What about policy research?

Abstract

Over the past decade, many manuscripts and editorial opinions have been written that worry about academic research is not being relevant to management. This cascading complaint is relevant to research across most business disciplines. As our writings become more theoretically esoteric and our methods become more distant from the manager, authors (Hawkins et al., 2022), deans, politicians, and now accreditation agencies (Richey & Davis-Sramek, 2022) are increasingly asking for an accounting of the value provided by investing in academic research. The current highly flawed measurement of research impact is adjusting to the demands of our increasingly interested stakeholders. Now more than ever, our research must have an impact beyond our hallowed academic halls.

At the Journal of Business Logistics (JBL), strong theoretical and methodological rigor are the price of admission, but we are also pleased to publish articles that provide implications for industry (Davis-Sramek & Richey, 2022). Submissions without managerial implications are consistently desk rejected, but the papers published in JBL are getting serious attention. We note the rapid growth of executives viewing JBL article summaries that we post on our social media accounts as an important avenue to inform business practice. In fact, the JBL LinkedIn account has grown to nearly 2000 followers in just over a year. Only about a third of the individuals following the JBL LinkedIn account are academics (https://www.linkedin.com/company/journal-of-business-logisticss/). This was a pleasant surprise and provides us with another route to support the work of JBL authors.

Of course, academia and business represent two of the largest JBL stakeholders, but there is another stakeholder group that is ripe for enhanced prospective and retrospective learning about our research – our government officials and policymakers! Why? Because our discipline has never seen a time of such importance. Supply chain “something” always is in the news. Congress and the EU parliaments often talk about “supply chain problems.” Leader's pontificate about the future of transportation and related technology. Regulators are ready to return from COVID clemency which provided enhanced flexibility and improvisation to supply chains (Richey et al., 2022). Government agencies are looking for ways to incentivize companies to reshore or nearshore manufacturing that is regarded as “critical.” As we have watched the public spectacles in real time, we find that most people making laws and implementing policies have something in common regardless of political party affiliation. They are making decisions with extraordinarily little knowledge or experience in logistics and supply chain management (L&SCM). It is time for our research community to address the L&SCM policy gap.

Over the last 2 years, we have seen many of our colleagues speak to the media about supply chain complications. Our community has commented on restricting travel, transporting vaccines, managing price gougers, finding new alternative sources of supply, dealing with energy issues, empowering electric vehicle adoption, adjusting to packaging disruption, and a myriad of other topics. I (Glenn) even had the opportunity to speak to Congress on L&SCM issues. Despite all these interactions, we have not seen an increase in research submitted to JBL that educates and informs governments and policymakers about supply chains. As researchers, we need to provide expert analysis that informs their decisions. The fact that our governmental leaders continue to discuss “The Supply Chain,” as if there is only one, is troubling because it discounts the massive complexity of managing local, regional, and/or global networks (Wiedmer et al., 2021). Simplification of the dynamic processes used to move products and services from creation to consumption and back again cannot be managed by a policy czar and a small committee. Forty-four years of research in JBL support the reality that managing supply chains require the involvement and coordination of all entities and processes.

It is not surprising that this discussion on policy opportunities opens the door for us to note the breadth of studies published in this issue of JBL. Volume 43, Issue 4 includes 10 outstanding articles that demonstrate our review teams' wiliness to address broad-reaching areas of L&SCM. These articles also shed light on the journal's openness to methods including, archival econometric analysis, case studies, in-depth interviews, lab experiments, quasi-experiments, and surveys. We will now canvas these articles and relate them to future policy-related research.

In the opening manuscript, “Perceptions of resource scarcity in factor markets: The effect on managerial attention and collaboration,” Wiedmer and Whipple employ a survey of purchasing managers to examine resource scarcity in globalized factor markets. Given current economic volatility, purchasing managers must navigate both resource scarcity and the uncertainty surrounding that scarcity itself. This reality impacts how managers approach supply chain collaboration. The authors note that managerial attention levels increase when resources are expected to be scarce, but managers discount the scarcity issue after building a connection. Continuing the discussion on uncertainty, Bendoly et al. (2022) crafted our second study titled, “Pulled in opposite directions: A joint consideration of supply and demand uncertainty in supply chain decision-making.” In a controlled newspaper routing lab experiment, the authors consider both upstream and downstream uncertainties that complicate inventory management decisions. Results detail downstream uncertainty inducing a pull-to-center bias while upstream uncertainty results in a diversification bias. Results detail important interactions indicating that downstream uncertainty can elicit and influence a diversification bias, despite the absence of supply uncertainty. Supply uncertainty impacts the magnitude of a pull-to-center bias. Consider: Given the substantial number of (government) policy adjustments being made globally, would the uncertainty around scarcity be enhanced or reduced? Will policies being created today positively or negatively impact collaboration as well as the perceptions of scarcity and uncertainty? How will the adjustment in internal polity impact the supply and/or demand side uncertainly relevant to inventory management strategies?

In the third study, Ellram et al. (2022) take a current policy concern head on. In “A legitimacy theory perspective on scope 3 freight transportation emissions,” the authors question the impact of sustainability programs. Transportation is the fastest growing form of emissions in developing countries, yet sustainability is not a priority in many organizations' overall sustainability agendas. Results indicate that reducing freight emissions is managed within the siloed corporate transportation function. This results in a lack of organizational focus on reducing outsourced freight emissions. The results shed light on a disconnect between western economy and emerging economy policy expectations, resulting in a major gap that needs addressing. Ellram's in-depth interview approach provides a rich understanding of internal decisions that may not align with external polity and economic expectations across partners. Consider: Researchers will need to consider how cross-border policy complicates traditional relationships. Additionally, while sustainability programs have an important long-term goal, will building these policies without including partners external to the government in question result in unintended consequences in the short term and midterm?

Next, in “The impact of financial institutions on exchanges in the agricultural commodity supply chain: An information economics perspective,” Darby et al. (2022) use time series analytics to examine the role financial institutions play in the execution of supply chain activities … all the way down to the farm. The authors examine how financial markets function as a source of both information and influence of exchange activities in the agricultural commodity supply chain. The study illustrates that information from financial markets influences exchanges between farmers and customers but has asymmetric effects that depend on exchange dynamics and local market conditions. Darby's study also draws from the resource-based view, connecting the importance of SCM resources to markets. Consider: Given growing actions across the globe to control inflation, supply chain managers must monitor markets to help forecast the value of commodities and resources. Consider: How will changes in government policy impact the relationship between financial institutions and supply chains? What happens when policy requires agricultural products to support energy production (e.g. Ethanol)? Can policy be created that calms supply chain exchange dynamics and incorporates local market conditions?

The fifth and sixth studies examine supply chain fit and integration, two concepts that many supply chains are reexamining post-pandemic. In “The impact of supply chain orientation fit between supply chain members: A triadic perspective,” Gligor, Feizabadi, et al. (2022) dust off the concept to supply chain orientation (SCO). SCO is noted as an enabler of supply chain management and is predicated on supply chain alignment. Unlike individual firm-level studies, this manuscript examines triads. In doing so, the authors introduce the concepts of SCO supplier fit and SCO customer fit. Findings indicate that the SCO alignment across the supply chain appears to be more important than the level of SCO itself. Consider: In terms of policy, researchers might ask what happens when the government enters the triad or dictates the exclusion of specific partners. Additionally, what happens to SCO fit when certain government policies are enacted?

In a related fashion, Molinaro et al. (2022) take on a social exchange theory integration perspective to study the impact of contingency effects on supply base concentration in “Implementing supplier integration practices to improve performance: The contingency effects of supply base concentration.” The authors examine how supply chain disruptions may be influencing supply base design decisions (also see Hughes et al., 2022). The team details how distinct types of supplier integration relate to buyer efficiency and innovation, as well as a contingency effect tied to supply base concentration. Results show that some supplier integration types improve performance, but only under higher levels of supply base concentration. Consider: One might ask if a government policy increases supply base concentration – consequently negatively reducing options across the supplier pool – could also positively impact integration. The results also indicate that developing technologies to share information with suppliers could be counterproductive in driving efficiency. This is quite contrary to ongoing calls for more transparency. Researchers might consider the impact of information technology regulation on the intended positive consequences of supplier integration and due diligence policy. Could future or existing technological policy undermine our best of intentions?

While the earlier works examined issues within the supply chain, the last two articles in this issue examine the supply chain at the consumer level. This is an area we would like to see develop and hope to develop a special topic forum in the fall of next year (also see: Jin, Murfield, and Bock in 2022). In “Good cause, not so good business? Sales and operations performance of cause-related marketing,” Sodero (2022) develops a quasi-experiment to examine cause-related marketing (C-RM). C-RM embodies corporate social responsibility campaigns requiring the firm to donate proceeds from consumer purchases to a specific cause. To date, no study addresses how does C-RMs impact sales and operations performance across retail supply chains. Sodero finds that C-RM has a positive impact on sales during the marketing campaign, but negative effects on forecast bias and service levels upstream in the supply chain, indicating trade-offs in sales and operations performance. Also at the retail level, Kembro et al. (2022) present, “Sorting out the sorting in omnichannel retailing.” Building on recent work by Ishfaq et al. (2022), Kembro's team examines – via case study – the growing complexity of today's omnichannel structures and processes. This complexity leads to challenges with logistics efficiency and customer utility. Retailers address these challenges by sorting goods at multiple points across the logistics network as well as inside each node. The authors employ transvection theory to explain why retailers “prepone” some sorting activities upstream and postpone others to handle trade-offs between customer utility and logistics efficiency. Consider: When it comes to the retail level, government policy is often focused on fostering fair competition and protecting the consumer. How might changes in related policy improve or restrict related marketing efforts? Can preponement be used to navigate unintended manmade disruptions? How will policy impact retail supply chain COGS, inventory turnover, transactions costs, and customer satisfaction?

Moving upstream from the retail level, Friedrich et al. (2022) examine “Make-or-buy decisions for industrial additive manufacturing.” Industrial additive manufacturing (AM) is one of the most promising technological advances in SCM. AM's potential lies in the digital specification of components that can be transmitted seamlessly and unambiguously to partners. This allows for flexible outsourcing, but the authors observe newly uncovered AM supply chain governance structures resulting from make-or-buy decisions. This creates a propensity to implement AM in-house. Friedrich and her colleagues' case studies identify four decision profiles that demonstrate the spectrum of specific governance structures and develop a framework explaining the underlying rationales. Consider: From a policy position, this study opens the opportunity for researchers to expand analysis to include competing governance structures that are interior (firms' internal polity) and exterior to the supply chain (Governments' external polity). AM as a research context also presents a new list of concerns in the areas of counterfeiting and intellectual property protection that have not been considered our leaders. What policy should be created or avoided?

Finally, we take a bit of a turn towards critiquing our role as researchers and educators. In “Exploring the impact of logistics and supply chain management scholarship: Why pursue practical relevance and are we successful?” Hawkins et al. (2022) provide a strong Perspectives' study on the pedagogical work we do and its relationship to our research. The study examines the relevance of L&SCM research, probing the underlying motives prompting scholars to value and pursue managerially relevant (v. pure academic) contributions. Results suggest both practitioners and academics agree at differing levels that L&SCM research is relevant, but the pressure to chase indices and rankings has influenced academics' behavior in a way that may not support our educational endeavors. They conclude that the academic peer review process has lost a strong focus on managerial implications. We hope this never becomes the case at JBL and we encourage the community to always ask “Who cares?” when finalizing a submission. If the answer is not management, industry, or policy makers, the authors may want to rethink the study or the outlet. This editorial has only scratched the surface of powerful research questions related to policy making. We hope to see the JBL research will community take on these and/or their own questions being confident that the door will always be open for work on L&SCM policy making and the impact of government interventionism.

As editors, we are always here to help. We both have experience in the policy arena. We are happy to help you with your study and potential conversations after the study is published. Let us do things that help businesses, government, society, and individuals.