Not sure whether it was Cooper, Lambert and Pagh‘s first article on the supply chain management framework that debated the problem of “functional silos” first, but at least ever since, SCM researchers have been criticising companies for their organisation in these functional silos. Having said so, we researchers excel at maintaining these when it comes to teaching and even to doing research. It’s the good old “don’t step on my toes” mentality.
At the same time, we are reminded – not the least by funds – that we should break down our own functional silos and conduct interdisciplinary research. Easier said than done. First of all, what counts as “interdisciplinary“? Does marketing + SCM constitute interdisciplinary research? Or finance + SCM? Or, say, industrial management and SCM? Probably the funniest way of conducting “interdisciplinary” SCM research is to get a researcher from a technical university and one from a business school; both from their SCM faculty, of course 
Crossing the boundaries of other disciplines / research areas is not at all straightforward. Where does your theoretical frame then come from, and which literature do you include/exclude, on what basis? It is nice to have the tradition in SCM research to “borrow” theories from other disciplines, but the question can be disputed whether sthg then still qualifies at SCM research at all. So where are the boundaries of our “discipline”? (This is in fact a question we need to debate in conference committees over and over again.)
Yet another question arises from interdisciplinary research: does your study have to contribute to both disciplines, or is it enough to have a contribution to one? Or, as Magnus Lindskog once asked me, where do you want to leave your mark?
Gyöngyi
