The Size of Firms and IS/ICT Employment in Reverse Supply Chain Management

In contrast to the forward supply chain management literature the evidence of the utilization of IS/ICT in reverse supply chain management is very sparse. One of the reasons can be the different size of firms. This paper presents the comparison of IS/ICT employment in management of reverse supply chains among the small, middle and large firms. The aim of the comparison is to contribute to the existing knowledge of different patterns of behaviour of firms grounded in their different size in connection with the IS/ICT utilization with the focus on the relatively specific area of management. Results of the empirical survey can serve as the starting point for further investigation as well as for the practitioners from IS/ICT business and their customers - managers of reverse supply chains - to develop the adapted or new applications of IS/ICT for these types of flows and the different size of firms as well as of volumes and types of flows and character of processes. Calculations of frequencies, relative frequencies, Means and chi-square tests as well as post hoc Anova were used for the statistical analysis of data.