Why Theory is Relevant to Supply Chain Research
The Journal of Business Logistics has changed (I recently reported). In their first editorial, the new editors, Stanley E. Fawcett and Matthew A. Waller, share their vision and expectation that “articles published in the Journal of Business Logistics will be grounded in sound theory and make a clear contribution to theory development”. The authors help us to “make sense out of chaos” by clarifying a number of questions: What is theory and should research conversations describe, explain and/or prescribe? What constitutes a valuable theoretical contribution? The authors emphasize that good research must be both influential and interesting and they suggest a three-step action plan to assure that we produce and deliver good theory. The JBL’s editoral is already the second valuable essay about theory development published by an SCM journal within a very short time, the other one being a discussion about conceptual theory development in the Journal of Supply Chain Management. Theory development matters!
Searching for the Paradigm of SCM Research
Before Thomas S. Kuhn published The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, it was accepted that science develops in a gradual chain of new truths that build on existing truths. Scientific progress, as mentioned by Karl Popper, can then be achieved just by consequently applying the scientific method. However, Kuhn’s book proved to be as revolutionary as its title may suggest. Besides “normal” phases of a science, in which the scientific method will be applied, there are also “revolutionary” phases. For example, researchers applied the scientific method within Newton’s paradigm, but Einstein’s revolution abruptly created a new paradigm. In addition, Kuhn describes sciences that are still searching for their paradigm (i.e., “pre-paradigm” phase). A broad range of different theories are used in SCM research, e.g., transaction cost theory and resource-based view. But these theories refer to the system “transaction” or the system “resource” rather than to our system, the “supply chain”. This indicates that our discipline has not yet found its paradigm.
Building Theory in the SCM Field
The Journal of Supply Chain Management has published an interesting forum that discusses the conceptual theory development approach within the context of our discipline. In his introducing essay, the co-editor-in-chief Craig C. Carter describes the JSCM’s perspective/philosophy towards conceptual theory development and introduces guidelines for both authors and reviewers. Choi and Wacker examine selected papers over a time period of the last 10 years to reveal good theory-building practices. Ketchen and Hult observe that powerful tools for guiding the theory building process have been developed within the organizational sciences, but have not yet found widespread application within our field. They describe several of these tools and explain how they can be used to enhance theory building within SCM. In her article, Rindova emphasizes the process through which ideas develop into a value-added theoretical contribution. Finally, Skilton’s essay discusses the process of developing theory during the review process for conceptual articles in contrast to empirical articles.
Trends and Opportunities of SCM Research
Today, it’s time to share one of my favorite SCM readings with you: Supply Chain Management Research and Production and Operations Management by Kouvelis et al. (2006). The authors reviewed SCM manuscripts published in Production and Operations Management between 1992 and 2006. The paper can help researchers to identify possible research streams, lecturers to enrich their lessons, and practitioners to gain theoretical insights. Among the topics identified by the authors are: supply chain design, uncertainty, bullwhip effect, contracts, coordination, capacity and sourcing decisions, and teaching SCM. The authors offer comments which highlight opportunities and suggest ideas on how to usefully expand the body of work in the field of SCM. In addition, emerging areas in our field are mentioned: risk management/supply chain disruptions, closed loop supply chains, and “green” issues. We will continue to cover these topics, for example, in our recent posts about supply chain disruptions caused by the Tōhoku earthquake and CO2 emissions caused by supply chains.
