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1 Introduction
Organisations do not compete in isolation and their wider supply chains create high-value products and services for end-consumers. Some authors have even argued that it is the extent that organisations are integrated with their supply chain "partners" that determines their competitiveness ([13] Christopher, 2011). Given the current trend of global supply chain competition, integration is regarded as a prerequisite for winning performance ([35] Kannan and Tan, 2010; [38] Lee, 2000; [41] Margetta, 1998); thus the results of supply chain integration (SCI) research are of fundamental importance to scholars and management practitioners alike. Although SCI has become a popular area for research during the past decade ([21] Fawcett and Magnan, 2002; [22] Flynn et al. , 2010; [24] Frohlich and Westbrook, 2001), this has mainly been focused on the USA and Europe, thereby leaving a large gap in knowledge pertaining to the applicability of the SCI construct to other national settings and cultures.
The tendency to showcase best practice companies misrepresents the actual situation. For example, a comprehensive site-based study of the European automotive sector ([63] Towill et al. , 2000) found that only 10 percent of supply chains could be regarded as being fully integrated. Similarly, [49] Poirier and Quinn (2003) concluded that only 10 percent of supply chains in North America had achieved external integration. Thus, it may be concluded that, despite more than 25 years of academic endeavour, there remains a significant gap between SCI theory and its uptake by practitioners.
For eight years, the authors have observed value streams in a wide range of industrial sectors and international settings. To date, 72 such value streams have been examined via site-based investigation that (predominantly) has involved a rigorous supply chain diagnostic approach known as the "Quick Scan" ([12] Childerhouse and Towill, 2011). In this approach, SCI maturity is appraised via consideration of three performance measures: supply chain uncertainty; (extent of) simplified material flows and presence of four classes of complexity symptoms. The overriding objective of the international study was to address two key research questions:
RQ1. How well integrated are real-world supply chains?
RQ2. Does integration maturity differ between countries?
Review of the relevant SCI literature is followed by discussion of [31] Hofstede's (1980) cultural differences model, description of the research...