An investigation on the information systems research in supply chain management: an analysis of research topic and methodology

Abstract

This study is designed to investigate the present status of information system (IS) research in relation to supply chain management (SCM) in order to provide how IS in SCM research is likely to develop in the near future. We attempted to investigate the existing literature about information systems in the fields of SCM that were selected from 91 journal articles published between 2006 and 2010, including the database of ScienceDirect. As a result, we found the current trend and future direction of research with the most popular research topics and methodologies were in the articles. The most frequent research keywords appeared in the sample articles are the characteristics and goals of supply chain, inventory, and the methods of data collection and analysis. And the major research methods in empirical research strategy are a lab experiment and survey. In addition, we found that the topics of research associated with IS in SCM are diversified, while the research methods are limited because of the lack of theoretical stance and qualitative study. Therefore, future research needs to focus on how or why question research which employs qualitative method to find the underlying theoretical mechanism. We conducted this research to determine the direction of future research in this field and such a direction would be helpful to suggest how it be further conducted. Our understanding of the ongoing issues discussed on current IS papers in the field of SCM will be beneficial for both academic and practical purposes.