Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

The field of Supply Chain Management has seen rapid advances in recent years. However, questions of how to conduct empirical research are rarely addressed. This volume brings together a number of papers that address both how different research techniques can be applied in conducting research on and in supply chains. As it is shown in this book, the discipline seems to adapt Stock’s (1997) suggestion of borrowing by applying a huge variety of research methods in order to study the phenomena of and in supply chains. It also seems that new approaches to empirical research have to be used in order to explore the full meaning of supply chain management. This also means that the applied methods reach beyond the established techniques. This introduction offers some insights into the overall contribution of the papers. Therefore, the structure of this paper mirrors the subsequent sections of the book.

When choosing a research strategy, there are tradeoffs in control, realism and generalizability. Quantitative research methods optimize control and generalizability (external validity), while qualitative research maximizes realism (internal validity). Logistics scholars agree that logistics and supply chain management are steeped in the positivist paradigm and that past research is primarily normative and quantitative. An imbalance exists in the conduct and publishing of rigorous qualitative research studies such as grounded theory, ethnography, phenomenology, semiotics, and historical analysis. At the same time, the business environment in which logistics and supply chain phenomena are located is becoming increasingly complex and less amenable to using just a quantitative approach. In order to accurately describe, truly understand and begin to explain these complex phenomena, research streams should include more studies using qualitative methods. Researchers who exclusively choose one approach or the other seriously delimit the scope of their inquiry and, thereby, their ability to contribute to the body of knowledge.

Integration is one of the central themes in supply chain management research. This paper explores and discusses the constructs and methods used in empirical research with respect to supply chain integration. A large part of the empirical research on integration is characterized by the use of constructs and scales that measure limited, partial aspects of integration. Furthermore, it appears that contextual factors are hardly addressed. This paper develops a broader construct of supply chain integration and sketches the advantages of a multi-case study approach as an alternative methodology to survey research to develop our knowledge of supply chain integration and its antecedents.

Supply chain integration is an important topic for researchers and practitioners. However, the major concerns constraining the full and complete use of this concept in supply chain management research has been that the construct takes on its own meaning depending on individual subjectivity and different points of view. There is a need for researchers to operationalize and measure what it means by “supply chain integration.” The basic research question is whether a meaningful measure of supply chain integration could be developed. The Q-sort techniques could be used to cluster stimuli from subjective judgments to form a description of an indescribable object. This paper describes how the Q-sort technique could be used in the scale development process, and applies it to the context of measuring supply chain integration. The results indicate that the Q-sort technique is a useful methodological approach in eliminating the validity and reliability problems particularly in the early scale development stages for defining the construct of supply chain integration.

The dominating organizational perspectives within supply chain management (SCM) are firmly based in a methodological position of holistic systems thinking. From this perspective, it is argued that activities in organizations are best understood and developed when seen as holistic systems, where the various subsystems and processes are seen to interact and constitute a whole. However, holistic systems thinking fails to provide convincing explanations for the change phenomena many people experience in logistics-oriented organizations. Recent organizational complexity research challenges the systems perspective and argues from an ontological position of radical process thinking. Organizational activity is described in terms of processes of local social interaction, creating further interaction and patterns of action with global effects. The causes and explanations are to be found in the experience of these processes and not in some kind of system. There are profound implications from this shift in methodological orientation for organizational research in SCM.

A basic element of logistics and supply chain management is the holistic or system view. Following this perspective, especially on a strategic level, supply chain management has to analyze the supply chain as a whole and must not only concentrate on details or specific elements. The configurational approach is one method for realizing this. A configuration is defined as a commonly occurring cluster of strategy, structure, process and context. The following article analyzes how the configurational approach can be applied in supply chain management and provides a critical overview on the different existing configurational approaches in supply chain management.

Literature reviews are an essential part of all kinds of research. Their importance is frequently emphasized in introductory texts on research methodology as well as in methodological papers. The methodological basis for a literature review is usually a document analysis conducted as a content analysis. Therefore, criteria have to be chosen which allow the search for and the categorization of relevant literature. Such classification forms part of the structured analysis. Yet, not all aspects can be assessed this way, so conceptual research must also be a part of the research. Using the example of sustainability in supply chains, this paper offers insights on how a literature review might be conducted. This field provides and interesting example, as it is a young field of academic writing, so a total analysis of all relevant work published since 1990 is feasible. Qualitative issues as observed in literature on environmental and sustainability management as well as supply and supply chain management are used to identify criteria to review the literature.

Investigates the methodology applied in supply chain management (SCM) research ublished in three academic journals from 1997 to 2004. The objective is to analyze and discuss by what research methods our current knowledge of SCM has been generated. 71 papers are identified as containing SCM. Empirical evidence is limited to approximately half of the articles, share of which is frequently generated by quantitative approaches. Conceptual work is weak on discussing fundamental assumptions of SCM (theory, methodology, philosophy of science). Theoretical foundations from a philosophy of science perspective are still unquestioned. Actor and level of analysis are primarily the manufacturing company and a supply chain perspective albeit the empirical evidence usually resides in the particular, focal company. Applications of non-logistics theories or concepts are not navigated by a more fundamental discussion of methodology.

The following paper continues the work of Mentzer & Kahn (1995) by examining 99 ’survey’ articles that have been published in the Journal of Business Logistics between Volume 14 (2) and Volume 24. In order to identify certain tendencies in the methodological development in the field, the assessment includes the analysis of the methods used for collecting data, the sampling procedures, the response rates, the data format, and research. Although survey research seems to be an accepted research approach in the field of logistics and Supply Chain Management, the information given in the articles is unsatisfactory, as no article contains all the necessary data that allow conclusions towards reliability, validity and objectivity of the study .

The use of surveys continues to lead logistics and supply chain management research. We discuss the use of Internet or Web-based surveys as an alternative to traditional survey methods in the context of a Web-based empirical study to identify advantages, disadvantages and limitations of this approach. We demonstrate that this approach has numerous technological and methodological advantages to improve not only internal validity but also external validity. Based on a literature survey, we identify different advantages and validate them by presenting the results of a Web-based survey that was conducted in a typical logistics research setting.