Mapping the Landscape of Future Research Themes in Supply Chain Management

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jbl.12131
• Author: Robert B. Handfield,Christian F. Durach,Andreas Wieland
• Published date: 01 September 2016
• Date: 01 September 2016

Mapping the Landscape of Future Research Themes in Supply

Chain Management

Andreas Wieland

1

, Robert B. Handfield

2

, and Christian F. Durach

3

1

Copenhagen Business School

2

North Carolina State University

3

Technische Universit€

at Berlin

Supply chain researchers are confronted with a dizzying array of research questions, many of which are not mutually independent. This

research was motivated by the need to map the landscape of research themes, identify potential overlapping areas and interactions, and pro-

vide guidelines on areas of focus for researchers to pursue. We conducted a three-phase research study, beginning with an open-ended collec-

tion of opinions on research themes collected from 102 supply chain management (SCM) researchers, followed by an evaluation of a

consolidated list of themes by 141 SCM researchers. These results were then reviewed by 10 SCM scholars. Potential interactions and areas of

overlap were identified, classified, and integrated into a compelling set of ideas for future research in the field of SCM. We believe these ideas

provide a forward-looking view on those themes that will become important, as well as those that researchers believe should be focused on.

While areas of research deemed to become most important include big data and analytics, the most under-researched areas include efforts that

target the “people dimension”of SCM, ethical issues and internal integration. The themes are discussed in the context of current developments

that the authors believe will provide a valuable foundation for future research.

Keywords: survey; research themes; research trends; supply chain management

INTRODUCTION

Supply chain management (SCM) is often noted by scholars as

one of the most rapidly changing management fields. Researchers

have noted the plethora of predictions and forecasts related to

significant technological and managerial changes that accompany

the discipline’s development (including Melnyk et al. 2009;

Economist Intelligence Unit 2013; Handfield et al. 2013; Sanders

et al. 2013; The Global Supply Chain Institute 2013; Kersten

et al. 2014). While many studies predict rapid change in the

world of supply chains, only a handful have sought to note how

academics are responding, as well as projecting how they should

respond to these rapid changes (e.g., Kouvelis et al. 2006; Stank

et al. 2011; Vallet-Bellmunt et al. 2011). Given the lag effect

and the lack of recent updates to many of the shifts in the global

supply chain ecosystem, the time is ripe for an exploration of

how the momentous changes in the global economic environ-

ment of the last four years will be reflected in the tenor of future

academic research. In recent years, supply chain managers have

experienced a major global recession, a rapid expansion of global

footprints into emerging countries, suffered major disruptions,

and have been called on to produce major improvements in sus-

tainability, cost savings, and regulatory compliance (Handfield

et al. 2013). An updated review of academic research directions

in SCM is not only timely, but indeed warranted.

Research that seeks to identify future research themes has typi-

cally relied on literature reviews. However, looking backwards to

predict the future (i.e., using literature reviews as an

extrapolation method), provides limited insights into the trajec-

tory of research in a field. We believe soliciting researchers’

judgments (Meyer and Booker 1991) can lead to more insightful

outcomes, as this approach maps out not only what thought lead-

ers believe will become important, but also identifies areas where

they believe insufficient work has occurred and more focused

work is needed. Reporting on the data collected from 141 SCM

researchers, this research seeks to address the following ques-

tions: (1) What are the future dominant research themes in

SCM? (2) What are the most fruitful research areas when linking

these different themes?

In order to provide an adequate answer to these questions, we

employed a research approach that consisted of a two-phase sur-

vey and an additional explorative in-depth analysis (phase three).

In the survey, we collected opinion polls on whether researchers

distinguished between the themes they believe will become

important versus the themes they think should become important.

This approach led to initial insights as to whether the SCM

research boat is sailing in the right direction. We “drilled down”

into the should-become-important themes and sought to explore

the potential overlaps and interactions between these themes,

thereby identifying a secondary set of research areas that com-

bine important research themes in a new way.

The resulting set of insights provides a compelling set of

guidelines for future editors, researchers, PhD advisors and their

students to consider as they map the trajectory of their individual

research agendas for the next decade. Our findings provide

young researchers important insights into the future direction of

our discipline, while also serving to guide well-published

researchers with the opportunity to reflect on their current and

future contributions to the field as recognized by their peers.

Reflection at the right time has been shown to be one of the

most critical components of learning (Di Stefano et al. 2015).

Pausing to reflect on one’s own accumulated knowledge may

lead to greater learning than the accumulation of additional

Corresponding author:

Andreas Wieland, Asst. Professor of Supply Chain Management,

Department of Operations Management, Copenhagen Business

School, Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark; E-mail:

awi.om@cbs.dk

Journal of Business Logistics, 2016, 37(3): 205–212 doi: 10.1111/jbl.12131

© Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals