The idea of a supply chain is one of the most important concepts to emerge in management research and practice in recent years. In simple terms, a supply chain might be defined as a sequence of organizations-such as suppliers, wholesalers, retailers, distributors, and transport and storage facilities-that participate in the production of a particular product or service. Supply chain management (SCM) recognizes that businesses and other organizations cannot function successfully in isolation and is concerned with the direction and regulation of materials, information, and finances as they process along such a chain.
The burgeoning academic and professional interest in SCM can be traced to a variety of causes including the pressures on organizations to outsource non-core activities; globalization; a growing appreciation of the dynamics of 'lean supply' Japanese sourcing practices; the growth of the use of IT for collaborative logistics planning; and, more recently, the frenzy around 'B2B' e-commerce. This has led to an unprecedented growth of practitioner-orientated publications and a similar development in academic activity. The sheer scale of the growth in SCM research output makes this collection especially timely and welcome. Furthermore, ideas at the heart of SCM have also become the concern of much academic work that goes on under labels other than business and management, and the collection will include insights and research from these different disciplinary perspectives.