SOLE as well as LRN have just announced their deadlines for logistics dissertation awards: Apr 24 (forms/applications to Stanley Griffis) and May 22 (forms/applications to Sarah Skinns), respectively.
Gyöngyi
Edit on Apr 15: The 2009 Emerald/EFMD Outstanding Doctoral Research Awards are also up to grab, with the application deadline being Oct 1, 2009.
Categories: Logistics · Supply Chain Management
The Journal of Business Logistics is seeking a new editor – see CSCMP’s call here. Deadline for applications: May 1, 2009
Gyöngyi
Categories: Academic journals · Logistics · Research & Methodology · Supply Chain Management
Too many deadlines? Yes, that’s what January is all about, it’s a peak of deadlines for SCM-related conferences and special issues in journals – not to speak of the journal special issues that are linked to conferences.
- The Humanitarian Logistic Symposium of CCHLI is linked to a (yet to be announced) special issue of IJPDLM (yep, the deadline was on Jan 5),
- CSCMP Europe to a special issue of JBL (deadline today, Jan 9),
- NOFOMA to IJPDLM (deadline Jan 12)
- POMS to POM (deadline Jan 15)
- EUROMA to IJOPM (deadline Jan 16)…
… and that’s only the conferences with a deadline in January. Plus there are conferences that also have a deadline in January but are not all that visibly linked to journals. And special issues that are not related to conferences. Phew!
Gyöngyi
Categories: Academic journals · Call for papers · Conferences · Logistics · Nofoma · Operations management · Supply Chain Management
No, this is not about women and leadership, but yes about links between skills, gender, and logistics performance – a comparative survey of logisticians and their managers in three fields: business logistics, humanitarian logistics, and military logistics. Click here to fill in the survey – and send the link to your colleagues in the field!
Gyöngyi
PS. Here’s the link to be sent out: http://www.webropol.com/P.aspx?id=276853&cid=55080033
Categories: Humanitarian supply chains · Logistics · Operations management · Research & Methodology · Supply Chain Management · humanitarian · supply chain
The latest issue of IJPDLM contains a paper by Jesper Aastrup, Copenhagen Business School, and Arni Halldorsson, University of Southampton. This is a Special Issue from the Nofoma 2008 conference, edited by Gyöngyi Kovács and Karen Spens, Hanken, Finland.
We presented this paper at the 2008 Nofoma conference in Helsinki Finland (and received the Schenker Best Paper award). We have been struggling with some issues of justification of our research approaches and types of scientific explanations, and decided to mix our thoughts about this. Although the paper is written in the context of logistics, the implications may also apply for other disciplines such as marketing, purchasing and operations management. We will hopefully come back to this context later.
From the abstract:
The purpose of this paper is to develop the paradigmatic justification for the use of case studies in logistics research. The argument is based on a critical realist (CR) ontology and epistemology. The current logistics paradigm’s flat ontology – based on regularity – is replaced by an ontology emphasising structures and mechanisms underlying actual events in the form of logistics practice and performance.
…Based on this CR view of the logistics domain it is argued that the justifications for conducting case studies lie in their ability: to reach the causal depth required for revealing the real domain of logistics activities and performance: to reveal the working of mechanisms in loosely coupled structures showing open systems characteristics through a constant alternation between abstract and concrete reasoning and; to include the causal powers and effects of agents’ ascribed meanings. Also, it is argued, in contrast with Yin’s work which refers to the possibility of generalising case studies, that the justification of case studies not only must refer to their complementary role in research but also must build on groundings that allow this form of research to take a primary role in knowledge creation.
…The arguments have direct implications primarily for the scientific justification for case studies in logistics.
Árni
Full reference:
Aastrup, Jepser and Halldorsson, Arni (2008): “Epistemological role of case studies in logistics: A critical realist perspective”, International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, Volume 38, Issue 10, pp. 746-763.
Categories: Logistics · Research & Methodology · Scientific explanation · Supply Chain Management · Theory · critical realism · philosophy of science
Yesterday I received a new kind of newsletter, the IJPDLM Update. One of the most interesting news relates to the common efforts of IJLM and IJPDLM to get a Thomson ISI evaluation (JBL has started the process a bit earlier). This is good news for the academic community that more and more depends on such evaluations for e.g. faculty ranking and merit pay. But it also depends on the academic community to support the evaluations of the journals – thus the call is for active recommendations of the journals to Thomson ISI. Click on this link to recommend them!
Gyöngyi
Categories: Academic journals · Journal ranking · Logistics · Supply Chain Management
Where does all the talk about a “US-focus” of logistics journals come from? Göran Svensson, Terje Slåtten and Bård Tronvoll investigated this question (even if not posing it this explicitly) when assessing the “scientific identity” and “ethnocentricity” of logistics journals. Not surprisingly, the composition of editorial teams and editorial boards had an impact on where the articles of a journal came from. (e.g. JBL’s editorial team, board as well as reviewers almost exclusively being based in the US.) Perhaps a bit more surprisingly, there are vast geographical areas (in fact continents) that are neglected in all top logistics journals: South America, Africa, Asia, and to some extent also Australia. Not only is this bad for logistics research, but it compares really badly to e.g. marketing. Although it may stem from what is perceived as “logistics research” in different areas – as noted in an earlier post on logistics education, it is quite telling which departments logistics is housed in globally, e.g. under finance in China, marketing OR management science in Europe and the US etc. (see Yen-Chun Jim Wu’s 2007 article comparing logistics education schemes).
In any case, Svensson et al.’s article is a wake-up call for logistics journals (and their editors) as much as for logistics researchers from under-represented geographical areas to publish articles from different regions as well. Some special issues in this direction might help…
Gyöngyi
Categories: Academic journals · Logistics · Supply Chain Management
The International Journal of Physical Distribution and Logistics Management calls for papers on “The sustainable agenda and energy efficiency: logistics solutions and supply chains in times of climate change”. Deadline Mar 31, 2009; Until it’s not on the Emerald website contact the special issue editors Árni Halldórsson and Gyöngyi Kovács to receive the CFP 
Gyöngyi
Update on Sep 15: now it is on the website – you can access the CFP here.
Categories: Academic journals · Call for papers · Carbon management · Logistics · Supply Chain Management · Sustainability
Three amigos revisited? Think again. SCM has many more amigos that want to join, at least according to JBL’s first ever special issue (Vol.29 No.1). First Frankel et al. discuss SCM as a domain stemming from the four disciplines purchasing, operations management, logistics and marketing channels, but then Mentzer et al. instantly counter with an article evaluating SCM’s relationships to logistics, marketing, production, and operations management. Hm. Contrary to the separation of these disciplines when it comes to journal rankings, I believe the differences between all of these amigos are kind of blurry. Therefore I would like to join in Atle Nordli’s call for a blind-taste test (not unlike the Pepsi Challenge case), presenting scholars from all of these disciplines with forthcoming articles in any of the SCM-related journals, letting to guess them which journal is going to publish it. Atle’s hypothesis is that there is little to no difference between, say, JOM and SCM:IJ, TR:E, IJPE and JBL etc. (spin it further as you wish), as all the amigos nowadays refer to the concept of supply chain management, and claim to be in this “new” field. Anyone up for the challenge?
Gyöngyi
Categories: Academic journals · Logistics · Operations management · Supply Chain Management · Theory
For a variety of reasons, academics are always interested in journal rankings, so here is yet another one to add to the list of ranking articles we discussed on this blog, by Kovács, Spens and Vellenga (see the article here), published in the latest number of the International Journal of Logistics: Research and Applications. The take on ranking issues is a bit different, as the article discusses e.g. open access publishing, regional differences in rankings, as well as communities of logistics researchers and their rankings. Apart from the fact that it is IJPDLM that tops Nordic rankings (which has in fact been confirmed by Arlbjørn, Jonsson and Johansen), it is interesting to look at the correlations between particular communities (here the ones sticking out are transportation, ops mgmt, and logistics) across which researchers do not deem each other’s journals relevant and/or plainly do not know them. So much for the three amigos; though I do still hope Árni is right about SCM as a “discipline” may bridge the gap between them. It’s definitely time to break down the functional silos within our discipline, not just in companies!
Gyöngyi
PS. Once done, someone could actually answer the question of “what is a functional silo and why is it important” on WikiAnswers.
Categories: Journal ranking · Logistics · Operations management · Research & Methodology · Supply Chain Management
