It was during the 1980s that supply chain management was introduced as a research field and became a vital source of competitiveness, mostly thanks to increasing large global markets and manufacturing globalization (Oliver and Webber 1982; Houlihan 1985; Jones and Riley 1985; Stevens 1989). Supply chains are large strategic entities, and it was argued early on that they have a significant effect on corporate financial performance; this strategy linkage has persisted (Hochrein et al. 2017). Competitiveness and success in the markets was no longer a result of factory-level decisions, but of those made by the different global supply chains that competed with each other in the final markets for perceived customer value. Inventories, cost competitiveness, quality, reaction time, flexibility, information accuracy and replenishment were all dependent on different actors, and their collaboration within the supply chain network was vital, and preferable to single decision-makers tackling these issues alone. However, it should be highlighted that the key ideas of supply chain management were introduced in the industrial dynamics research of Forrester (1958) as system dynamics simulation models were taking their first steps.
In the mid-1970s an article concerned with electricity distribution used the term âsupply chainâ for what was probably the first time (Banbury 1975). However, company-based applications took time to appear in research publications as the subject area was new, and it was not common for academic research projects to rely on collaboration with industries, organizations or companies. This changed during the 1990s, and the early 2000s. Since then, research activity has increased significantly, and it has become normal to deal with individual cases when examining or improving supply chain performance (Ellram 1996; Hilmola et al. 2005; Burgess et al. 2006). This has required both sides to change, universities and researchers as well as companies: interaction, openness, time, resources and funding have all been required. In addition, countries and governments have developed funding sources for collaboration. Teaching curriculums in universities and research institutions have also changed, in order to match industry needs better. Simultaneously, supply chains have evolved into âcollaborative clustersâ, in which less complex but highly integrated clusters detect demand and deliver desired products in a timely fashion to the markets (Stevens and Johnson 2016). One successful example is textile industry giant Inditex/Zara (Moreno and Carrasco 2016). In this new hyper-competitive environment there are new challenges, as collaboration and information sharing requirements within the supply chain are so high; for example, information and business knowledge leaks are a serious concern in global companies (Tan et al. 2016).
As we have seen, supply chain case studies have required institutional change and a new mindset has had to be implementedâaccepting the presence of a larger number of entities and interaction, as well as their collaboration in order to increase competitiveness. Therefore, it is necessary to know which studies and authors have been key for development, to avoid the previous criticism that the discipline has been too narrowly concentrated (e.g. Burgess et al. 2006). These key case studies have already played a far-reaching role in the disciplineâs development, and will continue to do so in the future. Together with the important themes and approaches taken, this is useful information not only for students and researchers, but also for industries and governmental or public development organizations, allowing them to understand who the leading authors of supply chain case studies are, and how their themes and topics have evolved over the years. We should also remember that supply chain management as a research discipline has started to mature, and its further development depends on how its roots are understood and utilized (Giannakis 2012). In recent years green and environmental as well as sustainability issues have taken a leading role within supply chain case studies. Green issues have even been argued to be an extension and continuum of the well-known and widely applied lean management approach (DĂŒes et al. 2013). Typically, companies and other organizations (governments, associations or universities) react slowly to pending problems, but this is not necessarily the case when it comes to supply chain management. In addition, these leading manuscripts and authors help us to learn about research methods, research procedures, reporting and overall approaches. A high number of citations is an indicator of a workâs quality, because authors carefully consider the research publications that they should cite and the value these earlier publications have for their own research.
In earlier decades, it would have been impossible to complete this book. It was in the 1990s that scientific journals moved online and publishing houses established their own services that helped researchers to track down particular authors from a wide array of publications. Before this, it was common for researchers to spend time in libraries, reading published journals in order to learn how a particular discipline was developing. After online content became commonplace, single journals became less important and a branch of study could be followed through the use of keywords and searches, which allowed researchers to access a large number of journals almost simultaneously. Online content was one thing, but citation tracking services were a vital next stage. Early citation studies typically considered a very limited number of journals and on a limited timescale (e.g. Kumar and Kwon 2004; Burgess et al. 2006; Ellinger and Chapman 2011). Nowadays, the impact (in terms of citations) of any study can be evaluated within a very short space of time. Therefore, in recent years authors such as Shiau (2011), Giannakis (2012), Deng and Lin (2012) as well as Kubler et al. (2016) have completed this sort of longitudinal citation analysis either from specific journals (Shiau 2011) or from fields of interest (Deng and Lin 2012; Giannakis 2012; Kubler et al. 2016). This sort of cross-journals and publication houses citation analysis is a natural new avenue for expert systems development.
In the light of these technological changes, the following research questions are addressed in this work. What research works are seminal, and high impact, from supply chain case studies? Do there exist leading authors with a proven track record of in-depth supply chain case studies? How have leading authors continued to publish in the field and attract citations over a sustained period? What are the popular themes of the most highly cited research work? In order to answer these questions, 1699 manuscripts from two leading publishing houses in the field for the time period 1995â2015 have been collected. Citations of these manuscripts are matched with publication data. Research reported in this book is seminal as it examines the field through a two-decade perspective, and analyses how supply chain research has changed. Examination of only research work that uses case studies makes the book valuable, as it is practically oriented and concerns companies within supply chains. This practical perspective sustains results and arg...