Supply Chain Management - Theories

Theories

Currently there is a gap in the literature available on supply chain management studies: there is no theoretical support for explaining the existence and the boundaries of supply chain management. A few authors such as Halldorsson, et al. (2003), Ketchen and Hult (2006) and Lavassani, et al. (2009) have tried to provide theoretical foundations for different areas related to supply chain by employing organizational theories. These theories include:

  • Resource-based view (RBV)
  • Transaction Cost Analysis (TCA)
  • Knowledge-Based View (KBV)
  • Strategic Choice Theory (SCT)
  • Agency Theory (AT)
  • Institutional theory (InT)
  • Systems Theory (ST)
  • Network Perspective (NP)
  • Materials Logistics Management (MLM)
  • Just-in-Time (JIT)
  • Material Requirements Planning (MRP)
  • Theory of Constraints (TOC)
  • Performance Information Procurement Systems (PIPS)
  • Performance Information Risk Management System (PIRMS)
  • Total Quality Management (TQM)
  • Agile Manufacturing
  • Time Based Competition (TBC)
  • Quick Response Manufacturing (QRM)
  • Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
  • Requirements Chain Management (RCM)
  • Available-to-promise (ATP)
  • and many more

However, the unit of analysis of most of these theories is not the system “supply chain”, but another system such as the “firm” or the “supplier/buyer relationship”. Among the few exceptions is the relational view, which outlines a theory for considering dyads and networks of firms as a key unit of analysis for explaining superior individual firm performance (Dyer and Singh, 1998).

Read more about this topic:  Supply Chain Management

Famous quotes containing the word theories:

    “In the course of a life devoted less to living than to reading, I have verified many times that literary intentions and theories are nothing more than stimuli and that the final work usually ignores or even contradicts them.”
    —Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)

    “We do not talk—we bludgeon one another with facts and theories gleaned from cursory readings of newspapers, magazines and digests.”
    —Henry Miller (1891–1980)

    “Our books of science, as they improve in accuracy, are in danger of losing the freshness and vigor and readiness to appreciate the real laws of Nature, which is a marked merit in the ofttimes false theories of the ancients.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)