Management and Marketing - Research Publications
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ItemWhy emerging supply chain technologies initially disappoint: Blockchain, IoT, and AI(WILEY, 2022-06-01)In this paper, we explore why users’ experiences with emerging supply chain technologies comprise inflated expectations followed by disappointment in the early stages of adoption, as per the Gartner Hype Cycle. We used “affordance theory” to study how managers perceive emerging technologies to explain their adoption experience. Affordance theory indicates that perceived benefits—and goals and constraints—depend on the interaction between technology and the users, not on the technology alone. First, we used the literature for two purposes: first, to obtain characteristics of blockchain, Internet of Things (IoT), and artificial intelligence (AI) as emerging technologies; and second, to itemize generic goals, affordances, and constraints in adopting any supply chain technology. Next, we asked 400+ supply chain managers to select those affordances, constraints, and goals that they viewed as pertinent to their organizations’ supply chains for whichever of these three technologies they were implementing. Finally, we compared the responses across technologies for individual respondents (who selected more than one technology) and within the pool of respondents. We found that respondents who selected more than one technology made distinct selections individually for the different technologies relevant to them. The pooled responses across all respondents, however, prioritized the aggregated goals, affordances, and constraints in the same way, regardless of the technology, the organization, or the network features of the supply chain. Overall, it appears that the characteristics of the technology do not inform user expectations at the early stages of adoption. This initial disconnect—between characteristics and expectation—may explain the “inflated expectations” followed by the early “trough of disappointment” with emerging technologies in the Gartner Hype Cycle, as users focus on obtaining the same benefits for the supply chain from any new emerging technology. Only subsequent shared experiences can lead to the long “slope of enlightenment.”
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ItemQuo vadis OSCM? An analysis of past and future trends in operations and supply chain management research(WILEY, 2022-06)ABSTRACT Over the years, Operations and Supply Chain Management (OSCM) researchers have continued to examine foundational topics, while also expanding and adding new ones. Given that the field has changed a great deal, it seems valuable to examine the evolution of OSCM's intellectual structure over its 70 years of academic communications. Using bibliometrics methods, we analyze 96,125 articles containing 1,047,468 references from 31 representative OSCM journals. Our study defines primary topic areas represented in the most co‐cited documents, while tracing past and current research trends. We include analyses of recent bursts in research attention and comparisons of trends in academic and practitioner literatures. The results from an inclusive analysis suggest that OSCM researchers have been responsive to methodological advances and to some of the dynamics in the operating environments of businesses. However, a product/manufacturing focus seems to persist, and inconsistencies between researchers’ and practitioners’ interests suggest that relevance of OSCM could be further improved. Current hot topics are quite different from those of the past. Trend data suggest that studies of supply chain management and data analytics issues will continue to figure largely in shaping the future research agenda. Our analysis quantifies trends and identifies subtopics that are growing in prominence. In addition, the findings provide a benchmark for evaluating the progress of the OSCM field, while highlighting opportunities for shaping its development and directions.