Considering Supply Chain Management's Professional Identity: The Beautiful Discipline (Or, “We Don't Cure Cancer,But We Do Make a Big Difference”)

In recent months, we have participated in various discussions on the future of logistics and supply chain management (SCM). As the newest business discipline, it is not surprising that SCM is going through growing pains and seeking to chart its future course and define a meaningful destiny. Considering professional identity—that is, who are we and what do we do—is a natural part of maturation. As JBL exists to help construct the discipline's identity, we address SCM's value‐creation competence as a source of identity construction. As we explain, SCM's economic and social contributions are not just noteworthy but remarkable. Modern SCM makes a difference to the people of the world, driving economic growth and raising living standards. Truly, it is a good time to be a supply chain professional. Much research, however, needs to be conducted if we are to fulfill SCM's value‐creation promise.     

THE DOMAIN AND SCOPE OF SCM'S FOUNDATIONAL DISCIPLINES — INSIGHTS AND ISSUES TO ADVANCE RESEARCH

The authors examine and take stock of the changing nature and landscape surrounding supply chain management, and the related disciplines of purchasing, operations management, logistics and marketing channels of distribution. They identify, describe and synthesize the nature of research in those academic disciplines that are identified to be some of the objectives with respect to supply chain management's integration goals. Their examination highlights the considerable evolution and significant advances occurring within and among these disciplines. Additionally, they find this new landscape to provide both insights and issues for scholarship to those attempting to understand the evolving nature of supply chain management and its related fields. Such insights and issues suggest a number of proposals for progress with regard to SCM's future development.     

The Evolution of Resilience in Supply Chain Management: A Retrospective on Ensuring Supply Chain Resilience

We opened our 2010 paper in the Journal of Business Logistics with a 6th century quote by Heraclitus – “The only constant is change.” This immutable law certainly holds in today's volatile business world, especially for supply chain management, and has been the driving factor behind the interest in resilience. Since the seminal works of the mid‐to‐late 1990s and early 2000s, the supply chain discipline has progressed toward a common understanding of resilience. But we're not there yet. This paper reflects on the impact of our 2010 paper, and envisions future opportunities for advances in resilience that will improve both day‐to‐day business continuity and long‐term sustainability. We are honored to be selected for this 40th Anniversary Issue of the Journal of Business Logistics, and proud that our paper has been recognized as the most cited of the decade.     

Covid-19 in America: Global supply chain reconsidered

This research asks: To what extent has America's reliance on the global supply network aggravated the country's public health and economic crisis; and how did the American government respond to supply chain weaknesses during the early years of the Covid-19 pandemic? This study first assesses important conceptual considerations that explain the expansion of global value chains and the growth of trade interdependencies among nations. Next, an analytical case study observes (1) America's supply chain vulnerability through three major waves of infection, (2) the difficulty to mend weaknesses in the supply linkages once the novel coronavirus spread globally and (3) American government's failures to both anticipate and respond to supply shortages, especially in the health sector. Trump administration's policies failed to ensure a reliable supply of simple personal protective equipment (PPE) for healthcare professionals and hospitals throughout the first three waves of infection. Moreover, state and federal governments' substantial reliance on large manufacturers who have established procurement relationship with government led to continuous nationwide supply shortages throughout 2020. The federal government's inability to engage small and medium manufacturers in the production of critical supplies of PPE and diagnostic tests deepened and prolonged the devastating impacts of the pandemic. Our case study demonstrates that the American government needs to rethink the country's substantial reliance on the global supply chain, and the specific requirements to boost domestic manufacturing capacity. The revitalisation of America's manufacturing ability and the local supply networks will boost the productive power of the nation, strengthen resiliency, reduce vulnerability in disruptive times and prepare the nation for future crises.     

The SCM Knowledge Supply Chain: Integrating World Views to Advance the Discipline

Supply chain management is a discipline immersed in knowledge creation and dissemination concerning the integration of business processes across functions and among firms. Academics are the producers and distributors in this knowledge supply chain. The Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) provides numerous opportunities to integrate functions and processes between academics and practitioners. The Journal of Business Logistics, the CSCMP Educators' Conference, the CSCMP Annual Global Conference, and CSCMP per se, provide the venue for linking academics to practice, bridging the gap between the two groups as part of the same universe of value creation. Being actively involved in all of these makes a researcher more complete, relevant, and rigorous.     

Supply Chain Game Changers—Mega,Nano, and Virtual Trends—And Forces That Impede Supply Chain Design (i.e., Building a Winning Team)

Strategic systems design is essential to structuring and governing a supply chain for competitive advantage. To effectively co‐create value, decision makers must manage the three rights of supply chain design: right players, right roles, and right relationships. Doing this well requires managers discern how the unwritten competitive rules are changing as well as determine firm readiness to compete. As part of this analysis, we briefly explore five emerging “game changers” that represent potential supply chain design inflection points: (1) Big Data and predictive analytics, (2) additive manufacturing, (3) autonomous vehicles, (4) materials science, and (5) borderless supply chains. We also consider four forces that impede transformation to higher levels of value co‐creation: (1) supply chain security, (2) failed change management, (3) lack of trust as a governance mechanism, and (4) poor understanding of the “luxury” nature of corporate social responsibility initiatives. How well managers address sociostructural and sociotechnical issues will determine firm survivability and success.     

The Quest for Societal ROI in the Midst of the Perfect Storm: Can SCM Set the Standard for Twenty‐First Century Business Education?

The Academy's dual role is to discover and disseminate knowledge. For most of our tenure, we have focused on research's role in fulfilling this societal mandate. We continue that discussion here by calling for more “actionable” research—something that the supply chain discipline is particularly well positioned to do. We now extend the discussion to pedagogy. As the two epigraphs denote, society is looking for a return on its investment—even a reinvention of the university. Increased costs, poor student achievement, and disruptive technology create an environment perfect for disruption. Yet, if we do our job well, current and foreseeable technologies cannot provide the same kind of transformative education that can be cultivated through community‐engaged experiential learning. The good news: The supply chain discipline is perfectly positioned to set the standard for twenty‐first century business education.     

Identifying Key Success Factors for Social Enterprises Serving Base‐of‐Pyramid Markets through Analysis of Value Chain Complexities

There are people in this world who have little or no access to basic needs and they struggle financially, living on less than a handful of dollars a day. A better understanding of how to supply/serve the world's poor is needed. In this paper, through the lens of Porter's value chain framework we investigate the challenges and opportunities social enterprises face in base‐of‐pyramid (BoP) markets based on secondary data on 23 organizations. Our contribution is twofold: First, we analyze value chain complexities for the social enterprise based on the value creation role (consumer, coproducer) and income level (poverty, extreme poverty) of the local population. We find that nature of customers’ requirements varies across customer segments in the BoP markets and social enterprises face unique challenges in fulfilling such differentiated demand patterns. Second, we develop an affordability–accessibility framework that helps to identify the situations that may be favorable/unfavorable for social enterprises to meet the challenges in BoP markets. We make four propositions that social enterprises may use to cope with difficulties in affordability and accessibility. Our findings will be useful for such organizations to understand and design better supply chains for the base of pyramid.     

Multidisciplinary and Multimethod Research for Addressing Contemporary Supply Chain Challenges

To achieve differential performance in today’s marketplace, supply chain decision makers must manage complex, multifaceted, and nuanced issues. To help decision makers, and advance the supply chain discipline, researchers need to consider how multidisciplinary and/or multimethod research can provide greater insight into today’s and tomorrow’s challenges and opportunities. We explore questions related to the supply chain–finance interface and global supply chain management to exemplify how multidisciplinary and multimethod research can increase the insight and influence of our research contributions.     

Financing the global supply chain: Growing need for management action

This article investigates a growing desire by companies to better manage the financing of the global Management Action supply chain and explores best practices. Supply‐chain managers and finance or treasury managers, however, live in different worlds, and integration does not come easily. The article argues that decentralized finance functions lead to financial inefficiencies. The authors identify five subarchitectures to competitive supply chains and argue that visualizing the supply chain financially is the first step to controlling and improving it. Finance is embedded in every step of the supply chain — and business model. Management guidelines of what to change, what to eliminate, and what to adapt are presented along with the new starting points of strategy and customers' ever‐changing needs. Consequently, the end game is profit maximization rather than only cost minimization, and both within acceptable risk parameters. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

OVERCOMING SPREADSHEET RISK IN SUPPLY CHAIN MODELING

Spreadsheet optimization modeling plays an important role in the management of today's sophisticated supply chains. However, despite the advantages of spreadsheets (or in some cases because of these advantages) there are significant risks associated with spreadsheet models. Spreadsheet risk is defined as the chance of adverse operational or financial consequences due to erroneous creation, maintenance, and/or use of spreadsheet models. Such errors arise because the intrinsic complexity of optimization models is beyond the expertise of many non‐technical managers. In this article we discuss procedures that we developed for managing the substantial risks associated with the use of spreadsheets for supply chain optimization. The issues we address go far beyond simple data entry mistakes, which are possible in virtually every aspect of business and can never be completely eliminated.     

Using Behavioral Experiments to Expand Our Horizons and Deepen Our Understanding of Logistics and Supply Chain Decision Making

As logistics and supply chain managers face increasingly complex challenges, there is a critical need to better understand the nuances of decision making in today’s global business environment. However, the systematic effect of behavioral biases and cognitive limits on managerial judgment and decision making in our discipline has not received much attention to date. Behavioral experiments represent a potentially valuable and currently underutilized approach for gaining insight into logistics and supply chain decision making that is commonly characterized by departures from rational thought. This article challenges logistics and supply chain researchers to consider the opportunities and realities associated with using behavioral experiments in pursuit of knowledge in this area.     

The building blocks of a supply chain management theory: Using factor market rivalry for supply chain theorizing

As the supply chain discipline matures, opportunities emerge to develop or define theories that are specific to supply chain phenomenon. The current research specifies characteristics that we offer which comprise the building blocks of supply chain theory. These characteristics include the flows of material through a supply chain network, the temporal management of these material flows, the dyadic and triadic interactions of firms within the supply chain network, and the outward focus on supply chain management (SCM), in other words a supply chain orientation, of firms in a supply chain. Further, recognizing that supply chain theories must contain the previously identified characteristics, we offer Factor Market Rivalry (FMR) as a theory of SCM. FMR refers to intense battles for resource positions that are needed to manufacture, provide, or deliver firm products or services. We argue that FMR only occurs within supply chain phenomena. The piece concludes with a future research agenda based upon the practical implications of further developing FMR as a theory of SCM.     

Understanding Managers’ Reactions to Blockchain Technologies in the Supply Chain: The Reliable and Unbiased Software Agent

Organizations investing in supply chain information systems struggle to ensure successful adoption and implementation. Projects fail because of technical caveats, inability to meet business needs, and poor management of implementation. Implementation of blockchain technologies across a network of supply chain partners is more complex than internally focused technologies. It is necessary for partner firms to implement, contribute, and share information, and employees to actively use the capabilities of the technology to realize potential. Blockchain technologies can substitute for traditional interfirm intermediaries acting as an unbiased software agent embedded in the supply chain network. Understanding managers’ perceptions of and willingness to use blockchain technologies is crucial for successful implementation. Integrating design theory with classic diffusion processes, we conducted a scenario‐based role‐playing experiment with industry professionals to examine managers’ perceptions of blockchain technologies and willingness to use. We find that trustworthiness with regard to competence and perceived distributive justice is the focal drivers of managers’ willingness to use the technology. Additionally, both risk and interactional justice are not drivers of willingness to use blockchain technology despite significant claims to that effect. We provide implications for how managers can leverage these drivers to influence supply chain partners’ willingness to use the technology.     

Reflections on 40 Years of the Journal of Business Logistics: From the Editors

This editorial embodies a series of essays from the current and past editors of the Journal of Business Logistics in marking the 40th anniversary of the journal. The compendium is intended to illustrate the evolution in logistics thought and practice as well as the journal's role in documenting and advancing the field. Key trends are identified in each era. Further, each editor expresses opinions of the current and future state of the discipline. This review reflects on the evolution of the Journal of Business Logistics and envisions the futures of the logistics field and supply chain discipline.     

Measuring the Financial Benefits of Cross‐Functional Integration Influences Management's Behavior

While many have suggested that cross‐functional, cross‐firm integration is beneficial, functional managers will have competing priorities and thus different perceptions of its benefits. Performance measurements tend to reward functional behaviors and are often in conflict across functions. Since senior management is held responsible for financial results, the benefits of cross‐functional integration should be measured in financial terms. The supply chain management literature provides little insight about the behavioral changes that can result when managers are provided with financial measures of the value created with customers and suppliers. Using a case study approach, the authors measured value in perceptual and financial terms using pairs of buyer–supplier relationships. In each pair of relationships, one involved cross‐functional teams and the other did not. Managers perceived that the relationships with cross‐functional involvement were more profitable. However, it was not until managers received financial measures showing the impact of joint initiatives on the profitability of each pair of relationships that their behaviors changed with regard to the implementation of cross‐functional relationships with key customers and suppliers. We developed a conceptual model comprised of five theoretical propositions that characterize the role of financial measurements as an enabler of cross‐functional integration and value co‐creation.     

Supplier Role Conflict: An Investigation of Its Relational Implications and Impact on Supplier Accommodation

Existing research on supply chain relationships suggests that one of the underlying tensions between supply chain partners is that of opposing perspectives and goals in the customer?supplier relationship. In today's business world with requirements in constant flux, suppliers are often asked to accommodate “special” requests made by their customers, not part of the contractual agreement. Suppliers frequently fill requests to protect the relationship with the customer, even if they fall outside of what they consider their role as a supplier. Issues of supplier role conflict emerge when customers and suppliers have different views of what the supplier's role should entail. There is little research examining the potential for supplier role conflict in supply chains. Specifically, this research draws on literature from multiple disciplines to consider supplier role conflict that may stem from accommodation and the impact of this role conflict and supplier accommodation on the supply chain relationship and future accommodation behavior. Hypotheses are tested using two scenario‐based experiments. Results suggest that supplier adaptation and flexibility both have positive relational effects. If suppliers perceive accommodation requests as outside of their contracted role, supplier role conflict can have detrimental effects on the supplier's relationship perceptions and their willingness for future accommodation.     

SUPPLY CHAIN CAPITAL: THE IMPACT OF STRUCTURAL AND RELATIONAL LINKAGES ON FIRM EXECUTION AND INNOVATION

Firms invest millions of dollars annually in developing their supply chains, with the broad goal of increasing their own performance. However, despite the significant resources deployed for supply chain development, the extent to which initiating, maintaining, and managing supply chain relationships contributes to firm success remains unclear. The current article provides conceptual development supporting the valuation of firm‐to‐firm supply chain connections from the perspective of the focal firm. Based on the social network and economics literatures, the article introduces the concept of supply chain capital, which comprises the value of both the structural configuration and relationship content of the firm's supply chain network. Following theoretical development, a non‐exhaustive set of propositions are constructed illustrating multiple ways that supply chain capital can be accrued and exploited for firm‐level benefit. Managerial recommendations for investment in supply chain capital are included, as are future directions for research in the area of supply chain networks.