Literature reviews in supply chain management: a tertiary study

Abstract

This paper systematically analyzes the state-of-the-art of literature reviews on supply chain management (SCM) published in academic journals. First, we develop the methodology of this study and introduce a classification scheme for grouping and evaluating literature reviews. A systematic analysis of previously published reviews of literature reviews substantiates our methodology. We then outline the literature review process of this survey and descriptively evaluate the sample. Subsequently, literature reviews that appeared in renowned SCM journals are classified and evaluated, both with respect to their methodology and content. Finally, a substantiated research agenda for future literature reviews is presented. The findings of this study show that the methodological quality of the identified 121 literature reviews varies significantly. For this reason, we provide research propositions that may assist researchers in conducting high-quality, methodologically sound systematic literature reviews in SCM research. Although we found some evidence that the reviews under study covered a broad range of different topics, we also found that certain areas in SCM have not been reviewed systematically to date, and that some areas are still fragmented. Therefore, we provide a unique compendium of research directions for the field of SCM. Our comprehensive overview may also be used as a managerial panacea to identify best practice guidelines from existing reviews.