Mapping the Path Forward for Sustainable Supply Chain Management: A Review of Reviews

• Date: 01 December 2018
• Author: Craig R. Carter,Seth Washispack
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jbl.12196
• Published date: 01 December 2018

Mapping the Path Forward for Sustainable Supply Chain

Management: A Review of Reviews

Craig R. Carter and Seth Washispack

Arizona State University

This paper provides a systematic literature review (SLR) of 59 sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) SLRs. The key findings are

that (1) we have reached a point of saturation, where we likely do not need additional SSCM SLRs that simply provide a broad overview

of the content, themes, and structure of the SSCM literature (although periodic updates of existing SLRs may be warranted); however, (2) there

is “white space”and opportunity to examine relationships among specific constructs and use SLRs for theory development; and (3) there is a

need to improve the methodological rigor of future SSCM SLRs, as found through our introduction of a modified set of AMSTAR criteria to

assess SLR quality. Finally, there is an opportunity for studies that move beyond metrics and investigation of performance from the perspective

of a single organization to the broader supply chain.

Keywords: sustainable supply chain management; performance measurement; systematic literature review; meta-analysis

INTRODUCTION

Sustainability has moved from a peripheral topic to a significant

supply chain management (SCM) research agenda (Brockhaus

et al. 2013). At the same time, there appears to be a proliferation

of systematic literature reviews (SLRs) in our discipline (Seuring

and Gold 2012; Durach et al. 2017). For example, a recent cur-

sory search in the Scopus database, using just the terms “litera-

ture review”and “sustainable supply chain”(in the title field

only, and without any asterisks or more specific keywords)

yielded 62 results (search conducted on March 29, 2018).

There is certainly a value in conducting SLRs. While primary

studies form the foundation of a discipline’s knowledge, scholars

and practitioners often rely on published literature reviews to

synthesize and assess the broader body of findings of a research

topic (Cooper 2010). However, the seeming proliferation of

SLRs around the topic of sustainable supply chain management

(SSCM) begs the question of whether we may have reached a

point of saturation, or whether we need to continue to conduct

SLRs of primary studies in the SSCM arena.

The purpose of this paper is to perform an SLR of extant

SLRs that have focused on SSCM. This “review of reviews”is

organized around two research objectives (ROs):

RO1: To examine the characteristics, structure, and content of

SSCM SLRs.

RO2: To assess the quality of SSCM SLRs.

The purpose of RO1 is to allow for an understanding of the

current landscape of SSCM SLRs and to thus identify potential

“white space”that might be fruitful for future research. RO2 will

allow us to provide a quality assessment of SSCM SLRs, in par-

tial response to Durach et al.’s (2017) recent call to improve the

methodological rigor of the systematic literature methodology in

SCM research.

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. In the

next section, we describe the methodology used to identify the

59 SLRs that form our data set. In the subsequent section, we

describe the analysis of these data and present our findings. We

provide a discussion of these findings and present overall conclu-

sions in the final section of the paper.

METHODOLOGY

Unlike traditional narrative literature reviews, an SLR clearly

conveys how the review was conducted, allowing for trans-

parency and replicability (Tranfield et al. 2003). To investigate

our research objectives, we employ an SLR methodology of

extant SLRs (Durach et al. 2017). Thus, as opposed to a tradi-

tional SLR which uses primary studies as the unit of analysis,

we use SLRs as the unit of analysis (e.g., Kache and Seuring

2014; Keller and Torre 2015).

Data collection and article identification

Given our focus on SLRs of SSCM research, we began by iden-

tifying keywords that would allow for the identification of (1)

SLRs in (2) the SSCM subject arena. We began by reviewing

SLRs that were identified by Durach et al. (2017) and other

SLRs known to us (both within and outside of SCM). The terms

“systematic literature”and “structured literature”were the two

most commonly used abstract terms for qualitative, SLRs, while

“meta-analysis”was the most common term for quantitative,

meta-analytic SLRs.

Supply Chain Management: An International Journal (SCM:

IJ) was used for the pilot test of this first set of search criteria,

because it was known to the authors to be a journal that has soli-

cited and published a very large number of SLRs beginning with

a two-issue SLR-focused special issue published in 2012. A

search in the ABI/Inform database, using the criteria ab(“system-

atic literature”) (the request to search for the words “systematic

literature”—with quotes meaning that the two words must appear

together in that order—in the published abstract) for articles pub-

lished in SCM:IJ yielded 17 results (search conducted May 5,

Corresponding author:

Craig R. Carter, Arizona State University, W.P. Carey School of

Business, Tempe, AZ 85227, USA; E-mail: crcarter@asu.edu

Journal of Business Logistics, 2018, 39(4): 242–247 doi: 10.1111/jbl.12196

© 2018 Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals