ABSTRACT
To raise the level of quality of their suppliers, foreign retailers and food manufacturers introduce chain-wide management concepts to optimize inter-firm relationships with local suppliers. Supply chain networks embody collaboration of more than two firms. Their members maintain highly-intensive and recurrent interactions with each other based on formal and informal contracts. This chapter aims to provide a theoretical elaboration on the role that network goals play in strategic chain management. In supply chain networks, adoption of the collective strategy is most often initiated by the focal actor who goes beyond addressing its own goals and proposes ways to achieve network goals. In food supply chain networks, the achievement of total chain quality can be considered as an example of the network-level goal. The goal of total chain quality requires that all the food chain actors efficiently and effectively work together to address increasing consumers’ demands and minimize the risk of food scandals.
