ISBN, ISSN, and DOI
You probably know ISBN, which identifies a specific edition of a book. But do you know what ISSN and DOI are? Similar to the International Standard Book Number (ISBN) for books, the International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) is an identifier for serials and other continuing resources. For example, the online ISSN of the Journal of Business Logistics is 2158-1592. A digital object identifier (DOI) can be used to uniquely identify content objects in the digital environment, i.e. journal articles. A DOI can be resolved by entering it into a text box on the page http://dx.doi.org/ or by extending this URL: For instance, the page http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/259056 will redirect to the paper with the DOI 10.2307/259056. By the way, whenever I link to a book in this blog, I will extend the Wikipedia special page for book sources by the ISBN, e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0136080405. This enables you to select your preferred bookseller rather than having Amazon pre-selected.
Operations Management Journal Ranking
Update: This ranking is relatively old now. It might not reflect the current situation anymore.
Operations management (OM) and SCM are closely interlinked. A citation analysis conducted by Petersen et al. (2011) shows what journals operations management researchers were referencing in their research published in three major operations management journals between 1999 and 2005 (IJOPM, JOM, and POM). These are the ten most referenced journals: Management Science, Journal of Operations Management, Harvard Business Review, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Production and Operations Management, Strategic Management Journal, Decision Sciences, Academy of Management Review, European Journal of Operational Research, and Sloan Management Review. A full list can be found in the article. Not all referenced journals fall in the domain of operations management. Also operations research (OR)/management science, general management, and marketing journals inspire the field of operations management. Both the citation analysis and the meta-analysis are interesting supplementations to other rankings such as the VHB-JOURQUAL ranking and rankings based on impact factors. Keep in mind that journal rankings have a downside and should not be the only criteria for judging the value of our research.
Ranking SCM Journals: VHB-JOURQUAL 2.1
In a previous version of this post, I discussed the 2011 version of the VHB-JOURQUAL journal ranking. Meanwhile this list has been updated, see VHB-JOURQUAL 3 for the 2015 version. Keep in mind that journal rankings have a downside and should not be the dominating criteria for judging the value of our research.
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!
International Journal of Physical Distribution and Logistics Management: Editor interview
Watch editors Alexander E. Ellinger and Glenn Richey Jr. introducing themselves and talking about their plans for the IJPDLM.
Journal of Business Logistics 2.0
There is probably no “A+ journal” in the field of logistics. However, a series of changes can be announced for the CSCMP‘s Journal of Business Logistics (JBL) that might move it a bit closer to this top grade. Firstly, the JBL is now listed in the Thomson Reuters Web of Science. This is an important move, because many U.S. universities require journals to be listed there, in order to count them on the tenure track. Secondly, the journal is now published by Wiley-Blackwell. It can be expected that the publisher’s advanced submission system will accelerate the publication process. Thirdly, the Editorial Review Board has grown to incorporate additional authors. This allows the variety of specialty areas to grow. The JBL is now edited by Matthew Waller and Stanley Fawcett. They succeed James R. Stock, who successfully edited the journal between 2004 and 2010.
Ranking SCM Journals: ABS Academic Journal Quality Guide Version 4
The Academic Journal Quality Guide by the British Association of Business Schools (ABS) is a hybrid journal ranking based partly on peer review, partly on statistical information, and partly upon editorial judgments. In a previous version of this post, I presented a ranking of supply chain management journals based on that list. However, as the initial post and the ABS ranking are already several years old and I do not want to mislead researchers, I decided to remove the old list from this blog. Moreover, the list has often been subject to criticism. Keep in mind that journal rankings have a downside and should not be the dominating criteria for judging the value of our research. Meanwhile, ABS has published a successor to the old ranking: the ABS Academic Journal Guide 2018 (see there).
