A New Methodology for Supply Chain Management: Discourse Analysis and its Potential for Theoretical Advancement

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jscm.12222
• Date: 01 April 2020
• Published date: 01 April 2020

A NEW METHODOLOGY FOR SUPPLY CHAIN

MANAGEMENT: DISCOURSE ANALYSIS AND ITS

POTENTIAL FOR THEORETICAL ADVANCEMENT

CYNTHIA HARDY

University of Melbourne and

Cardiff University

VIKRAM BHAKOO

University of Melbourne

STEVE MAGUIRE

University of Sydney

This paper responds to recent calls for methodological diversification and

“in-house”theory development within the discipline of SCM, by introduc-

ing discourse analysis to readers of the Journal of Supply Chain Management.

One of the merits of discourse analysis is the way in which it “problema-

tizes”taken-for-granted aspects of organizational life, including supply

chains, to show that what we assume to be natural, inevitable and beneficial

is rarely quite so straightforward as it may seem. In addition, through the

way in which it emphasizes the interrogation of meaning, discourse analysis

can broaden conceptualizations of the supply chain to include actors that

have previously been overlooked, such as employees, workers, not-for-profit

organizations, regulators, consumers, and the media. Using examples that

are familiar to SCM researchers—the discourses of lean, sustainability, mod-

ern slavery, and big data—we illustrate how discourse analysis can help to

theorize SCM phenomena by problematizing established meanings and

revealing how they reproduce power relations among actors. We then show

how insights from discourse analysis can complement existing theories of

the supply chain and, in so doing, potentially rejuvenate the field of SCM by

inspiring novel theory development, opening up different empirical set-

tings, and promoting new ways of analyzing qualitative data.

Keywords: environmental issues; ethics; human resources; social responsibility; dis-

course analysis; research methods

The Journal of Supply Chain Management is now over

50 years old, during which time the field has changed

considerably (Carter et al., 2014). Today, scholars are

wrestling with a range of challenges, as a result of

which a number of proposals for theoretical advance-

ment of the discipline have been suggested. One sug-

gestion is to broaden conceptualizations of the supply

chain to include actors that have previously been

overlooked, such as employees and workers (Elmor-

tada et al., 2018), not-for-profit organizations (Pagell,

Fugate & Flynn, 2018), governments and regulators

(Fugate, Pagell & Flynn, 2019), consumers (Carter,

Rogers & Choi, 2015; Soosay & Hyland, 2015), and

the media (O’Leary, 2012). Another suggestion is to

reduce the dependency on the use of single response

Acknowledgments: The authors wish to acknowledge the support

of the Australian Research Council (DP110101764) and the

Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada (435-

2014-0256); and a Visiting Professorial Fellowship from the

Department of Management and Marketing in the Faculty of

Business and Economics at the University of Melbourne.

April 2020

19

Journal of Supply Chain Management

2020, 56(2), 19–35

©2020 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

surveys which have known limitations insofar as sup-

ply chain management (SCM) inevitably involves

organizations, which is “a more complex unit of anal-

ysis ... [and] cannot be assessed by asking individuals

about their personal feelings, opinions, or behaviour”

(Flynn, Pagell & Fugate, 2018, p. 2). Accordingly,

broader research methods have been called for,

including those that involve qualitative and critical

forms of data collection and analysis (Calantone &

Vickery, 2010; Denk, Kaufmann & Carter, 2012; Keto-

kivi & Choi, 2014; Matthews et al., 2016; Narasim-

han, 2014). Without methodological innovation and

diversification, it is difficult for the discipline to

develop its own theoretical foundations. Instead, the-

ory is imported from other disciplines rather than

being developed “in-house” (Carter, 2011; Narasim-

han, 2014).

Researchers in the SCM discipline are cognisant of

these challenges: The emerging discourse incubators

(EDI) promoted in this journal clearly illustrate this.

We wish to take advantage of the opportunity pro-

vided by this EDI to show how discourse analysis

can contribute to SCM research by introducing novel

ways of thinking about the supply chain that will

stimulate new theory development. Discourse analy-

sis involves the analysis of collections of texts and

practices to investigate the constructionist effects of

language and examine how taken-for-granted mean-

ings reproduce power relations and accepted ways of

doing things. One of the attractions of discourse

analysis is the way in which it “problematizes”

(Alvesson & Sandberg, 2011) organizational life,

showing that what we assume to be natural, inevita-

ble, and beneficial is rarely quite so straightforward

as it may seem and, by creating new meanings,

power relations can be reconfigured and practices

changed (Phillips, Lawrence & Hardy, 2004). By

questioning long-standing assumptions, discourse

analysis has helped to rejuvenate the field of organi-

zation and management theory (OMT), inspiring a

period of novel theory development, occasioning

interesting new empirical settings, and promoting

new ways of collecting and analyzing data (Grant,

Hardy, Oswick & Putnam, 2004). In this article, we

argue that there is potential for discourse analysis to

do the same in SCM.

DISCOURSE AND DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

OMT researchers became interested in the role of

language—or discourse—in the late 1980s. Since

then, studies based on discourse analysis have estab-

lished a strong presence in the discipline, not only

in European journals, but also in top-tier US jour-

nals that usually concentrate on quantitative

research. This body of work defines discourses as

collections of interrelated texts (which includes talk)

and practices “that systematically form the objects of

which they speak” (Foucault, 1979, p. 49) and “co-

here in some way to produce both meanings and

effects in the real world” (Carabine, 2001, p. 268).

Discourse governs the way in which a topic “can be

meaningfully talked about and reasoned about. It

also influences how ideas are put into practice and

used to regulate the conduct of others. Just as a dis-

course ‘rules in’ certain ways of talking about a topic

... it ‘rules out’, limits and restricts other ways of

talking” (Hall, 2001, p. 72). Rather than reflecting a

pre-existing, objective independent reality, language

helps to constitute what we experience as reality

(Phillips & Oswick, 2012). In other words, dis-

courses “do not just describe things; they do things”

(Potter & Wetherell, 1987, p. 6). Discourse analysts

are therefore also social constructionists (see Berger

& Luckmann, 1966; Gergen, 1985; Schwandt, 2003)

insofar as they assume that our knowledge, under-

standing, and experience of the world are con-

structed through social interaction and, particularly,

language (Burr, 2015).

It is not possible to access discourses per se, but

researchers can find traces of them in the texts and

practices that compose them. Discourse analysis is,

accordingly, the systematic study of texts and/or prac-

tices. Some researchers examine bodies of texts, as

well as patterns in their authorship, distribution, and

consumption, to show how they shape meanings and

practices, as well to discern who has the right to speak

and what can be said (e.g., Maguire & Hardy, 2009),

while others study individual texts to investigate the

meanings embedded in them (e.g., Laine & Vaara,

2007). Another stream of research focuses on the

practices that emanate from particular discourses,

exploring the way in which power is embodied in cer-

tain ways of thinking, speaking, and behaving (e.g.,

Knights, 1992; Townley, 1993). In sum, discourse

analysis is a flexible methodology involving the use of

different forms of data to examine the constructionist

effects of language.

1

Its aim is to show how particular

meanings are created, maintained, and disrupted

through discourse; highlight how established mean-

ings reproduce power relations among actors; and

illustrate how the creation of new meanings can

reconfigure power relations, empowering new actors

to speak and/or allowing new things to be said (for a

list of helpful resources on discourse analysis, please

see Appendix 1).

1

The vast majority of the work using discourse analysis in OMT

has been qualitative. However, there is increasing scope for more

quantitative studies of larger bodies of texts with the availability

of new tools (e.g., Humphreys & Wang, 2017; Mohr et al.,

2013; Zinn, 2020).

Volume 56, Number 2

Journal of Supply Chain Management

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