A critical analysis of supply chain management content in empirical research Business Process Management Journal A critical analysis of supply chain management content in empirical research Gunjan Son.
Business Process Management Journal A critical analysis of supply chain management content in empirical research Gunjan Soni Rambabu Kodali Article information: Downloaded by RMIT University At 23:34 23 November 2015 (PT) To cite this document: Gunjan Soni Rambabu Kodali, (2011),"A critical analysis of supply chain management content in empirical research", Business Process Management Journal, Vol 17 Iss pp 238 - 266 Permanent link to this document: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/14637151111122338 Downloaded on: 23 November 2015, At: 23:34 (PT) References: this document contains references to 83 other documents To copy this document: permissions@emeraldinsight.com The fulltext of this document has been downloaded 3120 times since 2011* Users who downloaded this article also downloaded: Dag Näslund, Hana Hulthen, (2012),"Supply chain management integration: a critical analysis", Benchmarking: An International Journal, Vol 19 Iss 4/5 pp 481-501 http:// dx.doi.org/10.1108/14635771211257963 Gunjan Soni, Rambabu Kodali, (2012),"A critical review of empirical research methodology in supply chain management", Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, Vol 23 Iss pp 753-779 http:// dx.doi.org/10.1108/17410381211253326 Martha C Cooper, Douglas M Lambert, Janus D Pagh, (1997),"Supply Chain Management: More Than a New Name for Logistics", The International Journal of Logistics Management, Vol Iss pp 1-14 http:// dx.doi.org/10.1108/09574099710805556 Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by emerald-srm:393177 [] For Authors If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.com Emerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services Emerald is both COUNTER and TRANSFER compliant The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation Downloaded by RMIT University At 23:34 23 November 2015 (PT) *Related content and download information correct at time of download The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/1463-7154.htm BPMJ 17,2 A critical analysis of supply chain management content in empirical research 238 Gunjan Soni and Rambabu Kodali Mechanical Engineering Group, Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, India Abstract Downloaded by RMIT University At 23:34 23 November 2015 (PT) Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to carry out a critical assessment of empirical research content in supply chain management (SCM) The assessment involved 569 empirical research articles published in 21 selected journals between 1994 and 2008 Design/methodology/approach – The methodology of critical assessment involved selection and classification of 569 empirical research articles in SCM A systematic classification and a critical analysis is carried out so as to identify research gaps in content of SCM in empirical research, as well as to recommend directions for future research Findings – Critical analysis of selected articles led to conclusion that SCM content in empirical research is very much based on analysis of focal firms and most of the authors prefer to perform empirical studies for combination of various entities of analysis considering possible elements of exchange Performance measurement is on the rise and will continue to be but should be used at higher levels of analysis as well The principal component bodies of SCM need further development to stage SCM at maturity level Overall, it is highlighted that there is still a need for better frameworks that can overcome the shortcomings in extant empirical research literature of SCM Originality/value – Many literature reviews that aim at critical examination of SCM literature are reported but none of them focused exclusively on content of empirical research in SCM Another unique feature of this paper is that the sample size of articles with respect to number of papers (569 papers) as well as number of journals (21 journals) is larger then ever considered for literature review in SCM The paper spans a longer time span of 15 years (1994-2008) as well Keywords Supply chain management, Serials, Classification, Research work Paper type Literature review Business Process Management Journal Vol 17 No 2, 2011 pp 238-266 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 1463-7154 DOI 10.1108/14637151111122338 Introduction Over the past 25 years, supply chain management (SCM) has been evolving as concept and gradually managers have accepted that their firm is just one entity in the chain of firms whose purpose is to satisfy the customer In order to develop such thinking, a lot of support is provided by researchers from academia, industry and consultants Asufficient amount of research in SCM is performed using empirical studies Minor et al (1994) defined empirical studies as those involving the gathering and analysis of data, and subsequent reporting of findings and conclusions The importance of empirical studies in applied business research has been highlighted by many authors (Ebert, 1990; Hayes and Clark, 1985; Flynn et al., 1990) Since SCM is also an applied business philosophy, there is a need to examine the empirical research aspect of SCM as well Thus, an attempt is made in this paper to investigate the SCM content in empirical research and suggest directions for future research in SCM The objective of the paper is to provide a critical analysis of empirical research content in SCM Section critically examines various literature reviews published in SCM literature Section elaborates the methodology adopted for the purpose of providing a comprehensive and critical literature review of SCM content in empirical research This is followed by classification and analysis of SCM content in empirical research in Section Finally, the identification of gaps in present research, and significant findings are reported in Section The implications to future are discussed in Section and finally, the paper is concluded in Section SCM content in empirical research Downloaded by RMIT University At 23:34 23 November 2015 (PT) 239 Literature reviews in SCM The huge literature body of SCM has led to numerous literature reviews in past 15 years A list of literature reviews in SCM is given in Table I It is evident from Table I that none of the literature reviews had a focus on reviewing content of SCM in empirical research The literature review of Croom et al (2000) focused on categorization of literature linked to SCM The paper provided guidelines to review SCM research but did not carry out the review of literature It mainly contributed to a critical theory debate through the presentation and use of a framework for the categorization of literature linked to SCM Ho et al (2002) analysed articles of empirical research in SCM with reference to state of constructs used in SCM research, which highlights some major weaknesses of the extant literature with respect to the conceptualization, operationalisation and modeling of SCM But it did not present any classification scheme to categorize and analyse extant empirical studies on SCM, and neither had it aimed on the chronology of publications in empirical research Authors like Gammelgaard (2004) and Halldo´rson and Arlbjorn (2005) classified and reviewed the literature on the basis of various schools of thought but their work is not at all related with reviewing the present state of content of SCM in empirical research It is also observed that remaining literature reviews are mostly concerned with types of research designs, types of data analysis techniques used and constructs of SCM, but none of them has any focus towards content of SCM in empirical research The time horizon of literature review is another issue where most of the literature reviews considered papers published in recent years Among the list of reviews in Table I, only two comprehensive literature reviews spanned a period of more than ten years In first literature review by Carter and Ellram (2003), articles published only in Journal of Supply Chain Management ( JSCM) were reviewed that were spread over a span of 34 years But since it is biased towards only one journal, it cannot be considered for tracing the direction of growth of SCM content in empirical research Another comprehensive review by Wolf (2008) also reviewed SCM literature covering a period of 16 years in 282 papers, which primarily focused on characterizing the processes of knowledge creation in SCM and its evolution over time, but this review is short of specifically focusing on the content of SCM in empirical research The review by Fabbe-Costes and Jahre (2008) revealed the link between supply chain integration and performance by systematically analyzing 38 research papers and came up with evidence that emphasized a requirement for a deeper empirical investigation of linkage between supply chain integration and performance of supply chain However, their work is also not focused on empirical literature alone Lastly, Giunipero et al (2008) examined SCM literature on the basis of SCM definitions, subject categories in SCM, empirical vs non-empirical literature, level of analysis, primary research methods and data analysis techniques One of the major shortcomings of the paper with respect to empirical research content is that the analysis is limited to level of analysis and subject categories in SCM only Second, the period Table I List of literature reviews in SCM van der Vaart and van Donk (2008) Wolf (2008) 13 Giunipero et al (2008) 16 1997-2006 2000-2006 1990-2006 1998-2002 No restriction – July 2003 Not restricted Note: aSee Table II for full name of journals Source: Adapted from Wolf (2008) Fabbe-Costes and Jahre (2008) 15 14 11 12 2004 1998-2002 1997-2004 Kova`cs and Spens (2005) Halldo´rson and Arlbjorn (2005) Reichhart and Holweg (2006) Spens and Kovacs (2006) Burgess et al (2006) 10 1998-2003 1999-2004 1999-2003 Gammelgaard (2004) Frankel et al (2005) Sachan and Datta (2005) 1986-1990 Not restricted N/A 1965-1999 Dunn et al (1994) Croom et al (2000) Ho et al (2002) Carter and Ellram (2003) Period N/A 84 N/A 774 Sample size IJOPM, IJPDLM, IJLM, IJPR, IJPE, Interfaces, JBL, JOM and MS IJLM, IJPDLM, IJPE, IJPR, JBL, JOM and PPC IJLM, IJLRA, IJOPM, IJPDLM, JBL, JOM, SCMIJ, Transportation Journal and Transportation Research – Part E JSCM, IJPDLM, JOM, IJLM, JBL, IJOPM, IMM, Management Science and Decision Sciences JOM, IJOPM, MS, IJPR, JBL and IJPDLM IJLM, IJPDLM and JBL No restriction IJLM, IJPDLM and JBL IJLM, IJPDLM and JBL 405 38 282 36 378 100 89 N/A 71 IJPDLM, IJOPM, JBL, JOM and IJLM N/A JBL 108 IJPDLM, JBL and SCMIJ 442 N/A Not restricted N/A JSCM Reviewed journalsa Carried out review of 405 articles focusing on categories covered within the SCM literature, various levels of the chain examined and sample populations and industries studied as well as research methods employed Studies the link between supply chain integration and performance Analysis of the nature of SCM research Survey research in supply chain integration Types of research in SCM Suggests the way of reviewing literature critically State of empirical research in SCM Types of research, methodologies used and data analysis techniques in JSCM Prevailing schools of thought Types of research approaches Types of research, methodologies used and data analysis techniques Types of research approaches Analysis of references to the literature on philosophy of science Analysis of methodologies applied in different subfields of SCM Analysis of types of research Analysis of object of study and methods applied Area of research 240 Author (year of S.no publication) Downloaded by RMIT University At 23:34 23 November 2015 (PT) BPMJ 17,2 Downloaded by RMIT University At 23:34 23 November 2015 (PT) before 1997 is not considered in the review Further, the aim of paper is anyway not focused on in-depth analysis of empirical research literature rather it is two pronged and divided between empirical and non-empirical literature Hence, it can be said that it becomes inevitable to have an effort directed solely towards reviewing content of SCM in empirical research SCM content in empirical research Methodology This section of paper elaborates the methodology adopted for the purpose of providing a comprehensive and critical literature review of empirical research in SCM The issues of time horizon of review, journal selection, article selection, article classification and analysis of articles will be discussed under literature review methodology A schematic representation of literature review methodology adopted in the paper is shown in Figure 1: Step The assessment period of articles is between 1982 and 2008, a 26-year time horizon The year 1982 is considered as the starting point of data collection because term “Supply Chain Management” first appeared in 1982 (Oliver and Webber, 1982) The year 2008 is chosen as the terminating point of data collection for providing a landmark to end data collection Step The articles were collected from four major management science publishers viz Science Direct, Taylor & Francis, Emerald Online and Wiley Interscience (earlier Blackwell Synergy) as majority of well-referred journals of industrial management are found in these databases 241 Time Horizon for selection of papers: From year 1980 till end of year 2008 Step Selection of database: > Emerald > Taylor and Francis > Science direct > Wiley inter-science Research article sample preparation for review Step Journal selection: Search "supply chain" in article title and select journals that contain 75% of these articles Step Empirical research article selection: Select articles that use one or more of following research designs: > Case study (single or multiple) > Survey > Focus group > Panel study Step Classes under which every research article will be classified > Empirical research growth in SCM > PCB'S and related issues in SCM > Level of analysis > Country of sample industry > Performance measurement > Purpose of empirical research > Entity of analysis > Element of exchange > Sample industry Analysis after classification of articles Outcome 1: Gaps identified Outcome 2: Significant findings Step Step Outcome 3: Future directions Figure Literature review methodology adopted in the paper BPMJ 17,2 Downloaded by RMIT University At 23:34 23 November 2015 (PT) 242 Step Exact phrase “supply chain” was searched in article title of all four databases Burgess et al (2006) also adopted similar approach for selection of articles Articles which were available online but not published in any volume by the end of year 2008 were also considered In order to increase relevancy of selected journals with respect to SCM, journals which published approximately 75 percent of the total number of articles were selected The list of selected journals along with number of articles is given in Table II Step Flynn et al (1990) explained that any empirical research article can have one or more of the following empirical research designs viz single case study, multiple case study, panel study, focus group and survey We selected empirical research articles from the selected population of journals on the similar lines Step All the selected research articles are classified under following nine classes: Empirical research growth in SCM The growth on empirical research articles in SCM literature is traced using frequency analysis of articles published each year Such classification gives the researcher an idea about the growth in the number of articles of empirical research in SCM Purpose of empirical research Empirical research can have one of the two purposes either on the basis of empirical data one can propose one’s own theory (called theory building) or one can verify an already existing or newly proposed theory on the basis of empirical data (called theory verification) The classification of selected articles on this basis permits a researcher to find out the inclination of researchers is towards theory building or theory verification Principal component bodies (PCB) and related issues in SCM There have been several attempts earlier also to identify the PCBs or constructs or areas of focal research in SCM and issues that fall under each Cooper et al (1997) recognized planning and control, work structure, organization structure, product flow facility structure, information flow facility structure, product structure, management methods, power and leadership structure, risk and reward structure and culture and attitude as ten major SCM components Burgess et al (2006) identified seven major constructs namely leadership, intra-organizational relationships, inter-organizational relationships, logistics, process improvement orientation, information systems, business results and outcomes Ho et al (2002) emphasized on three key constructs to SCM The constructs were value creation, integration of key business process and collaboration All these three papers did not mentioned or enumerated the issues of SCM that fall under each construct or PCB van der Vaart and van Donk (2008) enumerated more than 50 issues of SCM addressed by various articles But they did not group the issues under constructs or PCBs of SCM In the framework presented by Croom et al (2000) for reviewing the SCM literature, they mentioned six PCBs of SCM that are strategic management, logistics, marketing, relationships/partnerships, best practices and organization behavior along with issues falling under each PCB They also clarified that those issues which are duplicated under multiple PCBs have multiple perspectives surrounding the problem process These PCBs identified by Croom et al (2008) were chosen 1995 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1994 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 14 1996 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1997 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 15 1998 0 0 3 2 0 0 21 1999 0 1 1 2 1 26 2000 0 6 0 0 29 2001 0 2 5 3 45 2002 1 4 1 2 41 2003 0 5 4 11 2 2 0 10 62 2004 0 5 7 1 65 2005 0 4 3 16 67 2006 5 16 20 0 15 92 2007 3 0 25 3 0 16 77 2008 28 43 55 169 33 204 53 69 118 256 147 44 38 28 83 79 36 28 66 189 41 1,807 No of articles 11 13 32 36 21 37 52 77 29 16 21 50 16 11 13 101 569 Empirical research articles Notes: aBPMJ – Business Process Management Journal; CCE – Computers and Chemical Engineering; CIE – Computers and Industrial Engineering; EJOR – European Journal of Operational Research; EJPSM – European Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management; IJLM – The International Journal of Logistics Management; IJLRA – International Journal of Logistics Research and Applications; IJOPM – International Journal of Operations and Production Management; IJPDLM – International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management; IJPE – International Journal of Production Economics; IJPR – International Journal of Production Research; IMDS – Industrial Management & Data Systems; IMM – Industrial Marketing Management; JMTM – Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management; JOM – Journal of Operations Management; JSCM – The Journal of Supply Chain Management; LIM – Logistics Information Management; PPC – Production Planning and Control; SCMIJ – Supply Chain Management: An International Journal; TR – Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation BPMJ CCE CIE EJOR EJPSM IJLM IJLRA IJOPM IJPDLM IJPE IJPR IMDS IMM JMTM JOM JSCM LIM OMEGA PPC SCMIJ TR Total Journal namea Downloaded by RMIT University At 23:34 23 November 2015 (PT) SCM content in empirical research 243 Table II Frequency of empirical research articles in SCM BPMJ 17,2 Downloaded by RMIT University At 23:34 23 November 2015 (PT) 244 for classification of selected articles as they seemed to cover almost every issue in the selected population of articles Entity of analysis It represents the focal entity under analysis in a given article For example, supplier, manufacturer, distributor, retailer, 3PL, etc The term “supplier” here means an entity that exists on inbound side of supply chain and supplies raw material or semi-finished product to “manufacturer” While “manufacturer” is final finished product supplier to any one of “distributor”, “retailer”, “third-party logistic (3PL)”, “fourth-party logistic (4PL) provider” or “consumer” All entities including “distributor”, “retailer”, “3PL” or “4PL” lie on outbound side of supply chain and are involved in distribution of final finished product The identification of entity of analysis in the article is done by simply finding out whether article is focusing on only one of these entities or otherwise it considers multiple entities For multiple entities, the word “combination” is used in classification The significance of using this class is that it reveals the practical aspect of empirical research, which gives an idea to the researcher about entities that received inadequate attention and hence more thought should be given to these entities Level of analysis This class is adopted from an analytical framework for critical literature review given by Croom et al (2000) Same class is also used by Gubi et al (2003), Halldo´rsson and Arlbjørn (2005), Sachan and Datta (2005) and Giunipero et al (2008) Although Croom et al (2000) suggested only three levels, i.e dyadic, chain and network, Halldo´rsson and Arlbjørn (2005) have addressed the fourth level, also denoted by “firm” Also, a similar class was proposed by Fabbe-Costes and Jahre (2008) where they used multi echelon, single echelon: manufacturers, single echelon: first tier suppliers and single echelon However, in this review, the class proposed by Gubi et al (2003) is adopted that includes four levels of analysis Element of exchange It is the work of Hakansson and Snehota (1989) that emphasized networks as composed of actors, resources and activities involving exchange, later Croom et al (2000) utilized the same work and proposed “element of exchange” as one of the dimensions for classifying the SCM literature They described that this class is about “what” is exchanged in the supply chain (material assets, financial assets, human resource assets, technological assets, information and knowledge) and “how” relationships between actors are conducted and managed Country of sample industry Research in SCM is performed in almost every part of the world But there are places where it is dominant compared to other parts in the world It is thus imperative to find out the countries/regions dominating empirical research in SCM This class therefore helps in identifying regions around the globe where the requirement of empirical investigation in SCM is needed to a larger degree Sample industry SCM research is not restricted to any particular industry It is thus important to find out the range of industries from which data are collected This classification criterion will thus help in identifying possible sectors of SCM research as well as highlight sectors that received inadequate attention of researchers Performance measurement A performance measurement system plays an important role in managing a business as it provides the information necessary for decision making and actions (Gunasekaran and Kobu, 2007) As per Kaplan (1990), “No measures, no improvement,” it is thus essential to measure the right things at the right time in a supply chain and virtual enterprise environments so that timely action can be taken For the same reason “performance measurement” – the most referred issue in the selected SCM literature (see Table V in Section 4.3) will be further analysed for capturing greater insights into the literature Also, performance measurement spans majority of other issues hence it is taken as a separate class for analysis Step Since the objective of this paper is dominantly descriptive in nature Thus, is not suitable for applying statistical methodologies for deducing or for any inferential purpose using hypothesis testing In this step, all the efforts are directed towards critically analyzing the classified articles so as to identify research gaps in content of SCM in empirical research as well as to present significant findings from the existing literature Downloaded by RMIT University At 23:34 23 November 2015 (PT) The results will be presented using tables and charts Analysis of SCM content in empirical research 4.1 Empirical research growth in SCM The frequency of empirical research articles in SCM published since 1994 (rather than 1982 as first empirical research article in the selected literature appeared in EJPSM in 1994 by Bessant et al (1994)) is tabulated in Table II It can be very well observed from Table II that rise in empirical research articles in SCM since 1994 is very much evident, as the total number of empirical research articles published since 1982 was 30.1 percent of total articles (569 out of 1,807 articles) in the selected journals Although this finding does not exactly match with findings of review by Sachan and Datta (2005), where number of empirical research articles was 24.8 percent from a sample 442 papers, but these percentages are not contradicting also This could be attributed to difference in sample size (569 in present case) and the rise in number of empirical research publications in SCM in later period of 2000s It can be seen that maximum number of articles is published in IJPE (256 articles), although only 77 (i.e 30 percent) of articles of them are in empirical research On the other hand, EJPSM dominantly published 96.7 percent of articles in empirical research (32 out of 33 articles) A histogram of percentage of articles published in empirical research for each journal is shown in Figure The year-wise distribution of empirical research articles in SCM is also shown in Figure Figure shows that the empirical research articles in SCM have shown substantial rise in number of articles published, with most prominent rise in number of articles in 2002 and 2004 4.2 Purpose of empirical research Flynn et al (1990) definition on theory building and theory verification was taken as a guideline for placing the article under theory building or verification If the article involved proposing a new theory on the basis of some hypothesis or statistical findings, SCM content in empirical research 245 Downloaded by RMIT University At 23:34 23 November 2015 (PT) It was found that research articles predominantly use “combination” of various elements of exchange in analysis While if single element is considered, “information” is most commonly referred “element of exchange” in empirical research Various issues addressed by considering “information” for analysis are like electronic media including electronic data interchange (EDI), e-commerce, bar codes, point of sales data capturing technology, etc Another “element of exchange”, i.e “assets” is also widely used in literature for analysis (36 articles) Some of the issues related to assets are like where to position the inventories along the supply chain, in which physical form, how much to stock at each point, how many warehouses to use, to eliminate local inventory stocking points and to centralize inventories, to relocate consolidation/de-consolidation points, to add regional warehouses or to use warehouses for specific customers, etc (Croom et al., 2000) Relationship is also used in an equivalent manner for analysis in extant literature (35 articles) Without a foundation of effective supply chain organizational relationships, any effort to manage the flow of information or materials across the supply chain is likely to be unsuccessful (Handfeld and Nichols, 1999) Several important issues that are tackled by considering “relationship” into analysis are like sourcing strategy, attitude and commitment to collaborative programs, positioning of focal firm, etc The year-wise distribution of element of exchange is given in Table VI Table VI depicts that there has been an overall increase in analysis of element of exchange It can be said because the increase in number of articles addressing assets, information, relationship and combination of various elements of exchange is more or less uniform 4.7 Country or region of sample industry The country of analysis can be simply found out by looking at the demographic description of the empirical study given by the author in the paper If it is not specified by the author, then the article is placed under “N/A” Table VI shows frequency of empirical research studies in SCM in various parts of the world Table VI depicts that empirical data are collected by highest amount in the USA (16.53 percent), while 24.25 percent of papers did not tell anything about the country or region from where data have been collected Sachan and Datta (2005) also had similar findings with maximum studies in the USA followed by Europe Asian countries contribute nearly 10 percent of studies which is little higher than the findings of Sachan and Datta (2005) (6.1 percent) Majority of the countries in the list are developed countries Only India, Hong Kong and China seems to be representing a substantial population of developing countries However, there are many countries also in “Others” category like Austria, Alaska, Argentina, Brazil, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Poland, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, Kazakhstan and Thailand The most revealing fact for this analysis is that very few articles involve empirical investigation in developing countries like India and China, which are global outsourcing hubs for many industry sectors like automobile, textile, etc 4.8 Sample industry The sample industry is found out by looking at the demographic description of the empirical study given by the author in the paper If it is not specified by the author, then the article is placed under “N/A” Table VII represents the frequency of articles for the industries of data collection SCM content in empirical research 253 BPMJ 17,2 Downloaded by RMIT University At 23:34 23 November 2015 (PT) 254 In Table VII, manufacturing industry tops the chart (15.11 percent), while food and agriculture is at second position (7.91 percent) Industries on which number of articles was less then ten are placed in the category of “others” It includes industries such as 4PL, banking, e-commerce, hotel, jewellery, life support system, music, oil, consumer product, education, packaging, defense, fast moving consumer goods, furniture, paper industry and health service When data were collected from multiple industries, then the paper is listed under the category of “multiple” It can be derived from the Table VIII that a significant percentage of authors in empirical research prefer to take data from multiple industries Similar results were obtained by Fabbe-Costes and Jahre (2008, p 134) where they specified that the majority of articles have a mixed-industry empirical base whilst others focus on a specific industry or sector (including construction, jewellery, automotive, textiles and fashion, consumer goods, wood, package printing, industrial equipment and discrete and assembled products) 4.9 Performance measurement The phrase “performance” is searched in each article In this way, 376 articles were found, but among them only 87 articles discussed and included performance measurement in their analysis while rest of 478 articles did not have focused efforts towards performance measurement It was thus observed that only 15.9 percent of papers addressed performance measurement The figure is small considering the fact that performance measurement is an integral part of SCM In order to enquire more into the performance measurement practices of SCM researchers involved in empirical research, a frequency distribution of performance measurement articles with reference to entity of analysis, level of analysis and element of exchange is given in Table VIII From Table VIII, it can be inferred that inclusion of performance measurement aspect is on growth in SCM literature This fact is very much reflected by the statistic that only 36 articles (i.e 41.3 percent) of articles are published in a span of nine years (1996-2004) while rest of 58.7 percent of articles are published in a period of four years (i.e 2005-2008) Another interesting aspect of empirical research is revealed that 67 articles (77 percent articles) targeted combination of various entity of analysis But if single entity is taken Table VII Frequency of articles for the industries of data collection Industry No % Aerospace Retail Chemical IT Apparel Construction 3PL Electronics Automobile Food and agriculture Manufacturing Not mentioned Others Multiple Total 10 11 13 14 20 21 22 29 31 45 86 104 55 108 569 1.76 1.93 2.28 2.46 3.51 3.69 3.87 5.10 5.45 7.91 15.11 18.28 9.67 18.98 Articles Entity of analysis 3PL 4PL Combination Consumer Distributor Manufacturer N/A Retailer Supplier Level of analysis Chain Dyad Firm N/A Network Element of exchange Assets Information Combination Others Relationship Year 1997 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1996 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1998 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1999 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 2000 2 0 0 1 2001 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2002 0 0 0 0 0 2003 1 0 0 2004 Downloaded by RMIT University At 23:34 23 November 2015 (PT) 1 0 0 10 0 0 11 2005 1 11 0 0 0 15 2006 13 0 13 12 0 0 17 2007 Total 87 67 12 1 67 13 64 2008 0 0 1 0 0 0 SCM content in empirical research 255 Table VIII Frequency distribution of performance measurement articles with reference to entity of analysis, level of analysis and element of exchange BPMJ 17,2 Downloaded by RMIT University At 23:34 23 November 2015 (PT) 256 into consideration performance measures for “manufacturer” are formulated most of the time Also, performance measurement is carried out at only “firm” level in 67 articles (77 percent articles) A similar trend is observed by Fabbe-Costes and Jahre (2008) where 48 percent of articles measured performance at limited dyadic scope and concluded that there is no consensus regarding how performance is to be measured They also highlighted that it is striking that very few papers include performance of other members of the supply chain in addition to the focal firm Such fact is an eye opener for researchers as ideally performance measurement must be carried out so as to reflect the performance of supply chain as whole and not of a single firm Although few articles does show intent of measuring performance at “network” level as well (13 articles) Now regarding “element of exchange”, researchers seemingly prefer to include various elements of exchange together in their metrics or measures of performance The statement is supported by the figure of 64 articles in the class of “combination” This number truly supports the philosophy of SCM that stresses on backward and forward movement of information and assets in an optimal manner by managing relationships at each echelon Discussion This paper, through a systematic and critical review of SCM in empirical research literature, provides insights into the growth of empirical research in SCM, purpose of empirical research, PCBs and related issues in SCM, entity of analysis, level of analysis, element of exchange, country of sample industry, sample industry and performance measurement The review enables to succinctly present status of SCM content in existing literature and chart an agenda for future research The gaps that were identified and the significant findings of the review will be discussed in the subsequent part of this section 5.1 Significant findings (1) Empirical research in SCM is growing and shows highest growth during period of 2000-2004 Theory building is most popular among SCM researchers while theory verification is also on the rise but percentage wise the rise is very slow and gradual Wallenbergburg and Weber (2005) pointed out that despite debate in the field of logistics and SCM, research on methodology and theory development still lacks the focus They also advocated that theory development (or theory building) will advance, as shown in the field of marketing research, through a rigorous empirical research approach (2) In the review, 115 issues were identified out of which performance measurement, supply chain integration, status of SCM in a field or industry or nation, relationship management, information sharing and commitment, collaboration, strategy formulation, IT, green supply, quality, supply chain practices, incentives, identification of barriers for SCM, critical success factors, design of supply chain and selection of type of supply chain were most visited issues by researchers Many researchers have even tried to analyse these often visited focal issues in their literature reviews van der Vaart and van Donk (2008) performed a review on survey-based methodologies on supply chain integration, similarly Fabbe-Costes and Jahre (2008) analysed the relationship between performance of supply chain and supply chain integration Issues like “status of SCM in a field, industry or nation” also gained appreciable attention in articles by Arlbjørn et al (2008) (status of Nordic research in logistics and SCM), Bales et al (2004) Downloaded by RMIT University At 23:34 23 November 2015 (PT) (development of supply chain in aerospace sector), Brun et al (2008) (logistics and SCM in luxury fashion retail), Mangan and Christopher (2005) (supply chain manager of future), McMullan (1996) (SCM practice in Asia-Pacific) and last but not least Sahay et al (2003) (architecture of Indian supply chains) Also, relationship management was widely researched in SCM by various authors like Benton and Maloni (2005) (power-driven buyer-seller relationship), Boger et al (2001) (supply chain relationships in Polish pork sector), Kwon and Suh (2004) (factors affecting trust and commitment in supply chain relationships), Parry et al (2006) (to core competence posed by developing closer supply chain relationships), etc (3) Out of six PCBs in SCM, best practices and strategic management are most dominant ones These two PCBs cover almost half of the issues identified in the paper Harland (1996) distinguishes four main uses of the term “SCM”: internal supply that integrates business functions involved in the flow of materials and information from the inbound to the outbound end of the business; SCM as the management of supply relationships; SCM as the management of inter-business chains; and SCM as strategic management of inter-business networks Among these four uses strategic management as a major function SCM is apparent Macbeth and Ferguson (1991), Cavinato (1999) and Bechtel and Jayaram (1997) had devoted their study explaining strategic nature of SCM and concluded that majority of functions in SCM are performed at strategic level On the other hand, the under-explored area of organizational behavior can also bring stronger theories in SCM as emphasized by the works of various authors such as Ellram (1991) (industrial organization), Co and Barro (2009) (stakeholders theory), Knoppen and Christiaanse (2007) (supply chain partnering) and Wilding and Humphries (2006) (supply chain relationships through the application of Williamson organizational failure framework) According to Ketchen and Giunipero (2004), the idea of a supply chain organization has been presented but this has yet to be systematically investigated (Giunipero et al., 2008) (4) Regarding level of analysis at network level, out of 80 records only nine were found to be before year 2000 This trend implies growing awareness among researchers about considering network level for analysis to get optimum benefit in supply chain (5) Researchers seemed to prefer “combination” of various entities of analysis for empirical research over single entities Similar trend is observed in identifying most frequently used element of exchange in SCM and it was traced that researchers preferred “combination” of elements of exchange instead of focusing on single element of exchange (6) A significant proportion of articles addressed use of performance measurement in their research Majority of authors employed performance analysis for measuring performance of “combination” of various entities of analysis at “firm” level considering “combination” of elements of exchange in their analysis SCM content in empirical research 257 BPMJ 17,2 Downloaded by RMIT University At 23:34 23 November 2015 (PT) 258 (7) It is noteworthy that only six articles out of 87 articles, published before year 2000 considered performance measurement in their theory or framework Such trend also gives an indication about more and more researchers advocating use of performance measurement in SCM 5.2 Gaps identified There exists a huge gap between theory building and theory verification The rate at which theory building is progressing is far ahead of theory verification A discipline can only reach maturity stage if rate of theory building and verification is same Since SCM is growing discipline, there is not much evidence available in supply chain literature that highlights the importance of theory verification in SCM but it can be argued that at some stage in life cycle of a discipline, theory verification should mark the maturity of that discipline Among plethora of issues to be addressed in SCM, 115 issues to be specific, only 16 issues spanned more than 50 percent of articles Such a trend reflects deficiency in treatment of SCM paradigm Many issues to name a few like distribution requirement planning (DRP), power balance, risk management, supply chain security, conflict management, strategic alignment, visibility, virtual supply chain, etc have not received sufficient attention in the empirical research The possible reason for such a scenario could be overemphasis of SCM researchers on core issues like performance measurement, integration, collaboration, relationship management, etc Such core issues are majorly broader in nature with respect to all the levels of management While issues like DRP and visibility are confined to tactical and operational level On the other hand, issues like power balance, risk management, supply chain security, conflict management, etc are new to SCM discipline and are catching up with other issues, but slowly Surprisingly, issue like “strategic alignment” (which means aligning the supply chain strategy with competitive strategy of the focal firm) has received very scanty attention considering its importance in SCM Only Quesada et al (2008) had attempted an empirical investigation into strategic alignment PCBs of marketing and organization behavior in SCM seems to lagging behind in research compared to strategic management, best practices, relationships/partnerships and logistics Parente et al (2008) discovered that the interdisciplinary approach among researchers of SCM and marketing is highly divergent although they share common issues of IT, logistics and operations but still the holistic approach is lacking in two research communities They also revealed in their investigation of marketing SCM research that there are a number of topics that are being researched in two areas However, a review of the authors involved leads us to believe that collaboration is limited It is possible but we see little evidence of multiple authors working in different fields collaborating on the same topic (p 526) While carrying out the investigation for entity of analysis, it was found that supplier, retailer, consumer and distributor are highly neglected in comparison to manufacturers A similar finding was made by Fabbe-Costes and Jahre (2008) where in reviewing literature on supply chain integration they found majority of articles that considered “single” focal entity of analysis as “manufacturer” only Downloaded by RMIT University At 23:34 23 November 2015 (PT) (excluding multi-echelon cases) It makes an impression that research is highly biased towards using manufacturer as the focal entity of analysis in various SCM research scenarios Such a state of biased treatment can create a general feeling among future researchers that SCM paradigm is governed by manufacturers alone and hence supply chains must be designed keeping manufacturers point of view into consideration The implications of such design can be harmful at times for other entities and can lead to disruptions in smooth functioning of supply chains Ideally, level of analysis in every SCM research must be inter-organizational in nature as it goes along with the basic philosophy of SCM According to Stevens (1989), inter-organizational integration is considered to be the final “stage” of SCM thus performance must also be measured that level Later, Fabbe-Costes and Jahre (2008) added that differentiated approach of supply chain integration is of interest and can help companies to identify and focus on a limited number of key integration elements Thus, on the similar line of differential approach to supply chain integration can give rise to critical performance measures at inter-organizational level as well That way the redundant process performance measures can also eliminated from the management system It can thus be said that performance measurement must be done at inter-organizational level but on the contrary, the review of empirical literature in SCM reflects that maximum number of articles considered level of analysis at focal firm level only Empirical research in SCM is predominantly performed in the developed countries of Northern America and Europe while merely percent of the research is performed for developing countries Countries like India and China are outsourcing hubs for global supply chains of apparel, automobile and electronic consumer goods Hence, there is higher need of developing and examining the supply chain frameworks for such countries One of the reasons for lack in empirical research in these countries may be difficulty in carrying out survey and action research or it may be lack of knowledge in SCM However, these reasons need proper examination and factual support before they can be established The existence of performance measures for retailers and distributors in supply chain are almost negligible It is also observed that only one article measuring performance of retailer and three articles measuring performance of supplier are seen in the sample of articles The same comment is applicable to performance measures devised for various levels of analysis as very few articles displayed any picture of measurement at dyad (two articles), chain (five articles) or network (13 articles) level Implications for future research This paper offers new avenues of further research in SCM The findings of the paper and the gaps identified lead to following implications for future research They are discussed as follows: Researchers must focus on verifying already existing theories in SCM as a huge amount of literature on theory building is accumulated and must get verified It is also emphasized that large body of SCM needs more standardized terminology and constructs According to Chen and Paulraj (2004), the existence of clear definitional constructs on which to base SCM research is still lacking This causes SCM content in empirical research 259 BPMJ 17,2 Downloaded by RMIT University At 23:34 23 November 2015 (PT) 260 a fragmented research field that is open to the danger of a lack of generalization Here, it is worthwhile to add prescription of Fabbe-Costes and Jahre (2008, p 143) that in order to contribute to theory building we need to stabilize the vocabulary, to agree on formal conceptual definitions, and to define their properties clearly before measuring anything Traditionally, SCM has been a melting pot of various disciplines, with influences from logistics and transportation, operations management and materials and distribution management, marketing, as well as purchasing and IT (Giunipero et al., 2008) It thus addresses plethora of issues and among them some are often visited by empirical researchers while several other not frequently addressed issues like DRP, efficiency of supply chain, power balance, risk management, supply chain security, conflict management, strategic alignment, visibility, virtual supply chain, etc must be given more attention by performing empirical studies on them and hence help in promotion of their importance in SCM paradigm Underdeveloped structure of PCBs of SCM literature in empirical research must be stronger by more involvement of organizational behavior and marketing in empirical research Future empirical studies must target inter-organizational level more than intra-firm and intra-functional scope at firm level only Such studies must at least address “dyad” level with inter-organizational scope and if possible the complete “network” must be under scanner for analysis The advantage associated with mutli-level analysis is that it gives integrated solutions Simatupang and Sridharan (2008) highlighted that the chain members realize that integrated solutions result in economy of scale that eventually lower costs and enhance revenues (Bowersox, 1990; Buzzell and Ortmeyer, 1995) They also pointed that supply chain collaboration with the design of inter-organizational process improvements coupled with information systems is simply not sufficient enough Rather, one has to design supply chain collaboration so as to incorporate dynamics of collaborative efforts Ideally, every practical framework based on empirical study or any other relevant empirical study must involve an element of performance measurement of respective “entity of analysis” at “network” level considering all the possible “elements of exchange” at various echelons of supply chain Presently, such approach is lacking in empirical research thus future research efforts in this direction must take aforementioned aspect of performance measurement into consideration According to Charan et al (2008), there is an emerging requirement to focus on the performance of the supply chain (SC) or network in which company is a partner Such system can facilitate inter-understanding and integration among the SC members It is worthwhile to add essential characteristics of performance measurement system given by Morgan (2004) that performance measures must be linked with the strategy of an organization, be part of an integrated control system, have internal validity and enable proactive management; and second, the performance measurement system must be dynamic, intra-connectable, focused and usable Sachan and Datta (2005) pointed out in their review that most of the multi-national companies are targeting developing and underdeveloped countries either as new market for their products or for sourcing the raw material due to low cost Downloaded by RMIT University At 23:34 23 November 2015 (PT) It would be better if researchers focus on these countries also In our review too same fact is highlighted that very less empirical studies in SCM are published for developing and underdeveloped countries It is high time for the researchers to start focusing on these avenues of cost reduction and profit making SCM content in empirical research Conclusions The paper reviewed 569 articles on empirical research in SCM, with primary focus of research on content of SCM in articles The paper started with identifying empirical research articles out of 1,807 research articles and found 569 empirical research articles, followed by classification of each of the selected articles into nine classes The paper highlights the growth of empirical research in SCM Findings of paper also initiate a debate of theory building vs theory verification in SCM as it was found that there are more articles on theory building in compared to theory verification Review also revealed important and frequently visited issues in SCM and also brought inadequately addressed issues into limelight Classification of articles on basis of entity of analysis, level of analysis and element of exchange is found to be very instrumental in measuring length and breadth of empirical research in SCM It was found out that more and more authors are using combination of entity of analysis But still focus is on firm level rather than network level In this another encouraging fact is that most of the authors prefer to consider combination of various elements of exchange in their analysis It was also found out that SCM research is still very much confined in developed countries of America and Europe, which is a discouraging Also, performance measurement in a supply chain seems to be an area of more exploration, especially, measuring performance at network or chain level The potential limitation of the study is that it does not attempt to trace out trend using regression techniques neither it endeavors’ to test the hypothesis so as to establish a grounded theory, that could lay down a perfect platform for future research It, however, succeeds in revealing the descriptive statistics behind various classes that addresses content of SCM in empirical research The extension of this study could be statistically testing the figures observed in this paper and lay down a grounded theory approach for future research in SCM It is believed that this article will encourage the research community to make endeavors in less explored areas of SCM 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367-76 About the authors Gunjan Soni did his BE from University of Rajasthan and MTech from IIT, Delhi He is presently pursuing PhD from Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS)-Pilani and working as a Lecturer with Mechanical Engineering Group, BITS, Pilani He has over four years teaching experience at under graduate and graduate levels His areas of research interest are supply chain management, manufacturing management, operations research and optimization Rambabu Kodali is currently serving as a Professor and Group Leader of the Mechanical Engineering Group and Engineering Technology Group at BITS, Pilani, India He has published a number of papers in various national and international journals and has participated in a number of conferences, where he presented technical papers His research interests are in the areas of flexible manufacturing systems (FMS), supply chain management (SCM), computer-integrated manufacturing systems (CIMS), lean manufacturing systems, manufacturing excellence/world-class manufacturing (WCM), innovative product design and development and world-class maintenance systems He has completed several research projects in FMS, CIMS and WCM He has developed curriculum of 18 first degree, higher degree, work-integrated and collaborative programmes apart from developing and establishing the centre for FMS at BITS, Pilani Rambabu Kodali is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: proframbabukodali@gmail.com To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: reprints@emeraldinsight.com Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints Downloaded by RMIT University At 23:34 23 November 2015 (PT) This article has been cited by: Man Mohan Siddh, Gunjan Soni, Rakesh Jain 2015 Perishable food supply chain quality (PFSCQ) Journal of Advances in Management Research 12:3, 292-313 [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] Farhad Panahifar, Cathal Heavey, PJ Byrne, Hamed Fazlollahtabar 2015 A framework for 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aerospace manufacturing sector”, Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, Vol No 3, pp 250-5 Bechtel, C and Jayaram, J (1997), ? ?Supply chain management: ... graduate and graduate levels His areas of research interest are supply chain management, manufacturing management, operations research and optimization Rambabu Kodali is currently serving as a