آنالیز تحقیقات مدیریت زنجیره تامین بر اساس موضوع An analysis of supply chain management research by topic

Introduction The term “supply chain management” (SCM) first appeared in print about 35 years ago (Oliver and Webber, 1982). As supply chain management (SCM) evolves, disagreement abounds as to whether SCM is a strategy, a process, a business philosophy or just another term for logistics (Gibson et al., 2005; Mentzer et al., 2001). This ambiguity is evidenced by the variety of research in SCM and even the various departments where SCM knowledge is housed in business schools. Some universities house SCM within a combined Marketing and Logistics department (e.g. The Ohio State University, Hanken School of Economics and University of Tennessee). Other universities house SCM in the Management or Business Administration departments (e.g. Miami University and University of Verona) or industrial engineering (e.g. Lund University and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology). Still other universities have formed dedicated departments for SCM (e.g. University of Arkansas and Michigan State University). It is only in the past 10 to years that there have been efforts to arrive at a consensus definition of supply chain management (Stock and Boyer, 2009; Gibson et al., 2005; Mentzer et al., 2001) and to try and identify key SCM constructs (Chen and Paulraj, 2004). The quest for the identity of a discipline is of particular interest to applied disciplines, such as those that fall within the domain of Business. Applied disciplines are faced with the question of what falls within their purview and what does not. Hence applied disciplines such as SCM are constantly in flux, with evolving methods of inquiry, evidence and analysis. The complications and lack of consensus regarding the identity of SCM was first identified in the literature in 2013 (Fawcett and Waller, 2013). This was expounded upon by Zinn and Goldsby (2014) when they noted that SCM lacks a central scientific artifact that is agreed upon by SCM professionals. Is the SCM artifact inventory, supply chain relationships or something else not yet articulated? SCM is not the only business discipline to have faced this crisis. Parallels have occurred within Marketing (Bartels, 1974) and Information Systems (IS) (Sidorova et al., 2008). In the quest for the “IS artifact”, it was suggested that a review of the important themes within the discipline might inform the central identity of the field (Benbasat and Zmud, 2003, p. 184). While some topics appear to be “hot” or the topic du jour at a particular time, others persist as being central to the body of knowledge. Although these topics inevitably evolve in response to environmental stimuli; certain themes may gain or lose prominence over time; shifts in the collective identity can inform us about the growth patterns of the discipline. In the quest for the SCM artifact, we can learn from how the issue has been tackled in other disciplines. To this end, a structured literature review (SLR) that explores the evolution of theory is relevant and timely. This research examines 492 articles published in eight academic logistics, SCM and management journals from 1991-2015. This study makes several contributions to SCM literature. First, it categorizes articles by the topics that were studied to understand important and useful insights about how these subject areas have been examined by SCM researchers. Within each topic area, the theories that researchers have used to investigate the topics are identified. Named theories are the perspectives by which topics are explored. Topics are defined as the primary subject area of research that was examined using the theory. Topics help to organize theoretical research and define the identity of the discipline. Categorizing the theorybased research articles by this method exposes insights such as: how the topics have evolved over time, which topics have lost prominence or may be particularly promising for future research, how SCM topics are treated in the literature, and the journals where topics are primarily found. Finally, it offers suggestions based on the SLR and identity crises experienced in the Marketing and Information Systems disciplines to anticipate issues upcoming for SCM.