Public Policy and Supply Chain Management: Using Shared Foundational Principles to Improve Formulation, Implementation, and Evaluation

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jscm.12190
• Author: Travis Tokar,Morgan Swink
• Date: 01 April 2019
• Published date: 01 April 2019

PUBLIC POLICY AND SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT:

USING SHARED FOUNDATIONAL PRINCIPLES TO

IMPROVE FORMULATION, IMPLEMENTATION, AND

EVALUATION

TRAVIS TOKAR AND MORGAN SWINK

Texas Christian University

Public policy and associated governmental regulatory issues play critical

roles in shaping the practice of supply chain management (SCM). To date,

however, these issues remain largely unexplored by SCM researchers. This

article makes the case that such issues are highly relevant to the field of

SCM, and that SCM researchers are uniquely positioned to speak to the

issues by virtue of the foundational principles and levels of analysis that

define our discipline. The discussion provides suggestions and examples

of how fruitful research might be conducted in this space.

Keywords: deregulation; foreign trade restrictions; government regulations; innova-

tion; neo-institutional economics; public choice economics; public policy

INTRODUCTION

Recently, academics have called for logistics and

supply chain management (SCM) researchers to high-

light the managerial implications of their work, and

to undertake projects that advance practical insights in

addition to theory (Carter, 2008; Fawcett, Waller &

Bowersox, 2011; Simpson et al., 2015). Our discipline

seems well positioned to offer actionable insights, as

researchers in our field typically maintain close ties

with industry. SCM researchers frequently develop

research questions based on insights from practition-

ers regarding actual challenges that they face, and they

commonly leverage industry contacts for data collec-

tion. Engagement with practitioners through executive

education and industry organizations is also common.

While these efforts contribute to the relevance of our

field, SCM researchers have largely overlooked another

important avenue for practical impact—they have

given little attention to public policy and government

regulation implications of their work. Given the

rapidly changing geo-political and regulatory environ-

ments that influence and sometimes disrupt SCM

around the world, this policy area represents a rich

opportunity for study, offering the potential for con-

tributions that can affect practice in different and per-

haps greater ways than conventional SCM research.

For reasons discussed below, we believe that SCM

researchers are well positioned to learn from, and

contribute to, public policy and government regula-

tion debates.

The following sections of this paper build a case for

policy research by examining foundational SCM per-

spectives that relate to effective policy making, and by

discussing contemporary issues of policy and regula-

tion that highlight the potential relevance of SCM

researcher perspectives. While many of our examples

come from the United States (U.S.) experience, we

hasten to note that public policy implications for sup-

ply chain management emerge in all governments, in

all locations. Indeed, studies of both common and

location-specific regulatory policy issues are likely to

yield interesting insights through comparisons and

contextual analyses. We conclude this paper by pre-

senting ideas for how interested SCM researchers

might begin to undertake policy-oriented work.

WHY PUBLIC POLICY RESEARCH?

There are many ways to define public policy, and

there is currently no consensus definition of the term

(Birkland, 2016). However, Birkland’s (2016) synthe-

sis of the key public policy attributes embedded in

definitions posited by multiple scholars suggests that

public policy consists of what lawmakers and admin-

istrative agencies choose to do—or not do, in

response to a perceived problem, on behalf of the

Volume 55, Number 2

68

Journal of Supply Chain Management

2019, 55(2), 68–79

©2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.