Logistics Professional Identity: Strengthening the Discipline as Galaxies Collide

• Published date: 01 March 2014
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jbl.12038
• Date: 01 March 2014
• Author: Walter Zinn,Thomas J. Goldsby

Logistics Professional Identity: Strengthening the Discipline as

Galaxies Collide

Walter Zinn and Thomas J. Goldsby

The Ohio State University

The merger of logistics, operations, supply management, and related disciplines into the broader field of supply chain management (SCM)

has brought together academic fields with different professional identities and competing visions of what SCM ought to be, what students

ought to be taught, and what the priorities for research and publication should be. This raises serious concerns because logistics faculty are less

numerous than faculty in related fields. Logistics professional identity risks being diluted by the merger, resulting in potentially serious conse-

quences for the future of logistics education and research. This paper explores these issues and offers suggestions to preserve logistics’profes-

sional identity, education and research in a supply chain world. We propose that logisticians expand the journals where they publish logistics

research, continuing support for strengthening the Journal of Business Logistics as the “A”journal in logistics, rethink the way we train doctoral

students, and work to preserve our community both inside and outside business schools.

Keywords: supply chain management; logistics; education; research; logistics professional identity

INTRODUCTION

Mark your calendars. You don’t want to miss this. Based on

simulations derived from Hubble telescope observations over the

past dozen years, astronomers estimate that our Milky Way gal-

axy will collide with its nearest neighbor, Galaxy Andromeda, in

merely four billion years. Andromeda, the larger of the two, with

its one trillion stars compared to the Milky Way’s paltry 300 bil-

lion stars, is believed to usurp the smaller one, forming one

larger elliptical galaxy (National Aeronautic and Space Agency

[NASA] 2012). To add to the drama, another neighboring galaxy

called Triangulum is likely to join the merger at a later time.

Astronomers contend that the night sky will look very different

from Earth, as the Sun enters a new region of the combined gal-

axy, pulled away by the gravitational forces of Andromeda.

Granted, once the merger does commence, it is expected to take

another two billion years for things to sort out and for the com-

bined galaxy to stabilize (van der Marel et al. 2012).

At about the time the Hubble telescope was launched into

space in 1990, three other “bodies”coexisted independently in

our universe: logistics, operations, and supply management.

1

Each enjoyed its own professional identity, characterized by dis-

tinct academic fields and curricula in our universities as well as

unique professional organizations, conferences, and outlets for

research publications. Over the course of the 1990s and through

today, however, the three disciplines have blended together in

many ways. We now see merged departments and majors bearing

the “Supply Chain”moniker, and undergraduate and graduate

curricula adapting course titles and content to reflect a broadened

perspective. Similarly, new academic journals are emerging. Our

very own steward of this journal, the Council of Supply Chain

Management Professionals (CSCMP), has changed its name, mis-

sion, and scope to incorporate an expanded spectrum of supply

chain interests.

What remains unknown is the outcome of the collisions

among the three academic disciplines. When galaxies collide, it

is usually the larger galaxy that wins, altering the equilibria and

relative position of the other galaxies. In light of the larger mem-

bership among operations scholars worldwide, will they alter the

courses of the logistics and supply management professions in

the merged realm of SCM? How critical is it that the profes-

sional identity of logisticians remains intact?

Within these broad inquiries, several more questions manifest

related to the future of logistics education and research.

•How should we prepare future supply chain professionals to

ensure sufficient skills and knowledge for logistics roles and

responsibilities?

•How should we train doctoral students?

•How can logistics research be preserved in departments where

supply chain fields are merged?

•Where should we publish logistics research?

•Is it important to preserve an infrastructure of conferences to

serve as meeting places and outlets for logistics research?

In the reminder of this paper, we offer commentary and sev-

eral proposals regarding these questions.

THE PROFESSIONAL IDENTITIES OF LOGISTICS AND

SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT

What defines the logistics profession and makes it distinct from

the supply chain profession? We invoke the concept of profes-

sional identify (PI) to assist in this distinction. Professional iden-

tity is defined as “one’s professional self-concept based on

attributes, beliefs, values, motives, and experiences”(Slay and

Corresponding author:

Walter Zinn, Professor of Logistics and Department Chair, Fisher

College of Business, Department of Marketing and Logistics, The

Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA; E-mail: zinn.

13@osu.edu

1

Although our focus is on these three fields, we do recognize

that often others enter the mix, such as operations research and

information technology (IT).

Journal of Business Logistics, 2014, 35(1): 23–28

© Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals