DOCTORAL RESEARCH IN LOGISTICS AND LOGISTICS‐RELATED AREAS: 1992–1998

A total of 317 logistics and logistics‐related dissertations were published in Dissertation Abstracts between 1992 and 1998. Observations about these dissertation abstracts are offered and comparisons made with earlier research studies that examined dissertations published between 1970–1986 and 1987–1991. The number of dissertations published has plateaued although the number of colleges and universities granting doctoral degrees in the area have broadened, with several “new players” entering the arena. Some traditional topics within logistics are being researched to a lesser degree, while others such as supply chain management, general logistics, customer service/satisfaction, international logistics, and human resources/organizational issues, are being examined more frequently.     

GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN RISK MANAGEMENT

Global supply chains face a multitude of risks. A review of the recent literature reveals a few structured and systematic approaches for assessing risks in supply chains. However, there is no conceptual framework that ties together this literature. The purpose of this paper is to integrate literature from several disciplines ‐ including logistics, supply chain management, operations management, strategy, and international business ‐ to develop a model of global supply chain risk management. The implications for stakeholders and how future research could bring more insights to the phenomenon of global supply chain risk management are also discussed.     

THE ROLE OF LOGISTICS MANAGERS IN THE CROSS‐FUNCTIONAL IMPLEMENTATION OF SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT

There is confusion about the domain of supply chain management, and the functions and processes that should be included. In this paper, we describe the key supply chain management processes, the role of logistics managers in each of these processes, and what the logistics function gains from this involvement.     

DEVELOPING SOCIAL IDENTITY AND SOCIAL CAPITAL FOR SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT

Competition involves not firm against firm but rather supply chain against supply chain, but few studies explain theoretically the subsistence of a supply chain as a social entity or the operating mechanisms through which firms socialize to obtain better business performance. On the bases of social identity theory and social capital theory, the authors suggest that the salience of supply chain identity accumulates social capital in a supply chain, which then facilitates supply chain management and improves business performance.     

AN INVESTIGATION OF THE VALUE OF CROSS‐DOCKING FOR SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT

Cross‐docking is the practice of transferring materials from an incoming shipment directly to an outgoing shipment without storing them at the transfer point. This essentially eliminates the inventory‐holding function of a warehouse and can reduce supply chain costs. We investigate the value of one type of cross‐docking in a variety of supply chain environments.     

SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO LOGISTICS,MARKETING, PRODUCTION,AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT

The renaming of the Council of Logistics Management (CLM) to the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) ushered in some interesting definitional dialogue and debate within the practitioner and academic communities. Inherent in emerging definitions is the notion that SCM encompasses activities traditionally considered aspects of production, logistics, marketing, and operations management. Defining SCM in such a broad scope (i.e., a “within” and “across” functions perspective), while considered by many scholars as the true representation of the essence of SCM, creates confusion regarding the appropriate organizational level within a business that is best suited for managerial decision making regarding the phenomenon. This paper contributes to the emerging SCM dialogue by highlighting the functional spaces (the “within” function perspective), relationships, and conceptual overlaps (the “across” functions perspective) between marketing, logistics, production, operations, and supply chain management. By comparing and contrasting the literature‐based conceptual boundaries of each discipline, a framework is proposed that more clearly captures the essence of the SCM decision making sphere. Managerial insights and future research implications are presented.     

DEBIASING STRATEGIES IN SUPPLY MANAGEMENT DECISION‐MAKING

Human judgment and decision making under uncertainty are vulnerable to decision biases leading to deviations from the standard assumptions of the rational paradigm in economics. This fact is currently not widely reflected by research on decision making in sourcing contexts. However, supply managers are aware of the judgment and decision challenges that result from existing and increasing levels of uncertainty in the external, upstream supply chain, and deploy decision supporting strategies for debiasing their judgments. The analysis of supply management decisions using 441 data units from 133 embedded cases from 15 buying organizations revealed high levels of such debiasing strategies. However, the seemingly most effective mitigation strategy recommended in the general debiasing literature ‐ creating awareness of the underlying mechanics causing decision biases ‐ was only employed by one buying organization, indicating a need to further investigate debiasing strategies specifically in supply management contexts.     

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE EFFECT OF FULL‐SCALE SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE ADOPTIONS ON INVENTORY BALANCES AND TURNS

Supply chain management (SCM) software vendors, analysts, and others claim that firms implementing SCM software stand to benefit by being able to reduce inventory holdings and increase inventory turns. We theorize that full‐scale implementations lead to system‐wide inventory optimization, which in turn leads to cost improvement associated with inventory balances and turns. To examine the question, we develop an analytical model of inventory optimization, then analyze the effects of the model with a numerical experiment, and finally confirm the results with an empirical examination. We find that firm‐wide implementation is significant in explaining improvement in inventory metrics, relative to pre‐implementation metrics for our sample. Our empirical tests indicate that implementing SCM software across only a portion of the firm does not impact inventory metrics, but that the scale of implementation does. More precisely, we find that firms implementing SCM software across the entire company significantly improve both inventory turns and inventory as a percent of revenue relative to partially‐implementing firms and non‐implementers.     

A THREE‐STAGE IMPLEMENTATION MODEL FOR SUPPLY CHAIN COLLABORATION

Leading companies know that collaboration and creativity in supply chain (SC) relationships are critical to future competitiveness. Yet, many companies struggle to collaborate effectively. This reality raises the question: “How can managers overcome the cultural and structural impediments to SC collaboration?” Through a series of in-depth, semi-structured interviews, we identify core practices and key requirements to successful SC collaboration. Contingency and force field theories help transform our field study findings into a three-stage model for improving SC collaboration. The constant challenge of persuading other managers and companies to pursue SC collaboration highlights the need for a proven-path approach to SC collaboration.     

RESPONDING TO DISRUPTIONS IN THE SUPPLY NETWORK‐FROM DORMANT TO ACTION

Managing risks in supply networks is a complex task; more so in those supply networks where the core competence lies in dealing with natural disasters, complex emergencies, and large‐scale attacks—namely those of humanitarian, and military organizations where the price of failure can be counted in terms of the loss of life rather than, simply, reduced profits. This conceptual article examines the capabilities of these supply networks to manage such disruptions, based on their resource configuration in a dormant preparation state. The article concludes by presenting how different types of supply networks can manage large‐scale disruptions.     

THE INTELLECTUAL STRUCTURE OF SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT: A BIBLIOMETRIC APPROACH

Now that supply chain management has a two‐decade research history, it is possible to examine the literature to identify whether there is any latent intellectual structure using bibliometric tools. The study applies a citation and co‐citation approach to reveal four clusters of research that have emerged. One cluster has strong ties to the logistics field, with primarily conceptual articles. A second cluster finds its roots in operations research, and consists mainly of modeling articles. The application of multidimensional scaling, cluster analysis, and factor analysis on co‐citations demonstrated a clearly identifiable structure. The structure is examined and implications for the future development of supply chain research are discussed.     

A GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN PROFIT MAXIMIZATION AND TRANSFER PRICING MODEL

In environments where tax rates in local regions do not represent major decision factors, a cost minimization methodology, which represents the most common optimization modeling approach for integrated manufacturing and distribution planning, can help formulate an effective integrated plan. However, when planning flexibility or alternatives exist because of differing local country tax rates and types and intra‐company transfer pricing options, cost minimization methodologies may inaccurately identify profit‐maximizing global production and distribution plans. Instead, a profit maximization model that explicitly evaluates decisions such as where to incur tax liabilities and how to set intra‐company prices may be required to develop an integrated global manufacturing and distribution plan. In this paper, we discuss and formulate a model that yields profit maximizing global production and distribution plans. We discuss the managerial implications of our results, and the potential applications and benefits of the model.     

SUPPLY CHAIN INTERFACES: DEFINING ATTRIBUTES AND ATTRIBUTE VALUES FOR COLLABORATIVE LOGISTICS MANAGEMENT

Managing supply chain interfaces, where information or physical goods are exchanged between one trading partner and another, is a key component of collaborative logistics management (CLM). Identifying the interfaces on which to focus, and describing the attributes and attribute values of these interfaces, fosters effective CLM arrangements.     

CUSTOMER SERVICE IN THE INTERNET‐ENABLED LOGISTICS SUPPLY CHAIN: WEBSITE DESIGN ANTECEDENTS AND LOYALTY EFFECTS

This article extends the existing research on logistics customer service‐loyalty relationships to the online logistics supply chain environment by examining potential website determinants of logistics customer service quality. A structural equation analysis of 373 online shopping transactions suggests that perceived quality of all logistics customer service activities (perceived cycle time, in‐stock availability, and customer responsiveness) varies inversely with: (1) perceived ease of use, and (2) content vividness of the website; and positively with product information content. However, only retailer customer responsiveness assessment was found to have any significant influence on consumer intended loyalty behavior in Internet‐enabled supplies chains.     

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 Emerging Role of the Third‐Party Logistics Provider (3PL) as an Orchestrator

The connectivity and communication requirements of leading supply chains have created the emergence of a more advanced role for third‐party logistics providers 3PLs. They have evolved from providing logistics capabilities to becoming orchestrators of supply chains that create and sustain a competitive advantage. This article uses a theoretical perspective based on resource‐based theory, network theory and transaction cost economics, and a thorough literature review, to develop a model with seven propositions. Finally, using structured interviews of industry executives from a leading 3PL, we offer empirical support for the model and propositions that can be used to define the orchestrator role of a 3PL.     

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.