Guest editorial

Citation

Hertz, S., Hultman, J. and Wikner, J. (2010), "Guest editorial", International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, Vol. 40 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijpdlm.2010.00540daa.001

Guest editorial

Article Type: Guest editorial From: International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, Volume 40, Issue 4

The twenty-first Nofoma Conference was held at Jönköping University June 10-12, 2009 and was organised by Center of Logistics and Supply Chain Management (CeLS) at Jönköping International Business School (JIBS) in collaboration with the School of Engineering at Jönköping University.

The general theme of the Nofoma conference in 2009 was “Logistics innovation” which is in line with the University profile but it was also a call for more research about innovation in the logistics and SCM field.

In spite of the recession in the economy we registered 110 participants presenting 73 papers on 25 tracks. The competitive papers were all peer reviewed and second submissions were encouraged. With the second submission, comments from authors were mandatory. The reports were reviewed by a scientific committee to ensure that the authors had improved the papers as requested. The competitive papers competed for the Schenker Best Paper Award for senior work and doctoral work, respectively.

The Nofoma conference is continuously under development, initiating tracks in fields with less research like retailing logistics. In 2009, we introduced a new design of the doctoral workshop, Nordlog. The doctoral students were invited to read a number of articles in advance about publishing and publishing strategy which afterwards was followed up by developing their own publishing strategy. Since the topic was expected to have high relevance for recently graduated doctors as well we invited them to take part. At this doctoral workshop we were proud to have Professor Anne Sigismund Huff, Professor of Strategic Management at University of Colorado and visiting Professor at TUM Business School in Munich, Germany as a guest speaker. She serves on the board of several professional organisations and journals and has written a number of books on how to write effectively and design research for scholarly publication.

Another part of the conference was the Educators Day. Even though publishing has increasingly become a focus for researchers, most of the participating researchers are also teachers. As teachers we need to continuously develop and improve. Therefore, the title of Educators Day was about “Lifelong learning” under the guidance of professors from the School of Learning and Communication at Jönköping University.

Although the conference started as a Nordic Logistics Research Network with its base on research in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, and Iceland, it is turning into an international conference with many researchers from Europe but also from other continents such as Asia and North America.

Articles in the special issue

Though the theme of the Conference was “Logistics innovation” very few of these papers advanced to the stage of publishing. The only paper that directly could fit into the theme is the last paper applying a symbolic perspective to supply chain management (SCM). The rest of the papers are about strategy and SCM.

The selection of the papers was based on rigorous research and relevant issues for the field.

The papers are all focusing on the supply chain and relationships between organisations.

In contrast to last year’s conference, when all papers were quantitative, this year all papers are qualitative. One paper is conceptual, based on an extensive literature review and three papers are based on case studies.

We will start with the conceptual paper written by Erik Hofmann, St Gallen in Switzerland. The next three papers, based on case studies, all have authors from the Nordic countries.

The first paper on the issue of “Linking corporate strategy and supply chain mangement” by Erik Hofmann, University of St Gallen is a theoretical paper where he combines literature from corporate and supply chain strategy. He is arguing for the importance of the interaction between corporate and supply chain strategies dividing strategy into four generic strategic levels involving network, corporate, business unit, and functional strategies. These strategic levels are also applied to the supply chain strategies. Based on these levels and an extensive literature review he formulates three research gaps pointing to fruitful new research combining corporate and supply chain strategy literature. His main contribution lies in the framework he develops and the discussion of linkages between the two fields of strategy ending up with four propositions all assuming a positive link where a fit between corporate and supply chain strategies are positively associated to performance of the firm.

The second paper “The misalignment cycle: is the management of your supply chain aligned?” by Johan F. Lundin and Andreas Norrman, provides some interesting insights into the cash supply chain. Using a single case study the authors propose a framework for describing and analyzing misalignments in supply chain management relating to changes in supply chain structures, processes, and management components. The two-phased framework provides a structured approach to map the management of a supply chain so that its current misalignments can be identified.

Anders Haug, Anne Pedersen and Jan Stentoft Arlbjørn, all three from University of Southern Denmark, received the Schenker Best Paper award for their paper “ERP system strategies in parent-subsidiary supply chains.” The paper focuses on ERP system setups across parent-subsidiary supply chains and clarifies the consequences of choosing the different strategies outlined in the paper. Three case studies are presented which provide some evidence to justify the relevance of the four defined ERP system strategies and that there are significant impacts of choosing one of the four ERP system setups across parent-subsidiary supply chains.

The fourth paper “Implementation of SCM in inter-organizational relationships: a symbolic perspective” by Frederik Zachariassen and Dennis van Liempd from University of Southern Denmark. They received the best paper award for doctoral students. They are investigating how the use of SCM in a focal firm from a symbolic perspective impacted its relationship with its suppliers.

The authors open up a new discussion of supply chain management. How do we use it? Is it a tool or a symbol? They study SCM as a tool and a symbol and apply it to arm’s length relationships or strategic partnerships combined in a matrix. From this they found that SCM can be a tool for optimization and learning or a symbol to post-rationalize or justify specific statements or actions. The post-rationalization was shown to be used mainly in arm’s length relationships while justifying specific statements or actions was used in strategic partnerships. The way SCM was used influenced the relationship with the suppliers in the case.

This special issue includes four papers out of which three actually discuss development of strategy in supply chains either linking parent and subsidiary or corporate and supply chain or structure, processes, and management components. It illustrates the importance of supply chain management for strategy and performance of organisations but also the importance of further research in the field.

Finally, we hope that future Nofoma Conferences will receive more papers on logistics innovation. It only proves the need of new thinking and entrepreneurial spirit.

An extra paper, “Doctoral dissertations in logistics and supply chain management: a review of Nordic contributions from 2002 to 2008” by Frederik Zachariassen and Jan Stentoft Arlbjørn is included in this special issue, though it has been accepted through the regular IJPDLM review process.

The paper analyzes Nordic dissertations over the period 2002-2008, categorizing them in various dimensions, including subject, methodology, and type of contribution. The editorial team feel that this paper will compliment the NOFOMA special issue.

Susanne Hertz is a Professor in Logistics and Supply Chain Management at JIBS and director of CeLS. She received Master of Business Administration and a PhD in Business Administration from Stockholm School of Economics. Her research interests focus on supply chain alliances and networks, logistics firms and services, internationalization and sourcing of supply chains, humanitarian logistics, supply chain strategies. She has a previous career as responsible for business development and strategic planning in a large international logistics and transportation group.

Joakim Wikner is a Professor of Logistics and Operations Management at the School of Engineering, Jönköping University in Sweden. He received a Master of Science in Systems Engineering from University of Cardiff and a PhD in Production Economics from Linköping University. His research interests focus on manufacturing enterprises and include supply chain design and management, planning and control systems, system dynamics, and enterprise architectures. He has previously worked as a consultant and senior advisor for two large ERP companies.

Jens Hultman is an Assistant Professor with focus on Industrial Marketing at the School of Economics and Management at Lund University. He received a Master of Science in Business Administration from University of Gävle and a PhD in Business Administration from JIBS. His research interests include industrial marketing and global sourcing development. He has previously served as co-director of CeLS, at JIBS.

Susanne Hertz, Jens Hultman, Joakim WiknerGuest Editors