A look into the past and future: theories within supply chain management, marketing and management

Abstract

Purpose Although supply chain scholars have acknowledged the fundamental disruptive changes experienced by today’s supply chains and the ensuing novelty of the research problems worthy of investigation, they have primarily relied on a limited number of theories to help explain the phenomena of interest. The purpose of this paper is to use a systematic literature review to address this gap and propose additional theories that supply chain researchers can use to help address novel supply chain phenomena, such as those caused by technological disruptions. Design/methodology/approach The authors use a systematic literature review to examine the studies published over the last 10 years in six of the top supply chain management journals (411 articles) and six of the top marketing and management journals (1,214 articles). Findings First, the findings show that 15 theories have been relied upon by over 95 per cent of the studies within supply chain management that use formal theories. Second, the authors identify the most frequently used theories within marketing and management (217 theories). Third, as space limitations make it impossible to offer a rich description of each of the 217 theories, the authors identify 30 theories that they considered to be the most salient to supply chain research and suggest areas where supply chain scholars can apply these theoretical lenses. Originality/value The research effort allowed the authors to map the current use of theories within the field to gain a better understanding of what other theories could augment the body of theories used within supply chain management. Thus, the current study is a “one stop shop” that supply chain scholars can consult when in a quandary about what theoretical lens to utilize.

Influence of Organisational Culture on Supply Chain Resilience: A Power and Situational Strength Conceptual Perspective

“…Masood et al (2006) have previously linked the CVF with the concept of situational strength, a theory which describes the "implicit or explicit cues provided by external entities regarding the desirability of potential behaviours for the firm" (Meyer et al 2010, p. 122). As situational strength has received little attention within the supply chain management field (Gligor et al 2019), this study provides a good opportunity to explore this theory within a SCRES context.…”

Developing a perceptual distance monitor for client-contractor collaborations

“…In doing so, we highlighted project management and supply chain management, as additional application fields for social identity theory. Accordingly, we showed how studying phenomena in supply chain management can be enriched by borrowing theories from other, related fields (Gligor et al , 2019). Moreover, this study shows how useful it is to combine multiple research theories for collaborations in projects and supply chains (Halldórsson et al , 2007; Kembro et al , 2014; Kolltveit et al , 2007).…”

“…The literature draws on agency theory to explain the informational perspective (Eisenhardt, 1989). Within the supply chain literature, client-contractor relationships are often seen as principal-agent relationships, where the client is the principal and the contractor is the agent (Gligor et al , 2019; Hald et al , 2009; Halldórsson et al , 2007; Spina et al , 2016). Given these roles, collaborating partners each have specific information about the project and themselves that is not available to the other party.…”

Management des ressources humaines pour la logistique et le Supply Chain Management : un éditorial engagé

“…Si les aspects relatifs à la stratégie, aux pratiques, aux outils ou encore aux ressources (matérielles) favorisant l'amélioration des performances (processus, financières, durables) des Supply Chains font l'objet de nombreuses recherches, il semble qu'un des éléments clés de la gestion et du pilotage des chaînes soit moins étudié : les ressources humaines. Alors même que l'approche basée sur les ressources (RBV, Wernerfelt 1984;Barney 1991) est particulièrement populaire en Supply Chain Management (Gligor et al 2019;Swanson et al 2018), il semble nécessaire de densifier les recherches relatives aux questions de gestion des ressources humaines dans la Supply Chain. Prévision, planification des besoins, gestion, protection, amélioration continue, etc.…”