توسعه معیارهای ارزیابی و ارزشیابی از مجلات مدیریت عرضه و خرید

Although purchasing and supply management (PSM) is a business function that is critical to supply chain management, a direct examination of the academic journals representing leading PSM research outlets has not been available. Further, most prior studies that compare journals have relied on single-item measures of such evaluation dimensions as quality and relevance. In order to address these research gaps, a survey instrument targeted to purchasing and supply management academics was implemented to explore how they evaluate and rate journals considered important for advancing the field of PSM. The three highest-rated journals in this study that publish PSM research are the Journal of Operations Management, the Journal of Business Logistics, and the Journal of Supply Chain Management. Four journal evaluation constructs emerged: Journal Quality, Journal Reputation, PSM Practitioner Relevance, and PSM Research Relevance. The results provide guidance for PSM scholars with respect to journals that contribute to the knowledge base in PSM, as well as support an extended understanding of conceptual bases for how scholars evaluate the journals they read and in which they publish.

Just as the academic discipline of operations management is advancing through various stages (Meredith et al., 1989), the purchasing and supply management (PSM) discipline is also evolving. PSM professionals are responding to such substantial environmental changes as the advent of electronic commerce and the predominance of cost competition due to globalization and customer price sensitivity by operating at a strategic level within their firms (Carter et al., 1998). They do so by working with other supply chain management functions, such as operations management, logistics, and marketing, to create sustainable competitive advantage within their firms and supply networks and to deliver superior value to their customers. Some firms are recognizing that, in order to accommodate the evolution of PSM to becoming a strategic corporate function (Kraljic, 1983 and Nelson et al., 2001), professionals need to change their skill sets from completing transactions and expediting orders to managing their supply chains (Duffy, 2000). PSM scholars have also recognized the change in focus. For example, PSM strategy and its strategic impact is a prevalent subject in one supply management journal, comprising over one-third of its subject content (Carter and Ellram, 2003). In addition to the evolving research focus toward strategic issues, PSM as an academic discipline is maturing. Following Meredith et al.'s (1989) research stages cycle (description, explanation, and testing), Carter and Ellram (2003) examine the frequency of articles published by type in the Journal of Supply Chain Management, which focuses on PSM research issues. Their results highlight the maturation of the supply management academic discipline. Over time, the frequency of articles devoted to exploratory research has decreased in a linear fashion, while the frequency of articles devoted to theory building and hypothesis testing has doubled. Because they are an important educational resource for knowledge dissemination, academic journals play a strategic role in developing and communicating disciplinary knowledge (Fawcett et al., 1995). However, resource constraints limit the number of journals that libraries and firms can carry and that academics and managers can peruse (Gibson and Hanna, 2003). Further complicating the issue is that, similar to the operations management discipline (Barman et al., 1991), PSM articles are published in a wide array of journals. It can be challenging to locate all the relevant research. As a result, scholars conducting and publishing research in PSM need guidelines for identifying the journals that maximize their contribution to the field. While prior studies have investigated journal rankings in other supply chain management (SCM) functions, such as operations (e.g., Barman et al., 2001 and Soteriou et al., 1999), logistics (e.g., Fawcett et al., 1995 and Gibson and Hanna, 2003), and marketing (e.g., Hult et al., 1997), there have been no studies providing insight into journals that contribute to advancing research and practice in the academic discipline of PSM. Another gap in the literature ranking supply chain management journals using perceptual measures is the lack of consistency in the criteria used. For example, Barman et al. (2001) and Soteriou et al. (1999) evaluate journal quality and relevance, while Fawcett et al. (1995) evaluate only quality. The preponderance of this research uses single-item constructs. However, the use of single-item constructs has its associated limitations when attempting to measure multi-faceted concepts (Churchill, 1979 and Hair et al., 1998), including the development of scales for evaluating academic journals (Carter, 2002). To address these issues, the purpose of this exploratory study is two-fold: (1) conduct a comparison of journals that publish research in PSM, and (2) create multi-item measures for understanding how academics evaluate journals. In order to examine how scholars rate journals that publish research in PSM, this paper will begin by providing a context of SCM research outlets in the literature review. The research method for conducting this investigation is then discussed. Research findings for comparisons of journals publishing PSM research and journal evaluation construct development are then presented, followed by conclusions and directions for future research.

The purpose of this exploratory research is twofold: (1) compare journals that publish research in PSM, and (2) create multi-item measures for understanding how academics evaluate journals. A discussion of these findings is first presented, followed by limitations and suggestions for future research. 5.1. Evaluating journals that publish PSM research Studies evaluating journals according to dimensions such as quality and relevance have been conducted in the past in the supply chain disciplines of operations, logistics, and marketing. However, one critical, growing business function and academic discipline that directly impacts supply chain management practices is purchasing and supply management. Scholars that conduct research in this discipline have not had any resources available to them that directly examine or give guidance as to which journals are leading research outlets. PSM scholars instead were relegated to adopting studies from related disciplines for understanding and prioritizing journals they should focus on to obtain new field knowledge and to disseminate their research contributions. The importance for PSM academics in understanding the journals to target for attaining and disseminating new knowledge should not be underestimated. In order to communicate to superiors, specifically those individuals in departments such as management and marketing, where many PSM scholars reside in their respective universities, objective criteria for determining appropriate journals outlets become essential. However, individuals senior to PSM scholars and their department chairs may have limited understanding as to what constitutes highly respected journals for that field. In the past, PSM scholars had to rely on the evaluation ratings of related disciplines. One significant flaw with this methodology is that the focus of those journals and how they prioritize research topics may be very different than those considered essential in PSM. To address this shortcoming, we examined how purchasing scholars evaluate the journals they consider to be important for advancing the field of PSM. In one way, this study has an apparent flaw in that very few journals exist that predominately focus on research in PSM. Therefore, as we discovered in our research findings, many of the journals that PSM academics consider to be important for advancing the field of supply management actually prioritize other disciplines. Specifically, the two highest-rated journals in this study, the Journal of Operations Management and the Journal of Business Logistics, focus their publications in operations management and logistics, respectively. This study has made the first attempt in classifying the importance of journal outlets for PSM research. As this field continues to grow, we should see corresponding growth in the number of journals that focus on publishing PSM research. 5.2. Creating constructs for evaluating journals The second purpose of this paper was to create constructs for understanding how scholars, specifically PSM academics, evaluate the journals they read and in which they publish. Confirmatory factor analysis reveals a four-factor structure. In order of importance as based on their means on a 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree) scale, the distinct factors and their means and standard deviations (in parentheses) are: PSM Research Relevance (5.85, 0.65), Journal Quality (5.71, 0.72), PSM Practitioner Relevance (5.65, 0.74), and Journal Reputation (4.65, 0.84). The same order of factors are also obtained when ranked by standard deviation, from least to highest, indicating respondents have less disagreement about the most important factors. The PSM Research Relevance items suggest this construct measures the role of journals in the development and dissemination of disciplinary knowledge, as the items reflect using journals as a research reference, to learn about PSM theory, and to disseminate knowledge by publishing in the journal. Research relevance is the most important factor in judging journal quality, reflecting concerns raised by other researchers regarding why journal rankings are so useful to the field. As in operations management, there are multiple journals publishing PSM research, including journals that publish articles covering a wide range of disciplines. Given time constraints and the pressure to publish, researchers are clearly identifying the importance to them of knowing where to search for and disseminate disciplinary knowledge. The second most important factor rated is Journal Quality. This factor is closely related to PSM Research Relevance; given that the correlation between the two factors is 0.55. The confirmatory factor analysis clearly indicates that journal quality is a separate factor, suggesting that quality and relevance are indeed different constructs. Additionally, the means suggest that PSM academics consider both evaluative criteria as important. Journal Quality consists of process and outcome items. Quality processes are reflected in items such as having highly qualified reviewers, using a double-blind review process, and assembling a respected editorial board. Quality is also indicated in the outcome of these process variables, such as consisting of well-written articles that exhibit consistency, as well as by the fact that readership is diverse. In order of importance, PSM Practitioner Relevance is the third factor. The mean, which suggests that respondents agree with the items, indicates that this factor also is important in evaluating journals. Based on the items, this factor reflects the role PSM academics and journals play in disseminating knowledge to practicing PSM managers. Journals directly disseminate knowledge when they are relevant to managers. But also, journals help disseminate knowledge by their role in providing information useful for teaching, and by helping academics understand practice and know about issues that are important to managers. An interesting finding is that PSM Practitioner Relevance is negatively correlated with the other three evaluation criteria. For example, PSM Practitioner Relevance was found to have a statistically significant negative relationship with Journal Reputation. This implies that individuals, on average, may perceive that journals with a strong leaning to practitioners view those sources of information with less esteem (Bennis and O’Toole, 2005). Another intriguing observation is the insignificant negative correlation between PSM Research Relevance and PSM Practitioner Relevance. Relevance consists of two separate factors that depend on the answer to the question, “Relevant to whom?” Academic relevance supports the creation of new discipline knowledge as academics develop their own research and communicate it to other academics through journal publication. However, PSM is an applied discipline, and respondents are keenly aware that an important role for academics is to help managers improve practice. Finally, with a mean value of 4.65, the fourth factor of Journal Reputation exhibits a mid-scale value for agreement, suggesting that journal reputation is not as important to respondents as are other concerns when evaluating journals. It appears that Journal Reputation may not be a key distinguishing factor determining the journals PSM researchers use in knowledge creation and dissemination. At the same time, however, this distinct factor is moderately correlated with PSM Research Relevance and highly correlated with Journal Quality. As such, it offers another view of the structure of journal evaluation, a factor in which editors are likely to take an interest. The items associated with this factor reflect the reputation of the journal and of the authors publishing in the journal, as well as the role of university promotion and tenure decisions in creating reputation. While the importance value suggests that this factor is not highly influential in readership and publication decisions, it cannot be neglected as it goes hand-in-hand with overall perceptions of quality and relevance for PSM researchers. Some of the constructs related to journal evaluation obtained in this study may be seen as intuitive. However, the current study adds value by empirically deriving valid and reliable construct measures. These may be considered for future studies that evaluate journals in various business disciplines. 5.3. Limitations and directions for future research All survey research has limitations associated with the sample, responses, and instrument. This study makes use of the academic membership list of what might be considered the predominant organization representing the purchasing and supply management profession in the U.S., the Institute for Supply Management presents a historical focus on PSM as a core discipline among the cross-disciplinary focus of the emerging meta-discipline of supply chain management. While it might be argued that the membership of other organizations, such as the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP, formerly known as the Council of Logistics Management), could also have been surveyed, a sample based upon ISM academic membership represents a distinctly new focus that is particularly well suited to the stated purpose of this study. Projection of results from a given sample onto the general population is always subject to limitations. In the current study, we were able to target a substantial percentage of the population of interest, at least with respect to scholars in North America. However, this study can be expanded to include scholars in other global regions. While the inclusion of European academics among the experts, and listing of European journals represents a solid step in this direction, such an extension may include additional journals not published in the U.S., and based upon readership and perceptions by colleagues from Europe and other regions. Any survey is constrained by the coverage designed into the instrument, and this can be seen as particularly true of surveys utilizing ratings. While survey development in this study focused on obtaining diverse expert input into the design of items and the list of journals presented for ratings, the necessity of presenting individuals within the sample a reasonable response task required a trade-off with comprehensive inclusiveness. The journals could have been rank-ordered, an approach that would have allowed direct representation of the ordinal position of the selected journals, but this approach severely limits the extent of statistical analyses. The choice of a ratings methodology was made in order to enhance the analytical options available to the researchers. Finally, while the current study does provide the context for some evaluative conclusions about the journals that were rated, construct development as part of the current study provides bases for more extensive consideration of journals evaluated in this study, as well as a foundation for research evaluating other journals, including those in other disciplines. An avenue for research that would aid in addressing the limitations of survey research is to consider measures outside the ratings obtained in the current research, as has been suggested by Carter (2002). Comparisons between the current results and such a study would be instructive with respect to the generality of the current results, and might provide evidence for supporting or refuting findings from this study. Explicit utilization of the constructs associated with how scholars evaluate journals, although demanding of respondents, might serve to better illuminate how researchers and readers view the differences among journals, in PSM as well as other disciplines. In addition to the theoretical importance of such research, the results might prove particularly useful to journal editors as they seek to position their respective publications. Finally, since the current study represents an initial study with respect to PSM, it should provide support for research that examines the contributions and productivity of scholars in PSM. Such studies have represented important contributions to the development of other disciplines, and the authors anticipate value in similar extension to this study. 5.4. Summary of the study Business practice influences academe, and academe influences business practice. In the past 10–15 years of business practice, we have seen the PSM function evolve into a strategic business function. The academic discipline of PSM, which has a rich history in its own right, is experiencing a similar transformation. One outlet for advancing and disseminating knowledge in this growth area is academic journals. Many journals currently exist, and have varied reputations for quality and relevance to the practitioner community, among other criteria. To our knowledge, this is the first study rating journals that publish PSM research. Further, this study has created some initial constructs for understanding how PSM scholars rate journals. As discussed by Gibson and Hanna (2003), these studies are useful because (1) time constraints and budget restrictions lead researchers, practitioners, educators, and librarians to prioritize the journals they read or stock, (2) academic journal assessment is important for both understanding the visibility and impact of individual research and for determining promotion, tenure, and salary, (3) educational institutions differentiate themselves by ratings that are partially based on faculty publication in prestigious journals, (4) editors need to know the impact of editorial policies on how journals are rated. Results from this study should provide insight into each of these four factors and guide PSM scholars and those aspiring to such positions a better understanding of journals that influence and reflect this exciting business discipline.