Logistics management research collaboration in Asia

• Date: 13 February 2017
• Pages: 206-223
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJLM-09-2013-0104
• Published date: 13 February 2017
• Author: Yen-Chun Wu,Mark Goh,Chih-Hung Yuan,Shan-Huen Huang
• Subject Matter: Management science & operations,Logistics

Logistics management research

collaboration in Asia

Yen-Chun Wu

Graduate Institute of Global Business and Strategy,

National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan

Mark Goh

Department of Business IT and Logistics, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia

Chih-Hung Yuan

Department of Business Management,

National Sun Yat-sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, and

Shan-Huen Huang

Department of Logistics Management,

National Kaohsiung First University of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan

Abstract

Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to investigate the state of logistics management research in Asia.

The study focuses on the research agenda, the topics of interest, and the extent of research collaboration in

logistics theory building and knowledge specific to Asia.

Design/methodology/approach –This study uses a mixed methods approach namely, content analysis

drawn from the articles found in six well-recognized peer-reviewed logistics management related journals

from 2003 to 2013, followed by social network analysis which is applied on the selected articles to provide a

structure of the collaboration relationship.

Findings –Initial findings suggest that there are some scholars in Asia who are instrumental in research

collaboration and in building a body of knowledge on logistics management focused on Asia. More

co-production of knowledge from deeper and tightly knit industry-academic collaboration is needed to progress

this domain. Most of the published work use an empirical instrument drawn from the resource-based view to

explore firm level supply chain collaboration and strategy. This suggests a positivist research tradition within

logistics. There is a shortage of studies conducted on the supply chain as a network of enterprises.

Research limitations/implications –The review of the articles is limited to six logistics specific journals

and the authors only concentrate on logistics management research focused on Asia. The contributions from

the other journals may have been missed. More collaboration at the institutional, national, and international

levels is called for especially on cross-collaboration between practice and theory.

Practical implications –Though the analysis is restricted to 260 articles found in six journals, this paper

can shed light on the research needs from different perspectives and facilitate the progress of logistics

management research in Asia.

Originality/value –This is the first paper to discuss the state of logistics management research

collaboration in Asia, and provides an overview of the research issues, topics, and approaches undertaken

thus far. Through this work, this study hopes that it will encourage greater research collaboration between

industry and academia, and academics themselves.

Keywords Network analysis, Asia, Logistics research, Collaboration, Content analysis,

Supply chain management

Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction

Emerging markets and developing economies, especially those in Asia, will witness

relatively robust economic growth of 6.2 and 6.4 percent for 2014 and 2015, respectively,

thus attracting greater foreign direct investment (Asian Development Bank, 2014).

The International Journal of

Logistics Management

Vol. 28 No. 1, 2017

pp. 206-223

© Emerald PublishingLimited

0957-4093

DOI 10.1108/IJLM-09-2013-0104

Received 16 September 2013

Revised 29 July 2014

16 November 2014

9June2015

Accepted 30 June 2015

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

www.emeraldinsight.com/0957-4093.htm

The authors would like to extend their sincere appreciation to Ministry of Science & Technology, Taiwan for

the financial support. The authors deepest thanks also go to the referees for their constructive comments.

206

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28,1

This increase is paralleled in the logistics industry, an important driver for trade and

industry. Armstrong and associates has estimated global 3PL revenue at USD677 bn in

2012, of which the 35 percent (USD236 bn) revenue contribution from the Asia-Pacific region

is a y-o-y increase of 24 percent (Langley, 2014). Overall, the value of the global logistics

market was USD4 trillion in 2013, or about 10 percent of global GDP (Evotech Capital, 2014).

Given the increasing attention on trade and investment in Asia, most of the logistics

activities will shift from North America and Europe to the emerging economies in Asia.

Already, the share of the transport and warehousing sector in Asia to the global market,

currently at 18 percent, is expected to exceed 21 percent by 2014 (Webb, 2010).

Recently, the World Economic Forum (2014) reports that 11 Asian countries belong

to the top 30 in the Global Competiveness Report 2013-2014. These countries are also placed

in the top 30 in the recent Logistics Performance Index 2014 (Arvis et al., 2014). Given this

correlation, studies focusing on logistics and the larger supply chain management domain in

Asia have also witnessed an increase in publication and attention from academia.

For instance, Soni and Kodali (2011) have indicated that Asian countries now contribute to

nearly 10 percent of research studies, exceeding Sachan and Datta’s (2005) earlier findings of

6.1 percent. Clearly, there appears to be a sustained interest in this field of study, which

serves the purpose and intent of this paper.

On the research front,this begs some pertinent questionsabout supply chain and logistics

managementresearch, namely, what is the stateand extent of research collaborationin supply

chain and logistics management in Asia, and the research techniques used.

To address these questions, this studyuses a mixed methods approach, primarily content

analysis to explorethe status of logistics research andthen social network analysis (SNA) to

examine the author-collaborator relationship in Asia from the perspective of the papers

published in the studied logistics and supply chain journals. Collaboration in this context

includes engaging with researchers outside of Asia to address the logistics management

research issues pertinent to a growing Asia. We believe that addressing the research

questions would reveal that the research progress has led to greater communication and

collaboration among contemporary researchers based in Asia as articulated by Chang and

Harrington (2005), and affords the opportunity to examine the structure of the collaboration

relationship within an academic community (Racherla and Hu, 2010).

The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 reviews the extant literature.

Section 3 details the research method used. Section 4 presents the results of our analysis.

Section 5 offers some insights for research directions, and the concluding remarks.

2. Literature review

We set the scene of our work by reviewing the literature on logistics research, research

collaboration, and SNA.

2.1 Logistics research

Logistics research can be classified into the following streams: research focus which refers

to identifying the different levels within the network of operations such as function, firm,

dyad, and network (Selviaridis and Spring, 2007); research method which refers to analyzing

the research by its design, method, and data analysis techniques (Woo et al., 2011); and the

research context which refers to the industry, theory, and topics covered (Shook et al., 2009).

Previous studies have focused on the level of analysis, research design, and the data

analysis methods to highlight the orientation of logistics and supply chain research. Most of

the review studies have focused on specific contemporary topics such as sustainability

(Gimenez and Tachizawa, 2012; Miemczyk et al., 2012), logistics capabilities (Gligor and

Holcomb, 2012), and third party logistics (Selviaridis and Spring, 2007). Further, research

has also focused on a specific region. Doing so helps the researchers to identify the trends in

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