Supply chain alignment as a dialectical process: Evidence from the European car industry

Other conference contribution, 2026

Supply chain alignment is essential for coordinating goals and operations across interconnected organisations, yet our understanding of how alignment dynamics unfold over time remains limited. In this paper we examine how alignment evolves across interconnected supply chain relationships over time by adopting a dialectical lens to explain the underlying dynamics. We conduct a longitudinal case study of a three-tier automotive electronics supply chain, comprising one European OEM, three Tier-1 suppliers, and one Tier-2 semiconductor manufacturer, during the 2020-2023 semiconductor shortage crisis and beyond. Our analysis reveals four distinct dialectical cycles through which alignment mechanisms emerged, interacted, and transformed via recurring patterns of conflict and synthesis. We find that alignment is a dynamic, recursive process: each synthesis simultaneously resolves immediate tensions while establishing conditions for subsequent conflicts. We also identify three distinct conflict patterns in supply chains: dyadic conflicts with triadic implications, genuine three-position conflicts, and alliance-based conflicts; that are not captured in traditional dyadic analyses. Our study contributes to supply chain alignment literature by demonstrating its processual nature, and extends how dialectical theory is applied to explain buyer-supplier relationship dynamics in supply chain contexts.