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Special issue on Qualitative research in logistics and supply chain management
Edited by Dan Flint and Britta Gammelgaard
1 Introduction
Successfully managing supply chains requires synchronizing numerous activities within the network. There is a growing awareness that issues tied to supply chain management are increasingly complex and that diversity in methods studying these issues leads to more robust results ([8] Craighead et al. , 2007). Moreover, diversity in research methods "is a healthy characteristic and suggests an intellectual vitality in a discipline" ([45] Stewart, 2007, p. 2). Research in logistics and supply chain management has been criticized for its lack of methodological diversity and unwillingness to employ additional methods that may be more appropriate for theory generation and investigation of dynamic, complex phenomena ([40] Naslund, 2002). Traditionally, supply chain management research has relied heavily on designs using quantitative methods, such as surveys, experiments, and mathematical models ([3] Boyer and Swink, 2008; [38] Mentzer and Kahn, 1995; [43] Sachan and Datta, 2005). Qualitative methods (e.g. case studies and action research) have been embraced for some time by European researchers and have received more attention recently ([8] Craighead et al. , 2007; [44] Spens and Kovacs, 2006; [48] Taylor and Taylor, 2009). However, the combination of qualitative and quantitative methods within a single supply chain study (i.e. mixed methods research) is rare.
The dominance of single-method quantitative studies undermines the robustness of the body of supply chain research in a number of ways. First, relying on a few methods confines inquiry to only those research questions that can be answered by those methods. Authors agree that supply chain phenomena are complex and that seeking knowledge through more than one type of research approach is needed to fully understand the phenomena we are trying to research ([19] Frankel et al. , 2005; [34] Mangan et al. , 2004). Second, reliance on a relative handful of methods introduces "certain inherent methods biases" in the development of theory and jeopardizes the evolution of a discipline ([15] Deshpande, 1983; [44] Spens and Kovacs, 2006). Finally, all research methods have benefits and limitations ([3] Boyer and Swink, 2008); hence, researchers are advised to "use multiple methods, selected from different classes of methods with different vulnerabilities" to assure the trustworthiness of their...