Interorganisational - Supply Chain Management

Why do we organise and attend academic conferences? Yes, here it comes, it’s the debate that matters. Discussing ideas, refining our arguments, getting feedback, input, maybe even co-operation partners. Unfortunately, this seems to be lost at some conferences. More and more academics only attend with papers of their “honours students”, reluctant to share their ideas, not wanting to even hint what they are actually working on. One may suspect they have no own ideas

It’s funny how people think one may steal their brilliant idea. Sure, it happens, but such unethical behaviour always comes right back at those who do this. But usually the one who came up with an idea has a first mover advantage in any case (or does s/he?); having developed it much further than any copy-cat could follow up.

But well, it is a competitive environment, and I was just confronted with what a difference it can make to live in a publish-or-perish climate. If you don’t steal the other’s idea you’ll at least attempt to shoot it down at a conference… Where did the common goal of advancing science disappear? Publish or (and?) perish has been argued to kill the spirit of higher education, it seems to now kill the spirit of academic conferences. I have started to understand the EU’s stance of having to combine efforts for grant applications; it forces you to collaborate and to discuss your research throughout the process. It’s just sad we need to be forced to do so…

Gyöngyi

I am teaching Operations Management this semester, including two lectures on Failure Prevention and Quality Management, respectively.

The core textbook (Slack et al. 2007, 5th Ed.) includes many illustrative case examples, but suffers from the physical, static format of the book. Pieces from the trade press and other business media can, however, be of help by providing some contemporary examples from “practice” (this why it is useful for students to become acknowledged with this debate). One of the more “interesting” references during the lectures has been…and here it comes, UK…Terminal 5. This story literally walked into the classroom.

If you search for some of the following on Google, a some evidence will appear that allows further “synthesis”: Terminal 5 March 2008 operations baggage milan failure chaos

This allows students to deal with contemporary management challenges that have not been discussed by editorial boards (or filtered through?) of case books (eeerhhmm).

I am not sure this is what my co-blogger Gyöngyi had in mind on this piece on “The gift of travel time” . I refer more and more to Mintzberg’s “Why I hate flying” in my lectures.

Árni

First there was standardisation, then product adaptation, then customising… till now it is the customer doing the lion share in developing a product or service. Harley and Land Rover owners have developed their own version of the vehicle for quite some time, to the extent that the brands live of the individuality of the final products and new vehicles are only there for inspirational models or “concept cars”. Ikea has outsourced the final assembly of products to the consumer (with some downsides for reverse logistics when half-assembled products come back just because the consumer was not able to take care of this final step), and what we have only learned to think about when e-grocers entered the market, retailing lives of consumers picking, weighing, packing and transporting their own items home.

Now the idea of consumer involvement in product development has seemingly entered the arena of services (at least considering service management literature). Not that it hadn’t been there before, just think of your local gym where it’s up to the consumer which of the services s/he uses in which order and according to which individual training programme. Theme parks and cruises offer similar possibilities of individually developing the “service experience”. So, what’s new about taking customising into the service arena?

Gyöngyi

Have you ever wondered what the fuss about transportation emissions (and carbon footprints) was all about? Today’s “astronomy picture of the day” puts it into perspective: the airplane flight patterns over the US. Are you still up to catching your next plane…?

Gyöngyi

After receiving it twice within a week, it’s time to have a look at Patrik Jonsson’s new textbook on, as it says, Logistics and Supply Chain Management. As a completely new book it has the advantage of working in SCM thoroughly through all of it - as opposed to 7th editions of other books… Patrik managed to avoid the logistics functions trap, i.e. has chapters on “the material flow” instead of treating each function separately. Well done. Most of the mini-cases in the book are European ones (including many Nordic ones, for all of those who talk about “going to Europe” when crossing the Baltic Sea or the North Sea ), not surprisingly, McGraw-Hill also positioned the book for the European market.

Gyöngyi

PS. A pity it’s written in English, though - I’m hunting for a good book in Swedish for our basic course…

CSCMP has ventured out for several years to different continents. CSCMP Southern Africa was held in March in Johannesburg, right now ongoing is the CSCMP Europe conference in Brussels. It follows pretty much the same format as the original CSCMP one, with a research seminar (which in this case is just not called Educators’ Day and does not publish proceedings but rather sends out papers to be reviewed for the Journal of Business Logistics), and a main, rather practitioner-oriented conference. It’s a nice place for people from different European roundtables to meet - that is, if they come from a country where there is one. Maybe others might feel inspired to establish one…?

Gyöngyi

PS. Presentations of the main conference will be available from the CSCMP website. And the next CSCMP Europe conference will be held in Copenhagen.

Journal rankings are always sensitive questions; no wonder our posts on rankings are among the most viewed ones (here’s the last one). Rankings of SCM journals also exist in abundance, based on surveys among scholars in the field, or on citation indices. As for the latter, many universities have gone over to follow the Thomson ISI ratings to evaluate the publications of their faculty. But while several journals are now in fact in the process of getting an ISI rating, an awful lot of SCM journals have not received one yet. In the meantime, here are some (alternative) citation indices to look at. The “H-index” has been developed as an alternative, even Google Scholar has come out with it’s own calculations. The International Journal of Physical Distribution and Logistics Management, International Journal of Retail and Distribution Management, Journal of Business Logistics, and the Journal of Supply Chain Management get quite impressive ratings in Harzing and van der Wal’s (2007) report.

Another interesting ranking is the SCImago journal and country rank. While SCM journals figure just under the mixed “business” category, it’s fun to look at the country ranks.

All these rankings and ratings boil down to one question: is ISI really just the only one universities should look at? And which consequences does such a decision bear for SCM scholars? Yet, having discussed this at several conferences already, the answer from publishing houses is that it’s up to scholars to promote their journals to be included in the ISI. If enough people recommend a journal to be included in the evaluation, Thomson ISI will take it in. So, let’s start the process of getting our journals in and recommend them!

Gyöngyi

Nay, this is not another dissertation award or best paper of a conference or a journal. Rather, it’s a competition for undergrads (whatever that means in an US context, assuming it’s BSc/BBA students). SCM-related papers can be entered in the competition till May 1, 2008.

Gyöngyi

There are lots of awards for supply chain excellence for corporations - as well as for research. As for the latter, the University of Arkansas just announced its 2008 SCMRC doctoral dissertation award. Dissertation proposals of 15 pages (plus CVs of the applicant and her/his supervisor, and a letter of application) should be submitted by Aug 31 ( 2008 ) to Jim Crowell who also answers questions about the award.

However, there are other awards as well, practically every SCM-related professional organisation has its own award. Some are for dissertation proposals, but more commonly, awards are given for people who have recently finished their doctorate (PhD / DBA / DSc). Mind you, most awards have some regional restrictions; LOGY in Finland only giving awards for people who finished their PhD at a Finnish university etc. Still, here are some to watch out for or to inspire as to where one could find similar awards “at home”:

- One of the awards for young PhDs (anyone who defended their doctoral thesis in logistics / SCM since Jun 1, 2007) is CILT UK’s dissertation award for which applications are due on May 16.

- CSCMP’s dissertation award is usually open for applications by the end of February (past for 2008, but doctoral students should keep this in mind for 2009). Again, this is for young PhDs.

And, apart from these, there are always best paper awards at conferences (LRN, Nofoma, POMS… you name it). Nofoma even gives a special best paper award to doctoral students - BUT, only those qualify who wrote a paper alone and/or with other doctoral students. This is to ensure that it’s not the supervisor’s work

Gyöngyi

Remember when Strategic Outsourcing: an International Journal was launched? (We actually announced it on this blog.) By now the first issue is out already! If you want to get acquainted to the journal, Emerald has in fact granted free access to it until May 9th. Just click on the journal’s name, and use “SOIJissue1″ and “emerald” for your access. You know how it works

Even more importantly, the journal is looking for contributions, and even reviewers. You can contact Marco Busi to get to know more about both.

Gyöngyi