Trends in logistics thought: An empirical study

Journal of Business Logistics, 1994 by McGinnis, Michael A, Boltic, Sylvia K, Kochunny, C M

In 1967 the National Council of Physical Distribution Management (NCPDM), now the Council of Logistics Management (CLM), published the Bibliography on Physical Distribution Management.(1) Since then, the bibliography has been updated annually by the logistics faculty of Ohio State University. The annotated bibliographic entries in each annual supplement provide a source of information for monitoring the logistics literature when primary sources are not available. Organization of the supplements changed little until 1985, when the table of contents numbering system appeared. Many categories were renumbered, some categories were renamed and renumbered, and several categories were deleted. Since then, the table of contents format has changed little as new topics appeared or were dropped. Exhibit 1 summarizes the two table of contents formats. (Exhibit 1 omitted)

Because many categories included in the annual supplements can easily be tracked, and because faculty from the same group have compiled this bibliography since its beginning, the authors felt that an analysis of the annual supplements over a period of time would provide insights into the evolution of logistics thought as reflected in the quantity and content of the annotated bibliographic entries.

One of the authors of this manuscript began receiving the NCPDM Supplements in 1975 (NCPDM Supplements became CLM Supplements beginning with the 1986 edition). Since then, every issue was saved in order to provide one means of staying current with the logistics literature. In 1991 the authors used the CLM Supplements as part of an extensive literature search regarding a specific topic in logistics. During that time it was recognized that the seventeen years of bibliographic supplements provided an excellent record of the changes that had occurred in logistics over a period of nearly two decades. By the time that the research for the current article was complete the 1992 Supplement had arrived.(2) Eighteen issues were now available for the research.

The authors felt that an analysis of the frequency and content of the annotated bibliographic entries appearing in the CLM Supplements over a period of eighteen years would provide insights into the quantitative and qualitative changes that have occurred in the logistics literature. In addition, the authors felt that the insights provided by this research would provide a frame of reference for those conducting research into logistics, those who have entered the field in recent years, those who write textbooks in logistics, and those who teach in the field.

Seven specific questions were formulated as part of the research plan. These questions are:

a. What topics seem to be important to logistics over time?

b. What topics seem to be emerging?

c. What topics seem to be receding in importance?

d. What role have academic journals played in the development of logistics thought?

e. What issues seem to overlap multiple topics, and what insights does this overlap provide regarding the central core of logistics?

f. Are the changes in logistics thought the result of internal pressures, external pressures, or both?

g. What insights do the answers to the first six questions provide for those conducting research, teaching, or working in logistics?

The balance of the article is divided into four sections. The following section describes the methodology used to evaluate the contents of eighteen annual supplements to the CLM Bibliography for the years 1975 to 1992. The second section presents the results of this research and responds to the seven questions presented above. The third section discusses three themes and an impression discovered during the research. The final section discusses the implications of this study for practitioners, teachers, and researchers.

METHODOLOGY

Four evaluations were conducted. First, the number of bibliographic entries for each category listed in the table of contents each year was counted. The authors felt that the number of items appearing in the supplement would be one indication of the relative importance of each category. Because the number of bibliographic entries for a specific category varied from year to year, the raw data were condensed into the four groups as shown in Exhibit 2. (Exhibit 2 omitted) Groups of three years were used for 1990-92, 1987-89, 1984-96: and one group was used for 1975-1983. Because the number of annotated bibliographic entries per year ranged from 210 to 426, it was decided to adjust the frequencies reported in Exhibit 2 to a base of 250.9 entries per year, the average number of entries during the years 1975-83. This adjustment standardized the reported frequency of each category shown in Exhibit 2 to a common base and eliminated the problem of comparing category frequencies in years where the total number of bibliographic entries varied substantially.

The second evaluation consisted of reading each entry in each year to examine the content of all entries from 1975 to 1992. This was done by category beginning with 1975 (or the year that the category first appeared) through 1992 (or the year the category last appeared). This analysis enabled the authors to develop an understanding of any changes that might be occurring within a category. For example, if the number of bibliographic entries under a category was relatively constant from year to year, this second evaluation would highlight whether the issues addressed by that category were changing. The growing, recurring, and diminishing trends for thirteen very high/high emphasis categories are shown in Exhibit 3 and discussed in the following section. (Exhibit 3 omitted).