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BPMJ 17,2

A critical analysis of supply chain management content in empirical research

Gunjan Soni and Rambabu Kodali
Mechanical Engineering Group, Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, India
Abstract
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 classication of 569 empirical research articles in SCM. A systematic classication 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 rms 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, Classication, Research work Paper type Literature review

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Business Process Management Journal Vol. 17 No. 2, 2011 pp. 238-266 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 1463-7154 DOI 10.1108/14637151111122338

1. Introduction Over the past 25 years, supply chain management (SCM) has been evolving as concept and gradually managers have accepted that their rm is just one entity in the chain of rms 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. Asufcient amount of research in SCM is performed using empirical studies. Minor et al. (1994) dened empirical studies as those involving the gathering and analysis of data, and subsequent reporting of ndings 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 2 critically examines various literature reviews published

in SCM literature. Section 3 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 classication and analysis of SCM content in empirical research in Section 4. Finally, the identication of gaps in present research, and signicant ndings are reported in Section 5. The implications to future are discussed in Section 6 and nally, the paper is concluded in Section 7. 2. 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 classication 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 Halldorson and Arlbjorn (2005) classied 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 rst 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 specically 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 denitions, 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

SCM content in empirical research 239

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BPMJ 17,2

Author (year of S.no publication) Period Area of research 1986-1990 Not restricted N/A 1965-1999 1998-2003 1999-2004 1999-2003 1998-2002 1997-2004 2004 378 100 36 282 38 405 89 IJLM, IJPDLM and JBL IJLM, IJPDLM and JBL 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 N/A 84 N/A 774 Reviewed journalsa Sample size

1 2 3 4

5 6 7

8 9

Table I. List of literature reviews in SCM

JOM, IJOPM, MS, IJPR, JBL and IJPDLM IJLM, IJPDLM and JBL No restriction 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 subelds of SCM Analysis of types of research Analysis of object of study and methods applied Survey research in supply chain integration Analysis of the nature of SCM research Studies the link between supply chain integration and performance 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 1998-2002 No restriction July 2003 Not restricted 1990-2006 2000-2006 1997-2006 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

Dunn et al. (1994) Croom et al. (2000) Ho et al. (2002) Carter and Ellram (2003)

Gammelgaard (2004) Frankel et al. (2005) Sachan and Datta (2005)

10

11 12

` Kovacs and Spens (2005) Halldorson and Arlbjorn (2005) Reichhart and Holweg (2006) Spens and Kovacs (2006) Burgess et al. (2006)

13

14

van der Vaart and van Donk (2008) Wolf (2008)

15

Fabbe-Costes and Jahre (2008)

16

Giunipero et al. (2008)

Note: aSee Table II for full name of journals Source: Adapted from Wolf (2008)

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. 3. 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 classication 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 1. 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 rst 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 2. 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.
Time Horizon for selection of papers: From year 1980 till end of year 2008 Step 1

SCM content in empirical research 241

Research article sample preparation for review

Selection of database: > Emerald > Taylor and Francis > Science direct > Wiley inter-science Journal selection: Search "supply chain" in article title and select journals that contain 75% of these articles

Step 2

Step 3

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 4

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 Step 5

Analysis after classification of articles

Step 6

Outcome 1: Gaps identified

Outcome 2: Significant findings

Outcome 3: Future directions

Figure 1. Literature review methodology adopted in the paper

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Step 3. 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 4. 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 5. All the selected research articles are classied 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 classication 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 ones own theory (called theory building) or one can verify an already existing or newly proposed theory on the basis of empirical data (called theory verication). The classication of selected articles on this basis permits a researcher to nd out the inclination of researchers is towards theory building or theory verication. . 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 ow facility structure, information ow 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) identied 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 claried that those issues which are duplicated under multiple PCBs have multiple perspectives surrounding the problem process. These PCBs identied by Croom et al. (2008) were chosen

Journal namea 1996 0 0 0 0 1 2 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 2 0 0 6 0 14 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 8 0 0 0 0 4 1 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 7 0 15 0 0 0 0 3 1 3 2 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 1 0 4 1 21 1 0 0 0 8 0 2 1 1 1 1 0 2 0 1 2 1 0 1 4 0 26 1 0 0 0 6 4 1 6 3 0 0 0 1 0 2 1 0 0 1 3 0 29 0 0 2 0 2 2 3 4 6 5 4 0 1 0 5 3 2 0 1 3 2 45 1 0 2 0 1 1 4 3 4 4 1 1 4 1 2 1 0 2 0 6 3 41 2 0 0 5 0 5 3 4 4 11 2 2 3 2 2 1 0 0 6 10 0 62 2 0 0 1 0 5 3 5 5 7 7 1 3 2 9 4 0 1 1 9 0 65 0 0 0 4 0 4 2 6 8 7 1 3 2 3 5 1 0 3 2 16 0 67 2 0 1 3 0 5 0 5 7 16 8 5 3 1 20 0 0 0 1 15 0 92 2 0 3 0 3 2 0 0 9 25 4 3 1 0 3 0 0 4 0 16 2 77 28 43 55 169 33 204 53 69 118 256 147 44 38 28 83 79 36 28 66 189 41 1,807 11 0 8 13 32 36 21 37 52 77 29 16 21 9 50 16 8 11 13 101 8 569 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 0 0 0 0 3 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 6

1994

1995

No. of articles

Empirical research articles

BPMJ CCE CIE EJOR EJPSM IJLM IJLRA IJOPM IJPDLM IJPE IJPR IMDS IMM JMTM JOM JSCM LIM OMEGA PPC SCMIJ TR Total

0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1

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

SCM content in empirical research 243

Table II. Frequency of empirical research articles in SCM

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for classication 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-nished product to manufacturer. While manufacturer is nal nished 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 nal nished product. The identication of entity of analysis in the article is done by simply nding 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 classication. The signicance 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), Halldorsson and Arlbjrn (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, Halldorsson and Arlbjrn (2005) have addressed the fourth level, also denoted by rm. Also, a similar class was proposed by Fabbe-Costes and Jahre (2008) where they used multi echelon, single echelon: manufacturers, single echelon: rst 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, nancial 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 nd 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 nd out the range of industries from which data are collected. This classication 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 6. 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 classied articles so as to identify research gaps in content of SCM in empirical research as well as to present signicant ndings from the existing literature.
.

SCM content in empirical research 245

The results will be presented using tables and charts. 4. 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 rst 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 nding does not exactly match with ndings 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 2. The year-wise distribution of empirical research articles in SCM is also shown in Figure 3. Figure 3 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) denition on theory building and theory verication was taken as a guideline for placing the article under theory building or verication. If the article involved proposing a new theory on the basis of some hypothesis or statistical ndings,

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246

then it was placed under the category of theory building. It also includes those articles which propose and then verify the proposed theory as well. In other case, if the theory is borrowed from some other article and used in another situation to check its validity then it is said to be a theory verication article. It was found out that there were 496 articles on theory building and 73 on theory verication. This fact is also validated by the fact that SCM is a rather young eld of research, the need for further conceptual and theory ller et al., 2003) as a building research is frequently highlighted (Croom et al., 2000; Mu means to continue to shape the boundaries of SCM (Mouritsen et al., 2003). Out of 73 articles on theory verication, highest were published in IJOPM (12 articles), while SCMIJ published maximum number on theory building (39 articles). 4.3 PCBs and related issues in SCM First, the focal issue of each article is identied and then that article is placed under appropriate PCB. In order to identify the focal issue, a list of possible issues that the article contains is laid down using title of the article and abstract. Then, the issue whose phrase is repeated maximum number of times in the article is selected to be the focal issue of the article. The scheme of subjects given by Croom et al. (2000) is used to nd out the PCB under which the focal issue lies. Some focal issues which lie out of this scheme are then placed under respective PCBs in consultation with the subject experts. PCB and related issues in SCM is given in Table III. It can be easily apprehended from Table III that SCM encompasses plethora of issues spanning various PCBs. The most frequently visited issue is of performance measurement (44 articles), followed by supply chain integration (36 articles)
1 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0
PE PR IM D S IM M JM TM JO M JS CM L O IM M EG A PP C SC M IJ E CI E EJ O EJ R PS M IJ LM IJ LR M IJ O PM IJ PD LM M CC IJ BP IJ TR J

Figure 2. Percentage of articles published in empirical research for each journal

% of papers in empirical research

Name of journal

No. of empirical research papers

Figure 3. Year-wise distribution of empirical research articles in SCM

100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 Year of publication

SCM issue Performance measurement Supply chain integration Status of SCM in a eld or industry or nation Relationship management Information sharing and commitment Collaboration Strategy formulation Information technology Green supply Quality Supply chain practices Incentives Identication of barriers for SCM Critical success factors Design of supply chain Type of supply chain Environmental change or inuencing factors Returns management Agile supply chain management Supply chain co-ordination Integration technology Supply chain modeling Total quality management Benchmarking supply chain practices Closed-loop supply chain Customer satisfaction Product development Reverse supply chain Supply chain diagnostics Supply chain variability Business process reengineering Decision support system Supplier management Collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment Consumer behavior Competitive strategy, advantages, etc. Customer service Efcient consumer response Just in time Outsourcing Purchasing Supply chain optimization Supply chain implementation Skills and supply chain partnerships Selection of techniques and tools Vendor-managed inventory Demand management Disruptions in the supply chain Electronic commerce Electronic data interchange

PCB BST STM Others REP LOG REP STM MKT ORB REP BST LOG STM BST STM BST LOG LOG BST STM ORB STM BST BST STM MKT STM BST BST STM STM STM REP REP ORB STM MKT MKT REP REP REP STM STM REP BST LOG LOG LOG MKT BST

Frequency 44 36 28 23 21 16 15 14 13 12 12 11 10 10 10 10 9 9 8 8 7 7 7 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 5 5 5 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 (continued)

SCM content in empirical research 247

Table III. PCB and related issues in SCM

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SCM issue Flexibility Forecasting Inventory management Lean production Ordering policies Sustainable supply chain development Value chain analysis Academic debate Alignment theory Business process analysis Buyer focus Cross functional teams Cost reduction DRP Economic cluster theory Efciency of supply chain Inventory-production-distribution planning Marketing Modularization Material requirement planning Modern technology applied to SCM Power balance Phase of product life cycle Product range management Postponement Responsiveness in supply chain Risk management Supplier evaluation Supply chain security Social responsibility Streamlining Synchronized supply chain management Supply chain tools System thinking Time performance of chains Trust development Concurrent engineering Cash ow analysis Conict in supply chain Continuous improvement Communication strategies Enterprise resource planning Ethics in supply chain management Facilities network design Frameworks Human resource management Integrated enterprise modeling Inertia in supply chain Joint ventures Knowledge base

PCB STM STM LOG STM LOG BST BST Others STM STM REP REP STM LOG STM REP REP MKT LOG BST BST REP STM STM LOG BST STM REP ORB ORB BST BST BST BST BST REP BST STM ORB BST ORB MKT BST LOG BST ORB MKT LOG ORB LOG

Frequency 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 (continued)

248

Table III.

SCM issue Logistic design Negotiation Operations scheduling Organizational behavior Quality of relationship Radio frequency identication Strategic alignment Six sigma SWOT analysis Transaction cost Transportation optimization Visibility Virtual supply chain Waste management Warehouse network redesign

PCB STM REP LOG ORB REP BST STM BST BST BST LOG LOG MKT BST LOG

Frequency 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

SCM content in empirical research 249

Notes: STM strategic management; BST best practices; ORB organization behavior; REP relationships and partnerships; LOG logistics; MKT marketing

Table III.

and assessment of status of SCM in a eld or industry or nation using empirical research design comes third (28 articles). It is interesting to relate the work of Fabbe-Costes and Jahre (2008) with these ndings as well. They explored the relationship of supply chain performance with supply chain integration. Emphasis of authors on such study very well reects the importance given to these focal areas of research in SCM. It is also found that only 16 issues out of 115 issues cover more than 50 percent of total articles. These highlighted issues in literature are performance measurement, supply chain integration, status of SCM in a eld or industry or nation, relationship management, information sharing and commitment, collaboration, strategy formulation, information technology (IT), green supply, quality, supply chain practices, incentives, identication of barriers for SCM, critical success factors, design of supply chain and selection of type of supply chain. It will be worthwhile to nd out the most stressed PCB in selected SCM literature and also number of issues falling under each PCB. Frequency of PCBs in selected SCM literature is given in Table IV. From Table V, it seems that best practices covers maximum number of issues (30 issues) addressed in SCM but same trend is not observed in number of articles published, as the highest frequency (153) of papers are published in strategic management. Giunipero et al. (2008) also reported maximum number of articles in SCM strategy in their review of 405 articles. Another observation can be made in others category that even though it covers only two issues viz. status of SCM in a eld or industry or nation and academic debate, the relative number of articles is pretty high compared to marketing and organization behavior. 4.4 Entity of analysis The entity of analysis is found out by tracing out which member of supply chain is under investigation. If more than one entity is under consideration, then article is placed under combination category. Some articles considered multiple entity of analysis hence such articles have been placed under the category of combination. It was revealed that

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Principal component body (PCB) Best practices Strategic management Logistics Relationships and partnerships Marketing Organizational behavior Others Total

No. of issues in each PCB 30 28 19 18 9 9 2 115

Frequency of articles 147 152 79 92 36 33 30 569

Total % of articles 25.8 26.9 13.9 16.2 6.3 5.6 5.3 100

250
Table IV. Frequency of PCBs in selected SCM literature

majority of articles involved combination of multiple entity of analysis (340 articles) while articles with manufacturer as main entity of analysis were second highest (154 articles). Also, articles including suppliers were 17, retailer with ten, 3PL with four, consumer with four, distributor with three and 4PL with one article. Unlike Halldorsson and Arlbjrn (2005), this study considers combination of various entity of analysis along with 3PL, 4PL, customer and supplier also. It can be seen clearly from Table VII that combination of various entities is most prominent research approach covering almost 60 percent of total articles selected for review. If research focus on single entity is considered, then issues related to manufacturer are most visited by researchers in their articles (29.07 percent) which is in congruence with the ndings of Halldorsson and Arlbjrn (2005) (28.1 percent). Out of 229 articles on single entity, 68.5 percent of articles (157 articles) belong to the manufacturer alone. While only ve articles are addressed to 3PL and 4PL together. Also, total of supplier, retailer, consumer and distributor entities makes total number of articles up to 16 percent only. In order to present the frequency distribution of entity of analysis over the analysis period, Table V represents year-wise distribution of entity of analysis. From Table V, it is quite evident that majority of researchers are considering combination of various entities in the empirical research and it is increasing at a steady rate with the increase in number of publications per year. Another important observation is that empirical literature on supplier as an entity is increasing per year but similar trend is not visible in other entities like retailer, 3PL, consumer, distributor and 4PL. 4.5 Level of analysis In the literature, various terminologies for level of analysis can be found out like level (Narasimhan and Kim, 2002; Kim, 2006a), stage (Kim, 2006b), degree (Frohlich and Westbrook, 2001), arc (Frohlich and Westbrook, 2001), type (Swink et al., 2007) and supply chain structure (Stock et al., 2000). Thus, in order to avoid confusion as to nd out which level of analysis is considered in the article, a simple guideline was followed according to which if the analysis or focus of the paper was on inter-function, intra-company then was listed under the category of rm. Further, the level of analysis was dyad if paper addresses at inter-organizational level and includes immediate upstream or downstream member of supply chain into analysis. The level of analysis is chain when more than two members are included in the analysis and network when analysis is subjected to multiple members at each echelon. Examination of data

Entity of analysis N/ A Supplier Retailer 3PL Consumer Distributor 4PL Firm Network Chain Dyad 0 0 0 0 0 2 2 1 3 3 2 2 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 2 0 2 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 3 10 5 7 13 12 19 31 29 40 42 39 69 51 1 0 0 0 2 5 7 2 9 6 9 12 9 11 7 0 0 2 2 4 3 3 3 2 1 10 8 11 5 7 0 3 1 0 1 0 2 3 3 4 2 1 5 7 4 0 0 1 1 1 0 2 2 0 1 1 2 3 0 8 0 1 0 0 0 0 4 3 3 0 4 6 5 8 2 1 0 0 0 3 0 3 2 1 1 5 2 10 5 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 3 3 0 2 0 0 0 1 1 3 0 3 1 0 3 3 4 4 4 8 N/ A

Level of analysis

Element of exchange Assets Information Others Combination Relationship Total 0 3 12 8 11 18 15 22 37 39 46 50 50 74 64 0 2 2 0 1 3 4 1 4 1 4 4 2 3 4 1 6 14 8 15 21 26 29 45 41 62 65 67 92 77

Year Combination Manufacturer

1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

1 6 6 6 6 13 14 14 32 20 34 47 42 61 38

0 0 7 1 6 5 7 11 8 11 19 12 18 24 28

SCM content in empirical research

Table V. Year-wise distribution of entity of analysis, level of analysis and element of exchange

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reveals that 65 percent (370 articles) of articles are based on analysis level that is conned within the rm itself, which in fact contradicts the ndings of Halldorsson and Arlbjrn (2005) (4.22 percent of 71 articles) while it is much nearer to the ndings of Fabbe-Costes and Jahre (2008) (47.2 percent of 38 articles addressing single echelon), Giunipero et al. (2008) (37 percent) and Sachan and Datta (2005) (56 percent of 442 articles). Only 24.8 percent (177 articles) of articles serves the purpose of inter-organizational dialogue in supply chain (combining articles on levels of dyad, network and chain). This gure is also close to 30 percent in the study of Sachan and Datta (2005). Such a trend is noteworthy and unlikely as theory of SCM itself focuses on integration throughout the value chain. This shows that although supply chain is dened by keeping system thinking in mind, but researches are more focusing on one part of the system (Sachan and Datta, 2005). Table VI gives year-wise distribution of level of analysis. Table VI clearly shows that relative rate at which papers on level of analysis at the rm level are being published is still very high, while on the contrary (ideally) the rate of publishing should be more at network and chain level. 4.6 Element of exchange The underlying theory or model is closely examined to nd out what types of elements are being exchanged between different levels of supply chain in the analysis. The guidelines of Croom et al. (2000) are used to nd the type of element of exchange in an article. If more than one element of exchange is under consideration, then it is referred as combination.
Country/region Asia Pacica North Americaa South East Asiaa UAEa South Korea Turkey Koreaa Canada The Netherlands Taiwan India Scandinaviaa Sweden Australia Hong Kong Italy China Europea UK USA Others Not mentioned Total Note: aIndicates region or continent No. 1 1 1 1 2 5 6 7 10 10 14 11 11 12 12 15 18 25 66 94 112 136 569 % 0.18 0.18 0.18 0.18 0.35 0.88 1.05 1.23 1.76 1.76 2.46 1.93 1.93 2.11 2.11 2.64 3.16 4.39 11.60 16.52 19.68 23.73

Table VI. Frequency of empirical research studies in SCM in various parts of the world

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 specic 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 ow 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 rm, 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 specied 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 ndings with maximum studies in the USA followed by Europe. Asian countries contribute nearly 10 percent of studies which is little higher than the ndings 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 specied by the author, then the article is placed under N/A. Table VII represents the frequency of articles for the industries of data collection.

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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 signicant 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 specied that the majority of articles have a mixed-industry empirical base whilst others focus on a specic 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 gure 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 reected 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
Industry Aerospace Retail Chemical IT Apparel Construction 3PL Electronics Automobile Food and agriculture Manufacturing Not mentioned Others Multiple Total No. 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

Table VII. Frequency of articles for the industries of data collection

Year 2 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 3 0 1 0 1 8 0 0 1 0 5 0 0 2 0 5 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 2 0 2 0 1 0 0 9 0 0 0 0 5 0 1 1 0 6 0 1 0 0 9 0 2 1 1 8 1 0 0 1 11 0 3 3 1 9 1 1 2 0 13 0 2 1 3 13 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 9 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 6 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 10 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 9 0 0 6 0 0 0 1 0 12 0 0 4 0 0 0 1 1 2 2 5 9 6 8 11 15 17 8 0 0 6 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 8 0 0 0 1 7 0 0

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

Total 87 2 0 67 0 1 12 1 1 3 5 2 67 0 13 9 8 64 2 4

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

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Table VIII. Frequency distribution of performance measurement articles with reference to entity of analysis, level of analysis and element of exchange

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into consideration performance measures for manufacturer are formulated most of the time. Also, performance measurement is carried out at only rm 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 rm. Such fact is an eye opener for researchers as ideally performance measurement must be carried out so as to reect the performance of supply chain as whole and not of a single rm. 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 gure 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. 5. 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 identied and the signicant ndings of the review will be discussed in the subsequent part of this section. 5.1 Signicant ndings (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 verication 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 eld 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 eld of marketing research, through a rigorous empirical research approach. (2) In the review, 115 issues were identied out of which performance measurement, supply chain integration, status of SCM in a eld or industry or nation, relationship management, information sharing and commitment, collaboration, strategy formulation, IT, green supply, quality, supply chain practices, incentives, identication 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 eld, industry or nation also gained appreciable attention in articles by Arlbjrn et al. (2008) (status of Nordic research in logistics and SCM), Bales et al. (2004)

(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-Pacic) 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 identied in the paper. Harland (1996) distinguishes four main uses of the term SCM: . internal supply that integrates business functions involved in the ow 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 benet 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 signicant 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 rm level considering combination of elements of exchange in their analysis.

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(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 identied . There exists a huge gap between theory building and theory verication. The rate at which theory building is progressing is far ahead of theory verication. A discipline can only reach maturity stage if rate of theory building and verication is same. Since SCM is growing discipline, there is not much evidence available in supply chain literature that highlights the importance of theory verication in SCM but it can be argued that at some stage in life cycle of a discipline, theory verication should mark the maturity of that discipline. . Among plethora of issues to be addressed in SCM, 115 issues to be specic, only 16 issues spanned more than 50 percent of articles. Such a trend reects deciency in treatment of SCM paradigm. Many issues to name a few like distribution requirement planning (DRP), power balance, risk management, supply chain security, conict management, strategic alignment, visibility, virtual supply chain, etc. have not received sufcient 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 conned to tactical and operational level. On the other hand, issues like power balance, risk management, supply chain security, conict 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 rm) 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 elds 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 nding 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

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(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 nal 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 reects that maximum number of articles considered level of analysis at focal rm level only. Empirical research in SCM is predominantly performed in the developed countries of Northern America and Europe while merely 5 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 difculty 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 (ve articles) or network (13 articles) level.

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6. Implications for future research This paper offers new avenues of further research in SCM. The ndings of the paper and the gaps identied 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 veried. 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 denitional constructs on which to base SCM research is still lacking. This causes

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a fragmented research eld 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 denitions, and to dene their properties clearly before measuring anything. Traditionally, SCM has been a melting pot of various disciplines, with inuences 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, efciency of supply chain, power balance, risk management, supply chain security, conict 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-rm and intra-functional scope at rm 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 sufcient 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.

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 prot making. 7. 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 classication 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 verication in SCM as it was found that there are more articles on theory building in compared to theory verication. Review also revealed important and frequently visited issues in SCM and also brought inadequately addressed issues into limelight. Classication 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 rm 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 conned 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 gures 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 and also remove the highlighted deciencies in approach towards empirical research in SCM.
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van der Vaart, T. and van Donk, D.P. (2008), A critical review of survey-based research in supply chain integration, International Journal of Production Economics, Vol. 111 No. 1, pp. 42-55. Wallenbergburg, C.M. and Weber, J. (2005), Structural equation modeling as a basis for theory development within logistics & supply chain management, in Kotzab, H., Seuring, S., Muller, M. and Reiner, G. (Eds), Research Methodologies in Supply Chain Management, Physica-Verlag, New York, NY, pp. 171-86. Wilding, R. and Humphries, A.S. (2006), Understanding collaborative supply chain relationships through the application of the Williamson organisational failure framework, International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, Vol. 36 No. 4, pp. 309-29. Wolf, J. (2008), The Nature of Research in Supply Chain Management, Gabler Edition, Wissenschaft, Wiesbaden. Further reading Anderson, J.C., Schroeder, R.G., Tupy, S.E. and White, E.M. (1982), Material requirement planning systems: the state of the art, Production & Inventory Management Journal, Vol. 24 No. 4, pp. 51-66. Bagchi, P.K. and Skjoett-Larsen, T. (2002), Integration of information technology and organizations in a supply chain, International Journal of Logistics Management, Vol. 14 No. 2, pp. 89-108. Bartlett, P.A., Julien, D.M. and Baines, T.S. (2007), Improving supply chain performance through improved visibility, International Journal of Logistics Management, Vol. 18 No. 2, pp. 294-313. Evangelista, P. and Morvillo, A. (1999), Alliances in liner shipping an instrument to gain operational efciency or supply chain integration?, International Journal of Logistics Research and Applications, Vol. 2 No. 1, pp. 21-38. Gunasekaran, A., Lai, K. and Cheng, T.C.E. (2008), Responsive supply chain: a competitive strategy in a networked economy, Omega, Vol. 36 No. 4, pp. 549-64. Hakansson, H., Johanson, J. and Wootz, B. (1990), Inuence tactics in buyer-seller processes, Industrial Marketing Management, Vol. 4 No. 6, pp. 319-32. Khalfan, M.M.A., Anumba, C.J., Siemieniuch, C.E. and Sinclair, M.A. (2001), Readiness assessment of the construction supply chain for concurrent engineering, European Journal of Purchasing & Supply Management, Vol. 7 No. 2, pp. 141-53. Love, P.E.D., Irani, Z. and Edwards, D.J. (2004), A seamless supply chain management model for construction, Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, Vol. 9 No. 1, pp. 43-56. Niemi, P., Pekkanen, P. and Huiskonen, J. (2007), Improving the impact of quantitative analysis on supply chain policy making, International Journal of Production Economics, Vol. 108 Nos 1/2, pp. 165-75. Roth, A. (1987), Differentiated manufacturing strategies for the competitive advantage: an empirical investigation, working paper, Boston University, Boston, MA. Roth, A. (1989), Linking manufacturing strategy and performance: an empirical investigation, working paper, Boston University, Boston, MA. Ruppel, C. (2004), An information systems perspective of supply chain tool compatibility: the roles of technology t and relationships, Business Process Management Journal, Vol. 10 No. 3, pp. 311-24. Seuring, S. (2009), The product-relationship-matrix as framework for strategic supply chain design based on operations theory, International Journal of Production Economics, Vol. 120 No. 1, pp. 221-32.

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Spens, K.M. and Bask, A.H. (2002), Developing a framework for supply chain management, International Journal of Logistics Management, Vol. 13 No. 1, pp. 73-88. Svensson, G. and Baath, H. (2008), Supply chain management ethics: conceptual framework and illustration, Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, Vol. 13 No. 6, pp. 398-405. Vonderembse, M.A., Uppal, M., Huang, S.H. and Dismukes, J.P. (2006), Designing supply chains: towards theory development, International Journal of Production Economics, Vol. 100 No. 2, pp. 223-38. Vrijhoef, R. and Koskela, L. (2000), The four roles of supply chain management in construction, European Journal of Purchasing & Supply Management, Vol. 6 Nos 3/4, pp. 169-78. Wong, C.Y., Arlbjorn, J.S. and Johansen, J. (2005), Supply chain management practices in toy supply chains, Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, Vol. 10 No. 5, pp. 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 exible 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 rst 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

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