Philosophical Issues in Research in Logistics and Supply Chain Management

Buttle (1998) maintains that the stasis-seeking emphasis of positivism could explain the failure of positivist business literature to account for dynamism. Because this research investigates social phenomena (where stasis is rare), this claim is another reason for rejecting positivism. Perhaps of greater salience yet is positivism’s alleged inability to predict the outcomes of networks and relationships (Easton, 1995).

The meta-philosophy that framed my project (as I first envisaged it) could be viewed as post-modern, in that the positivistic super-paradigm enveloping logistics/SCM research is challenged by this researcher’s assertion that the field is incomplete if it fails to theorize human factors. Moreover, SCM – because it has incorporated logistics – represents a paradigmatic enlargement. The SCM paradigm requires qualitative exploration because its concepts include collective advantage through mutuality and cooperation – activities directly contingent on trust and relations between humans. Coarse logic suggests that in an era of geographically diffuse sourcing, SC managers are operating transnationally and transculturally so are likely to encounter cultural issues that could impact upon SC risk and manageability.

The paradigm of legacy logistics is positivist/nomothetic. Evidence for this is abundant in the discourse that issues from the “epistemic community” (Haas, 1989) of logistics/SCM theorists. However, because SCM’s conceptual scope and range of concerns is outgrowing the perimeter of traditional logistics, a single paradigm/ philosophy (positivism by tradition) became restrictive.