Journal of Business Logistics最新文献

This special topic forum (STF) on Transformative Supply Chain Research introduces a new direction in logistics and supply chain research to guide scholars in addressing the wicked problems facing 21st century society. Supply chain professionals are increasingly addressing corporate social responsibility, changing expectations from customers, resource scarcity, a changing climate, civic and political unrest, to name but a few issues of our times. But scholars have only begun to address these issues from a transformative lens, in which we consider the role of logistics and supply chain management in creating well-being outcomes for the benefit of society. This editorial presents a 5-pronged research agenda to guide researchers, while highlighting the three articles in this STF that serve as exemplars of transformative supply chain research.

Both lean and agile practices have emerged as dominant organizational strategies to improve supply chain and firm performance. In addition, combinations of lean and agile, so-called leagile practices, have developed. Most extant studies have tested the effects of specific subsets of lean, agile, or leagile practices on performance. This study proposes a comprehensive framework to investigate the complementary versus mutually exclusive performance gains of lean, agile, and leagile practices and their combinations. We review the literature and conduct a meta-analysis of 127 empirical studies, yielding a total of 969 effect sizes across 30,741 firms. Our results indicate support for the positive link between lean, leagile, and agile practices and firm performance. Further analyses provide support for some aspects of cumulative capability theory, while others support aspects of trade-off theory. We thereby enlighten the discourse about the cumulative and comparative effects of lean, leagile, and agile leveraging our comprehensive framework of practices. Specifically, our contribution identifies practice combinations that can be considered more valuable performance enhancers than others. Furthermore, our research guides managers on aligning and adapting lean, leagile, and agile practices with their firms' strategic priorities and performance goals. Finally, we showcase areas that require additional empirical investigation.

Theories developed for understanding the general management or economic phenomena are increasingly ineffective for explaining logistics/SCM-specific phenomena, despite the best efforts of LSCM researchers to utilize them for those purposes. Unfortunately, the hierarchies and infrastructure in place to ensure LSCM research is theoretically grounded and conducted with scholarly rigor have not advanced to a point where the use of alternative methods to explore such questions is common. The key objective of this paper is to guide where empirical LSCM research could evolve if it took its relationship with theory a step further. Our thesis is that inductive research using empirical data can yield additional insightful answers to relevant questions. We hope that discussion of these topics from a 2024 perspective can spur more research that uses empirical analysis as a starting point to create new theory in LSCM and, importantly, to persuade members working in our field to respect and accept rigorous empirical research conducted outside the traditional deductive, logical positivist paradigm.

Middle-range theory (MRT) refers to conceptualizations that apply to some, but not all, contexts. While MRT sacrifices generalizability, it yields rich, actionable insights in the contexts where it applies. With MRT's history of industry grounding, the supply chain field offers a strong fit for the development of MRT, but arguably this potential has been underexploited by supply chain management (SCM) researchers. Several conceptual articles have encouraged greater use of MRT and offered important tips, but no step-by-step demonstrations appear in the literature. Such a demonstration could guide supply chain scholars seeking to better implement MRT as well as lead other scholars to start pursuing MRT. In this article, we develop a five-step process and apply it using an MRT (i.e., warm glow theory) and a series of experiments. The experiments focus on how local businesses might shape demand in their favor during societal crises. We discuss how the results inform local businesses and the crisis context but may have limited generalizability to other organizations and normal conditions. Overall, we describe and explain a systematic and viable approach, albeit not the only viable approach, for using MRT to advance SCM research.

The supply chain management discipline has seen a tremendous growth in the use of experimental methods. Given the large number of published studies, the time seems opportune to systematically review the use of such approaches. In this note, we consider multiple dimensions of experimental design used in articles published in six of our premier journals. We present these findings and contemplate opportunities for future applications of experimental methods. In particular, we highlight a need to more regularly conduct and report on the results of power analyses and experimental checks, more carefully contemplate the justification and use of WEIRD (Western, educated, industrial, rich, and democratic) participants, develop and test mediated theoretical models, and increase our focus on teams as the unit of analysis when using experimental methods.

LaDonna M. Thornton, Jessica L. Darby, Tyler R. Morgan, Anthony S. Roath. (2024). Well-being insights from the food insecurity supply chain: A paradox theory perspective on logistics service performance. Journal of Business Logistics, 45(2), 1–21.

The article title should be “Well-being insights from the food insecurity supply chain: A logistics service quality perspective.”

Due to author oversight, the correct article title was not included in the published version of the article. The statement has now been added to the article.

At the heart of the criticism is questioning the importance of the problem being studied and the usefulness of the insights and solutions offered. Research that will be published next month in the Journal of Business Logistics (JBL) by Ted Stank and his colleagues has gone as far as to suggest that “The positivist research tradition has served the field well in offering empirically supportable findings. However, it has proven limited in its ability to address the evolving complexities of modern supply chains” (Stank et al., 2024). This is an important statement for journals like JBL that work to provide valuable managerial implications to the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals and the LCSM field as a whole (Davis-Sramek & Richey, 2021).

More engaged research within the LSCM discipline will help move the needle in the right direction. Engaged research is grounded in problematization (Alvesson & Sandberg, 2011) as a critical step toward identifying exciting research problems and articulating compelling solutions. As such, we have two objectives: to clarify what engaged research is and to present a design approach (Mathiassen, 2017) that researchers can use to navigate the complex process of conducting engaged research that addresses current real-world LSCM problems. Accordingly, we explain what engaged research is in the broader context of business research based on the pioneering work by Van de Ven and Johnson (2006), followed by a brief overview of engaged research in LSCM. Next, we elaborate on Mathiassen's design approach to engaged research with examples from LSCM. We conclude by discussing how LSCM scholars can best use the suggested approach. Staying true to the idea of reflexive and innovative research endeavors, we avoid offering “cookie-cutter” prescriptions on how to do research and instead aim to inspire and encourage LSCM scholars to do more engaged research.

Engaged research offers a wide range of rigorous research approaches and methodologies that share a common interest in collaborative engagement with the community. It aims to improve, understand, or investigate an issue of industrial or societal interest or concern, including environmental and societal challenges. Please note that while engaged research specifically focuses on conducting research collaboratively with external stakeholders to address real-world issues, engaged scholarship (a term frequently used) encompasses a broader scope of activities beyond the specific research context and a more immersive approach to the world surrounding us. While this broader, more holistic scope is highly desirable, it is beyond the focus of this editorial.

Van de Ven is typically regarded as the pioneer of engaged research. In his seminal book “Engaged Scholarship: A Guide for Organizational and Social Research,” Van de Ven and Johnson (2006)

The transformative research agenda encourages the pursuit of questions emphasizing societal welfare and well-being outcomes rather than (just) focusing on narrow, incremental business-related outcomes. This paper addresses that premise by examining those households at the social and economic bottom of the pyramid (BOP) that are intended to benefit most from the removal of trade barriers. The removal of these barriers should enable supply chains to yield commercial and welfare efficiency in terms of economic surpluses. The Goods and Services Tax legislation implemented in India in 2017 sought to do just that, serving as the experimental testbed for our investigation. Yet, as our analysis of more than 50,000 unique households in the Consumer Pyramids Household Survey data indicates, those at the social and geographic BOP see less benefit than others from the same policy intervention. This runs counter to the intended consequences of such policies. We employ a middle-range theorizing approach grounded in the Theory of Customs Unions to inform and substantiate our hypotheses, which are tested using a stochastic frontier analysis and truncated regression. The results hold implications for policymakers and organizations seeking to elevate the efficacy of supply chains orchestrated by and serving BOP populations.

Morgan, S., Igor, S. G., Cliff, D., Andrea, L. S. (2003). Supply chain visibility types and contextual characteristics: A literature-based synthesis. Journal of Business Logistics, 45(1), 1–29.

Taking stock of a research stream through a literature review can provide tremendous value. Whether this potential is fully realized depends on the degree to which the review energizes a research stream by setting a course toward exploration of compelling and exciting research questions. The purpose of this editorial is twofold. First, we describe four key tactics that scholars can use to create an energizing literature review: (1) launching research ideas from the conceptual platform built by the review; (2) ripping cutting-edge research ideas from news and industry headlines; (3) unveiling a portfolio of theoretical opportunities; and (4) constructing an accessible research agenda. Second, we introduce the five literature reviews contained in this special topic forum with particular attention to their energizing features.