Redefining Some Methodological Criteria for Empirical Research
In their new editorial, the editors of the Journal of Operations Management highlight five important issues, “many of which continue to be reasons for rejections in the manuscript review process”. First, “it is time to take causality seriously”. Particularly, authors have to take steps toward correcting for endogeneity or demonstrating exogeneity. Second, “know which rules are worth following”. For example, the yes–no rule that a measure is reliable if Cronbach’s α exceeds 0.7 is no longer recommended. Third, “always understand the tools you use”. Here, authors of PLS-based manuscripts routinely fail to discuss the weaknesses of the estimator. Fourth, “be cautious with claims about common method bias”. Particularly, ex-post techniques (e.g., Harman, 1967) do not have much practical value (see, however, my post about the CFA marker technique). Finally, “stay current on methodological developments”. For example, Baron & Kenny (1986) are widely used, although updated approaches have been published. It seems that the JOM editors no longer send manuscripts to the review process that ignore these issues.
Guide, V., & Ketokivi, M. (2015). Notes from the Editors: Redefining Some Methodological Criteria for the Journal. Journal of Operations Management, 37 https://doi.org/10.1016/S0272-6963(15)00056-X
Introducing the Journal of Humanitarian Logistics and Supply Chain Management (Guest Post by the Co-Editors)
In today’s guest post, Nezih Altay and Ira Haavisto, the new Co-Editors of the Journal of Humanitarian Logistics and Supply Chain Management (JHLSCM) provide an introduction to their journal.
We are very excited and motivated about the task given to us and humbled by the trust of our friends and colleagues. JHLSCM promotes the exchange of knowledge, experience and new ideas between researchers and practitioners and encourages a multi-disciplinary and cross-functional approach to the resolution of problems and exploitations of opportunities within humanitarian supply chains. Our vision for the journal is for it to be the premier publication choice for humanitarian logistics researchers and a leading knowledge resource for practitioners. We hope to accomplish this by increasing the number of issues and expanding the scope of the journal to include research on not just post-disaster relief but all kinds of humanitarian operations, hereby continuing to emphasize evidence-based research without limiting our researchers in their methodological choices. We plan to not only expand the editorial advisory board but also engage them in the process of taking JHLSCM to the next level. Our EAB members will not just review papers but counsel authors to help them build their papers and by continuing to push for better quality. In addition to academic rigor, “quality” for us also includes dimensions like readability, timeliness, and validity. Papers published in JHLSCM should be readable and understandable by non-academics as well. They should focus on contemporary topics and solve real problems.
Dr. Ira Haavisto is the Director of the HUMLOG Institute at the Hanken School of Economics in Finland. Dr. Nezih Altay is an Associate Professor at the Driehaus College of Business of DePaul University in the United States.
Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence 2015
Some time ago, the winners of the annual Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence 2015 have been presented. Here comes a selection of this year’s outstanding papers related to supply chain management: First of all, it is noteworthy that several award-winning papers deal with sustainability; this includes papers written by Eng-Larsson & Norrman, Fabbe-Costes et al., Griffin et al., Schaltegger & Burritt and Varsei et al.. But also other topics have been awarded several times, namely risk/resilience (Vilko et al. and Scholten et al.), logistics integration (Alam et al. and Mellat-Parast & Spillan) and supply chain strategy (Sharma & Bhat and Nag et al.). It is also interesting to see several multidisciplinary articles in this list, hereby linking supply chain management with areas such as human resources (Hohenstein et al.), marketing (Flint et al.) and strategic sourcing (Eltantawy et al.). Congratulations to all winners! (See also: Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence 2014.)
How to Write an Abstract
An abstract is maybe the most underestimated document of a journal submission. First, the editor will read it and use it as a criterion to decide whether she will give the submission a chance, hereby asking: “So what? Is this manuscript timely and relevant?” Second, the abstract is usually included in the invitation e-mail received by potential reviewers and typically the only part of the manuscript they can see before deciding for or against accepting the invitation. An abstract should, thus, not create a cognitive dissonance. Finally, an article can only be found by potential readers if the abstract contains proper search terms. Readers also use it to decide whether they will read the rest of the paper. More about abstracts can be found in Emerald’s How To Guide. The structure of Emerald’s abstracts is helpful even if a journal does not require a structured abstract: Simply remove the headlines (e.g., “Purpose”)!
The Smile of Value Creation
Mudambi (2008) notes that “value-added is becoming increasingly concentrated at the upstream and downstream ends of the value chain” and that “activities at both ends of the value chain are intensive in their application of knowledge and creativity”. Value-added along the value chain is, thus, represented by a “smiling curve”.
Mudambi, R. (2008). Location, Control and Innovation in Knowledge-intensive Industries. Journal of Economic Geography, 8 (5), 699-725 DOI: 10.1093/jeg/lbn024
Horizontal Alliances between Logistics Service Providers
Supply chain research typically investigates phenomena that occur in vertical relationships, e.g., between suppliers and buyers. In our new article, The Interplay of Different Types of Governance in Horizontal Cooperations: A View on Logistics Service Providers, we take a look at horizontal relationships. For example, such relationships occur when two LSPs collaborate to complement their service portfolios. Particularly, our research analyzes the influence of contractual governance on the effectiveness of two types of operational governance (a formal and a relational type). It relates contractual governance and operational governance to two major outcome dimensions of horizontal cooperations between LSPs (cooperation-based firm performance and cooperation-based learning). The results reveal that contractual safeguarding is able to partly replace process formalization when aiming for better cooperation-based firm performance and complement process formalization when aiming for cooperation-based learning. At the same time, relational capital is always complemented by contractual safeguarding independently from the desired cooperation outcome.
Raue, J.S., & Wieland, A. (2015). The Interplay of Different Types of Governance in Horizontal Cooperations: A View on Logistics Service Providers. International Journal of Logistics Management, 26 (2) DOI: 10.1108/IJLM-08-2012-0083
G7 Summit: World Leaders Discuss Global Supply Chains
Expectations were low for the G7 Summit in Germany, which ended today. It is thus all the more surprising that the participants have agreed to phase out the use of fossil fuels by the end of the century. When asked about what he – besides climate targets – considers the most important result of the summit, one of the participants, the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, made a remarkable statement today on German TV: “Well, this might surprise you, as it is rarely reported on in the news: We had an in-depth discussion about supply chains. Surely, we cannot accept that we, in our part of Europe, wallow in wealth and, in the face of the global problems caused by social dumping, let others pick up the bill for our wealth. What we need are fair conditions everywhere: labor rights, environmental standards. And this is what we will be working on.” It seems that the world’s leaders have put supply chains on their priority list.
Supply Chain vs. Supply Chain Competition
Many theory-testing efforts in our field are made by borrowing theories from other fields (e.g., transaction cost economics or resource-based theory), adapting them to a supply chain context and deriving hypotheses that are eventually tested statistically. By doing so, we have reached a lot! But we also need our own theories. For example, several years ago, Lambert & Cooper (2000) noted: “One of the most significant paradigm shifts of modern business management is that individual businesses no longer compete as solely autonomous entities, but rather as supply chains”. So, part of our theoretical toolkit could be a theory of supply chain vs. supply chain competition which could explain how the supply chains of Apple and Samsung interact. However, surprisingly few attempts have been made towards such a theory. This includes a thought piece by Rice & Hoppe (2001) and, more recently, a case study by Antai & Olson (2013). We need to continue this theory-building process.
Rice, J.B. & Hoppe, R.M. (2001). Supply Chain vs. Supply Chain: The Hype & the Reality. Supply Chain Management Review, 5 (5) http: web.mit.edu/supplychain/repository/scvssc.pdf
Antai, I. & Olson, H. (2013). Interaction: A New Focus for Supply Chain vs Supply Chain Competition. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, 43 (7), 511-528 https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPDLM-06-2012-0195
2014 NOFOMA Special Issue
I am very happy to present the 2014 NOFOMA Special Issue, which I have recently co-edited for the International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management. It contains some of the best research that has been presented at the 26th NOFOMA Conference, which took place at Copenhagen Business School last year. First, the article by da Mota Pedrosa et al. (2015) is titled Logistics Innovation Development: A Micro-level Perspective; it investigates the micro-foundations of customer knowledge acquisition during logistics innovation development. Second, Gammelgaard’s (2015) article, The Emergence of City Logistics: The Case of Copenhagen’s Citylogistik-kbh, provides a better understanding of the organizational change processes in city logistics projects. Third, in the article about Humanitarian Logistics: The Role of Logistics Service Providers by Vega & Roussat (2015), a new perspective to humanitarian logistics research is brought to us. Finally, Bhakoo et al. (2015), whose research deals with Supply Chain Structures Shaping Portfolio of Technologies, explore impact of integration through the “dual arcs” framework.
da Mota Pedrosa, A., Blazevic, V., & Jasmand, C. (2015). Logistics Innovation Development: A Micro-level Perspective. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, 45 (4), 313-332 https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPDLM-12-2014-0289
Gammelgaard, B. (2015). The Emergence of City Logistics: The Case of Copenhagen’s Citylogistik-kbh. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, 45 (4), 333-351 https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPDLM-12-2014-0291
Vega, D., & Roussat, C. (2015). Humanitarian Logistics: The Role of Logistics Service Providers. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, 45 (4), 352-375 https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPDLM-12-2014-0309
Bhakoo, V., Singh, P., & Chia, A. (2015). Supply Chain Structures Shaping Portfolio of Technologies: Exploring the Impact of Integration through the “Dual Arcs” Framework. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, 45 (4), 376-399 https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPDLM-12-2014-0298
Supply Management’s Next Evolution
Recent discussions have demonstrated that supply management organizations should not just focus on price but on total cost of ownership. But what is next? A new report, titled Supply Management’s Next Evolution, has now been published by strategy& (formerly Booz & Company). The authors believe that “the next step is for sourcing organizations to move beyond ‘optimizing the buy’ to ‘maximizing value’ for the enterprise” – a transition that could be challenging for many companies, especially if they lack talents that are able to take part in strategic discussions. The authors find that supply management organizations, who successfully manage this transition, follow four common practices: First, they “participate in (re-)architecting product and service designs and contribute to sourcing-related design changes in clear, quantifiable ways”. Second, they “optimize the supply base by tailoring suppliers to the demand profile”. Third, they “segment suppliers to better engage each distinctly”. Finally, they “demonstrate the bottom-line impact”.
