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Foreword Among researchers in the business and management disciplines, there is some kind of a common understanding that research should provide models, concepts and solutions for practical problems. In other words: research is practice-oriented and, personally, I subscribe to this maxim. Still, sometimes, it is important to pause for a moment and reflect upon one's own activities. The present thesis is one of those comparatively few pieces of research that do so by dealing with the scientific side of research and by asking a number of questions that target at the identification of the nature of a very recent subfield within business and management, namely Supply Chain Management. In particular, the author seeks to understand the processes that characterize the evolution of Supply Chain Management research throughout the past sixteen years and reflects upon avenues for future research - feeling that SCM research seems to have come to a crossroads. The systematic reprocessing of Supply Chain Management literature and the methodologically sound approach are impressive and enable Julia Wolf to contribute a valuable component to scientific practice and debate in this area. Her work also illustrates that, in terms of philosophical underpinnings, research in Supply Chain Management is still at the very beginning and I hope that this thesis gives rise to more work of similar kind.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Theoretical Foundation.- Research Methodology.- Data Analysis and Evaluation.- Summary and Implications.
Über den Autor / die Autorin
Dr. Julia Wolf promovierte bei Prof. Dr. Christopher Jahns am Supply Management Institute (SMI) der European Business School (EBS) in Oestrich-Winkel.
Zusammenfassung
The term Supply Chain Management (SCM) first occurred during the 1980s and has since experienced increasing attention from both theory and practice.
Julia Wolf focuses on the theoretical aspect of SCM by analyzing the evolution SCM research has undergone and by assessing the question whether SCM research can be considered a scientific paradigm as of today. A number of factors are investigated based on empirical data gathered from publications on SCM in international refereed journals from 1990 to 2006. As a result, four major periods are distinguished in the evolution of SCM research: emergence, acceptance, growth and a final phase of establishment. These periods are characterized in terms of the following factors and their alterations over time: scientific values, object of study, constructs, methods, schools of thought, and the link of research to practice.
