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Introduction
In recent years, health care has become a critical issue in the world, along with the increased concerns for medical errors, patient safety, and spiraling up medical costs ([42], [43] McFadden et al. , 2006a, b; [49] Olden and McCaughrin, 2007; [62] Stock et al. , 2007; [23] Gowen et al. , 2008). Also, in today's intensively competitive global market, effective supply chain management (SCM) plays a critical role in improving organisational performance and competitive advantage ([56] Schneller and Smeltzer, 2006; [73] White and Mohdzain, 2009). The competitive environment requires organisations to provide high quality products and services, deliver rapid service response, and develop dynamic capabilities that are congruent with the rapidly changing business environment ([15] Fawcett and Magnan, 2001; [39] Lin et al. , 2005; [65] Teece, 2009). Accordingly, organisations strive for efficient operations, such as value-added process improvement, reduction of delivery cost, and improved quality of products and services, while maintaining close cooperation with their suppliers.
Many researchers have stressed the importance of effective SCM in the healthcare industry ([15] Fawcett and Magnan, 2001; [8] Chan et al. , 2008; [34] Kumar et al. , 2008; [46] Mustaffa and Potter, 2009; Shin et al. , 2009; [73] White and Mohdzain, 2009). Healthcare services involve comprehensive and complex systems that treat and prevent diseases, including medical consumables, laundry and cleaning, medical exercise equipment, home-care products, information systems, wheelchairs, vehicle fleet management, and general materials ([21] Gattorna, 1998). One of the biggest challenges for SCM in the healthcare industry is managing costs while meeting customer demands ([27] Hook, 2009). According to the [24] Healthcare Financial Management Association (2008) SC survey, the healthcare industry is expected to invest as much as 55 percent of total hospital expenses on the implementation of SCM by 2011. For effective SCM, organisations need to first innovate their business processes, while considering their suppliers' processes.
Innovation is an imperative tool for organisations to gain their competitive advantage and improve organisational performance ([52] Porter, 1990). SC innovation refers to a complex process which deals with uncertainty in the environment, so as to provide solutions for customer needs and find new ways to better organisational processes using new technologies ([52] Porter, 1990; [26] Herzlinger, 2006). SC innovation helps organisations achieve SC efficiency...