Talent Management For a Post-COVID-19 Supply Chain—The Critical Role for Managers

The SCM field tends to be more focused on the “what” of SCM than on the “how.” Yet the human equation in achieving SCM success is undeniably large (van Hoek et al, 2002; Meyers et al 2004). If the current pandemic environment teaches us one thing, it would not necessarily be that supply chains need improvement. Rather it would be the cruciality of supply chain manager’s efforts to cope with supply chain challenges faced by companies (van Hoek, 2020a, 2020b). What is worrisome in that context that there is a growing shortage of supply chain talent (McKinnon et al, 2017). Consultancy firm Deloitte found that <50% of respondents to a survey indicated that their team’s skills and capabilities are sufficient to deliver procurement strategies.1 So we might face a volume and a skill challenge and the current environment may only make this a greater concern for managers.

Unfortunately, there is a surprising shortage of research on human resource management (HRM) in SCM (Hohenstein et al, 2014). Comprehensive literature reviews of SCM research on HRM (Hohenstein et al 2014; Lutz and Birou 2013) focus on HRM essential activities and techniques such as recruiting, training, and education. What they do not cover is the role of supply chain leaders and managers in HRM. Yet, McCarter et al (2005) conclude that there is a fair amount of “lip service” being paid about the importance of people in industry and that there are lots of shortfalls in talent development. This raises the question what the role of SCM executive and managers is in HRM is and how they can help address skill and volume challenges to future-proof the supply chain?

In this special topic forum, we aimed to help address these challenges and gaps. We did not necessarily receive as many submissions as we had hoped to and because we upheld the rigor and resulting low acceptance rate of the Journal of Business Logistics we ended up with only 2 papers in the STF. But these papers address key themes helping us make progress. We hope that future research will also address other relevant themes as detailed below.

Table 1 provides overview and explanation of themes and further research opportunities within those themes and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on this theme.

We thank the editors of the Journal of Business Logistics for making this Special Topic Forum possible. We thank the authors and reviewers that have helped make it a reality. While there is clearly a lot more ground to cover for research to be a meaningful enabler of the bright future for HRM in SCM, we hope you will enjoy the progress made in this issue and, more importantly, we hope you will join in on the efforts to further the much needed work.