Entries categorized as ‘Academic journals’
New SCM journals pop up all the time; the latest one taking an ops mgmt view again. Here’s the link to Operations and Supply Chain Management - an International Journal (OSCM). One could also dubb it the “open access SCM journal” as downloads (as for now) are for free, printed copies only obtainable for a fee. I particularly like Benita Beamon’s opening article on “Sustainability and the future of SCM” that does for a change not only look at green SCM, but broadens the scope to diverse societal implications of SCM. Quite in vein of Árni’s “SCM for societal impact“.
And we are still in search for a good name for our textbook on that topic… Any suggestions?
Gyöngyi
Categories: Academic journals · Humanitarian supply chains · Operations management · Supply Chain Management · Sustainability
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
Categories: Academic journals · Academic publications · Journal ranking · Supply Chain Management
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
Categories: Academic journals
Emerald has apparently renewed its user interface, as has Elsevier ScienceDirect - the latter adding a neat feature of showing “related articles” to any given one you’ve found. This really helps in finding articles in otherwise less obviously related journals that are anyway related. What a great idea!
Gyöngyi
… who has just found sthg really interesting in the Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics and in Management Accounting Research, which are honestly not the ones I’d usually look at…
Categories: Academic journals · Academic publications
I was browsing throug the list of content of the 1/2008 issue of International Journal of Operations and Production Management and found it quite interesting to see how purchasing (or supply management in more recent terms) is represented in the kewords of the articles.
Least square approximation, Operations management, Productivity rate, Research
Business-to-business marketing, Buying behaviour, Internet, Process analysis, Procurement
Automotive industry, Sourcing, Suppliers
Customers, Financial performance, Quality improvement, Service failures
Point being that this helps disciplines to break out of their functional orientation, in this case purchasing and operations management. The domain of these two disciplines does overlap to some extent, but very often, purchasing papers are a target for purchasing journals (and conferences!), OM papers for OM journals (and conferences!), etc.
By considering the evolvement of topics presented at academic conferences, changes of professional organisations (both name and content) and how textbooks have developed, it is fair to say that supply chain management is today a common denominator for the three amigos of purchasing-logistics-and-operations management. We still remain to discuss whether SCM is an appropriate denominator or not.
Will more dialogoue between disciplines break the ‘functional silo’ mentality? Put more strongly, has the rather clear distinction between purchasing, operations management and logistics (departments at business schools, textbooks, programme structure and course content) been one of the major driving forces behind the functional silo mentality? Instead of requesting managers to break down the functional silo mentality, perhaps academia should have a look at their domains?
Árni
Categories: Academic journals · Theory
It’s out now! The Special Issue of of IJPDLM (International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management) from the Nofoma 2007 conference. Guest Editors are Gunnar Stefansson and Arni Halldorsson.
Árni
Categories: Academic journals · Conferences
Open access journals are (still) quite debated in SCM. First of all, there aren’t many. Second, they don’t (yet) figure on any rankings. Third, there are so many variations that most people are afraid of OA journals being of lower quality. Lower quality to what? There are heaps of academic journals in the D/E categories of rankings, no matter that they’ve been peer reviewed… (BTW, many OA journals are peer reviewed, though not necessarily “open peer reviewed“.)
Another question is the one of rankings vs. outreach - who is your audience, how many people do you want to reach with your article, and ultimately, how often do you want to be cited? Yes, outreach can even translate to citations…
On that note, I would like to welcome a new open access journal, “The Open Transportation Journal“. Most of it is as you know it from printed journals, with an editorial board, detailed notes to contributors, and an ISSN number (ISSN 1874-4478). But, there is no subscription fee - instead, a “publication fee” for authors(!) - while it is automatically indexed in e.g. Google Scholar. Outreach, here we go. Peer review? I don’t know…
Gyöngyi
Categories: Academic journals · Call for papers · Supply Chain Management
December 7, 2007 · 1 Comment
1. What’s the point? A manuscript without a point is like a dog without a bone. Personally, I’m not a huge fan of hitting readers over the head with the point of the manuscript, as in the standard “purpose statement” in the introduction section. As a reader, I prefer to have to read and reflect and infer the point. Still, whether it’s blatant or subtle, the manuscript must have a point to make.
Categories: Academic journals · Academic publications
What’s the effect of journal rankings? One may think that we rank SCM journals in order to see (a) which journal is of highest quality (to look up to when we search for good articles), (b) which journal has the most outreach (and thus, maybe, an impact on the academic and/or practitioner community), or (c) which journal is most “useful” (as in all the Whiteing/Menachof/Gibson/Hanna rankings - in all sorts of variations regarding order of authors) for teaching and research purposes. But honestly, as the Vellenga et al. rankings all discussed for a long time, the point of rankings is to have an impact on the evaluation of faculty - for promotions, merit pay etc.
Yet, it’s not as if schools would apply our rankings. One is that we may know “in the field” which journals we regard as best (which may vary a bit depending on geographical region and our background amongst the “three amigos“). The other is that universities and business schools scrap this knowledge and just go for impact factors. Now here’s the catch: most SCM journals have not been evaluated for an impact factor. Most haven’t even applied for an evaluation (which itself takes several years to do). This has the ridiculous effect that e.g. Supply Chain Management: an International Journal, or say, Transportation Research Part E are higher regarded by universities when evaluating their faculty than they’d be regarded by scholars in the field. This is not to say that they are bad journals, they are typically in the top 10 of rankings, but not in the top 5. As David Menachof pointed out when presenting the latest ranking, we are hired to do research in SCM, but not paid to do so…
I’m not sure where to go from here. One way could be to scrap impact factors and rankings altogether. Another, to quit the field. A third, to urge SCM journals to finally apply for an ISI evaluation. Journal editors, where art thou?
Gyöngyi
Categories: Academic journals · Academic publications · Journal ranking · Supply Chain Management
