The utilization of expert and peer opinion data as proxy measures for SCM competency responds to contentions that
ordered processes for collecting professional assessments of firms’ SCM competency are needed to better understand the
relationship between SCM competency and firm performance (Olavarrieta and Ellinger, 1997). As far as can be determined, our study is one of the first to employ secondary Delphi-style assessments of SCM competency. Such analyses are rare due to the inherent complexity of evaluating SCM competency. With this in mind, a rigorous protocol was followed for the compilation of the EVA Momentum industry averages and great care was taken to ensure the “noise” inherent in the realworld secondary data under examination did not unduly impair the testing of the study hypotheses. Testing the efficacy
of the ACSI score and the EVA Momentum financial metric as appropriate measures for differentiating firms on SCM
competency also responds to claims that researchers should expand efforts to identify and assess metrics that would be
most useful for explicating the effects of SCM.