in part because the internet had not yet developed. As noted in fn. 3 above, the review of the global value chain literature by Bair in ‘Analysing economic organization’ does not consider these either.

29 This article’s approach to the public is consistent with its treatment as a set of social practices in Jacqueline Best and Alexandra Gheciu (eds), The Return of the Public in Global Governance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014).

30 These terms have also long had alternative meanings, such as the association of private with intimacy and the public with popular opinion or civil society.

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37 Kodali, Rambabu and Anand, G., ‘Benchmarking the benchmarking models’, Benchmarking: An International Journal, 15:3 (2008), pp. 257–291Google Scholar (p. 266). A key work in the evolution of benchmarking is Watson, G. H., Strategic Benchmarking: How to Rate your Company’s Performance against the World’s Best (New York, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1993)Google Scholar.

38 Bogan and Callahan, ‘Benchmarking in rapid time’.

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41 Larner and Le Heron detect a similar broadening of benchmarking into a form of governance, but without the publicness discussed here. See Larner, Wendy and Heron, Richard Le, ‘Global benchmarking: Participating “at a distance” in the globalizing economy’, in Larner and Walters (eds), Global Governmentality, pp. 212–232Google Scholar.

42 See EM-DAT, ‘The International Disaster Database’, available at: {www.emdat.be} accessed 30 August 2014.

43 UNISDR, Living with Risk: A Global Review of Disaster Reduction Initiatives (New York: United Nations, 2004), ch. 2, p. 45.

44 For a useful overview of the literature on disasters see Rosenthal, Uriel, Boin, R. Arjen, and Comfort, Louise K. (eds), Managing Crises: Threats, Dilemmas, Opportunities (Springfield: Charles C. Thomas, 2001)Google Scholar.

45 UNISDR, Living with Risk, ch. 1, p. 8.

46 Other interesting disaster risk reduction benchmarks include the Risk Mapping Index produced by DARA, a humanitarian NGO that works in more than sixty crisis countries, and the World Economic Forum’s work on national disaster resilience indicators, which is primarily associated with private sector actors such as insurance companies.

47 For instance #1 is ‘Ensuring that DRR is a national and local priority, with a strong institutional basis’, available at: {http://www.preventionweb.net/files/32916_implementationofthehyogoframeworkfo.pdf} accessed 28 August 2014, p. 3

48 UNISDR, ‘Indicators of Progress: Guidance on Measuring the Reduction of Disaster Risks and the Implementation of the Hyogo Framework for Action’ (2008), {http://www.preventionweb.net/files/2259_IndicatorsofProgressHFA.pdf} accessed 21 August 2014.

49 UNISDR, ‘The 10 Essentials for Making Cities Resilient’, available at: {http://www.unisdr.org/campaign/resilientcities/toolkit/essentials} accessed 21 August 2014.

50 Available at: {http://www.preventionweb.net/english/hyogo/progress/reports/index.php} accessed 20 February 2014.

51 ‘Kenya: National progress report on the implementation of the Hyogo Framework for Action (2011–2013) – Interim’, an HFA Monitor update published by PreventionWeb (8 January 20130, available at: {http://www.preventionweb.net/english/countries/africa/ken/} accessed 20 February 2014.

52 UNISDR, ‘Towards the Post-2015 Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction: Indicators of Success: A New System of Indicators to Measure Progress in Disaster Risk Management’ (21 November 2013).

53 UNISDR, ‘Indicators of Progress’, p. 7.

54 Ibid., p. 18.

55 ‘Local HFA Self-Assessment Tool Second Cycle’, available at: {http://www.preventionweb.net/english/hyogo/hfa-monitoring/local/?pid:73&pih:2} accessed 21 August 2014.

56 UNISDR, ‘Implementation of the Hyogo Framework for Action: Summary of Reports 2007–2013’ (2013), available at: {http://www.preventionweb.net/files/32916_implementationofthehyogoframeworkfo.pdf} accessed 20 February 2014.

57 Integrated Regional Information Networks, ‘Boosting Farm-Level Disaster Resilience in Timor-Leste’ (8 August 2014), UNISDR PreventionWeb, available at: {http://preventionweb.net/go/38886} accessed 22 August 2014.

58 Partners for Resilience, ‘Policy Brief for post-2015 Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction: Key Messages on Building Resilient Communities’ (20 May 2014), available at: {http://www.climatecentre.org/downloads/File/PFR/PfR%20Policy%20brief%20HFAII%20May%202014.pdf} accessed 28 August 2014.

59 There is a large literature on supply chains. Some of this is primarily oriented to business, which I draw upon below. There are several approaches that provide complementary analysis of power and organisation with supply chains, with some linking of these to larger contextual analysis of the positioning of states, regions, or social classes in the global political economy. For overviews see Gibbon, Peter, Bair, Jennifer, and Ponte, Stefano, ‘Governing global value chains: an introduction’, Economy and Society, 37:3 (2008), pp. 315–338CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and the articles in the accompanying Special Issue, including Bair, ‘Analysing economic organization’, and Gibbon and Ponte, ‘Global value chains’. See also Ponte, Stefano and Sturgeon, Timothy, ‘Explaining governance in global value chains: a modular theory-building effort’, Review of International Political Economy, 21:1 (2014), pp. 195–223CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Larner and Le Heron, ‘Global benchmarking’ and Gibbon and Ponte, ‘Global value chains’, have analysed benchmarking in supply chains in ways that are complementary to the approach developed in the present article, but the present article addresses the significance of the contexts of benchmarking more explicitly, as well as focusing on more recent developments.

60 Jim Lawton, vice president of Open Ratings, which provides supply chain analysis, quoted in Biederman, David, ‘Looking for trouble: Companies use benchmarking to help manage risks of increasingly complex supply chains’, Journal of Commerce (2006), p. 50Google Scholar.

61 For a comparison of leading models see Lambert, Douglas M. and García-Dastugue, Sebastián J., ‘An evaluation of process-oriented supply chain management frameworks’, Journal of Business Logistics, 26:1 (2005), pp. 25–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For supply chain benchmarking of corporate social responsibility, see LeBaron, Genevieve and Lister, Jane, ‘Benchmarking global supply chains: the power of the “ethical audit” regime’, Review of International Studies, 41:5 (2015), pp. 905–924CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The differences between this and the benchmarking that is the focus of this article are discussed below.

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64 ‘Members by Membership Type’, available at: {https://supply-chain.org/membership-by-type} and ‘Members by Industry’, available at: {https://supply-chain.org/membership-by-industry} both accessed 24 August 2014.

65 APICS, ‘APICS: Built on a Foundation of Excellence’, available at: {http://www.apics.org/about/overview/mission} and ‘Supply Chain Council to Merge with APICS’, APICS Press Release, available at: {http://www.apics.org/news-landing-page/2014/04/30/supply-chain-council-to-merge-with-apics} both accessed 24 August 2014.

66 This information on SCORmark is taken from materials on the SCORmark webpage, including, available at: {https://supply-chain.org/f/SCORmark_SampleReport.pdf} accessed 26 August 2014.

67 Attaran, Mohsen, ‘RFID: an enabler of supply chain operations’, Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, 12:4 (2007), pp. 249–257CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

68 GS1, ‘The Value and Benefits of the GS1 System of Standards’ (2011), available at: {http://www.gs1.org/docs/GS1_System_of_Standards.pdf} accessed 9 March 2012.

69 IBM Global Business Services in collaboration with CGF, ‘Make Your Supply Chain More Efficient by Using GS1 Global Standards: Findings of the 2011 Consumer Goods Forum Compliance Survey’, Executive Brief (2011), p. 4, available at: {http://www.globalscorecard.net/live/download/GBW03166-USEN-00.pdf} accessed 1 March 2014, p. 7.

70 ‘The Consumer Goods Forum’, available at: {http://www.traceone.com/en/partners/detail-partners/partner/the-consumer-goods-forum} accessed 24 February 2014.

71 CGF, ‘The Organisation’, available at: {http://www.theconsumergoodsforum.com/about.aspx} accessed 24 February 2014.

72 GCI and IBM, ‘The GCI Global Scorecard’, Brochure (2006), p. 3, available at: {http://globalscorecard.gs1.org/gsclive/download/user_guide.asp} accessed 30 August 2014.

73 Canadian ECR, ‘What is Efficient Consumer Response?’, available at: {http://www.ecr.ca/en/Default.htm} accessed 1 March 2014. Information on the Global ECR initiative is available at: {http://www.ecr-all.org/} accessed 1 March 2014.

74 IBM, ‘Make your Supply Chain more Efficient’, p. 4.

75 See Liepina, Liene, and Kirikova, Marite, ‘SCOR Based ISS Requirements Identification’, in Witold Abramowicz, Leszek Maciaszek, and Krzysztof Weçel (eds), Business Information Systems International Workshops and BPSC International Conference (Poznan, Poland: Springer, 2011), pp. 232–243Google Scholar.

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77 Francis, ‘Team building’.

78 CGI and Capgemeni, ‘2016 Future Supply Chain’ (2010), available at: {http://www.futuresupplychain.com/downloads/} accessed 27 August 2014.

79 LeBaron and Lister, ‘Benchmarking global supply chains’.

80 This section draws on Hansen, Hans Krause and Porter, Tony, ‘What do numbers do in transnational governance?’, International Political Sociology, 6:4 (2012), pp. 409–426CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

81 Fishman, ‘The Wal-Mart you don’t know’, Fast Company (1 December 2003), available at: {http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.html} accessed 3 July 2012.

82 Wailgum, Thomas, ‘Will Wal-Mart suppliers see red at green edict?’, Computer World (12 July 2009)Google Scholar, and Wang, Jianfeng, ‘Economies of IT systems at Wal-Mart’ – an historical perspective, Academy of Information and Management Sciences Journal, 9:1 (2006), pp. 45–66Google Scholar.

83 Parks, Liz, ‘E-collaborative efforts: Partnerships fortify supply chain initiatives’, Drug Store News, 23:2 (2001), pp. 1Google Scholar, 13.

84 GSI, ‘Upsteam Integration Model (UIM)’, available at: {http://www.gs1.org/upstream/uim} accessed 27 August 2014.

85 GS1, ‘GS1 US and Voluntary Interindustry Commerce Solutions Association to Merge’, Press Release (10 September 2012), available at: {http://www.gs1us.org/about-gs1-us/media-center/press-releases/gs1-us-and-vics-merger} accessed 29 August 2014.