Decision theory in sustainable supply chain management: a literature review

By Anthony Alexander, Helen Walker, Mohamed M. Naim. 2014

146 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Purpose – This study aims to aid theory building, the use of decision theory (DT) concepts in sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) research is examined. Design/methodology/approach – An abductive approach considers two DT concepts, Snowden’s Cynefin framework for sense-making and Keeney’s value-focussed decision analysis, in a systematic literature review of 160 peer-reviewed papers in English. Findings – Around 60 per cent of the papers on decision-making in SSCM come from operational research (OR), which makes explicit use of DT. These are almost all normative and rationalist and focussed on structured decision contexts. Some exceptions seek to address unstructured decision contexts via Complex Adaptive Systems or Soft Systems Methodology. Meanwhile, a second set, around 16 per cent, comes from business ethics and are empirical, behavioural decision research. Although this set does not explicitly refer to DT, the empirical evidence here supports Keeney’s value-focussed analysis. Research limitatio...

Subfields: Marketing, Strategy and Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/9f4aa3390092de300c659969362895bb782a39e2

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Marketing

1. Stephen M. Disney
2. Li Zhou
3. A. Barbosa‐Póvoa
4. Cátia da Silva
5. Ana Carvalho
6. Mohamed M. Naim

In Strategy and Management

1. Li Zhou
2. Stephen M. Disney
3. A. Barbosa‐Póvoa
4. Cátia da Silva
5. Ana Carvalho
6. Mohamed M. Naim
7. Antuela A. Tako
8. Susanne Hohmann

Citations in the corpus

• The impact of product returns and remanufacturing uncertainties on the dynamic performance of a multi-echelon closed-loop supply chain (2017, methodology): “Furthermore, Alexander et al., (2014) summarise decision making in sustainable SC management into 11 areas: pricing and cost, inventory, network, supplier selection, logistics, environmental management, risk management, performance management, life-cycle analysis, closed loop, and product recovery a”
• Opportunities and challenges in sustainable supply chain: An operations research perspective (2017, background): “, 2011; Touboulic & Walker, 2015), where one of them combined decision theory with organizational theory (Alexander et al., 2014).”