The State of Supply Chain Education

By Stephen M. Rutner and Stanley E. Fawcett -- Supply Chain Management Review, 9/1/2005

Over the past decade, logistics management has evolved into the broader discipline of supply chain management. This evolution is a response to the dynamics of a rapidly changing, intensely competitive global marketplace. In this competitive arena, unprecedented levels of cost efficiency and customer service are prerequisites to success—and effective supply chain management is seen as a means of achieving these goals. This fast-evolving competitive landscape raises an important question for academics, students, and practitioners alike: How well are our educational resources—and in particular universities, professional associations, and industry publications—keeping pace with the changing environment?

This article seeks to answer this critical question—and, in the process, to identify areas that need improvement across all three of the educational resources. It's based on a survey, conducted by the authors, of professionals working in the supply chain/logistics space. The survey respondents fall into two categories: academics researching and teaching logistics/supply chain subjects and practitioners working in the field. The findings also are compared and contrasted to an earlier study on logistics education done in 1995. (For more on the research methodology, see the sidebar below - Study methodology.)

A number of professional associations are dedicated to the needs of logistics and supply chain professionals. Some, such as the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) and the American Society of Transportation and Logistics (AST&L) take a broad perspective, focusing on multiple aspects of the supply chain job. Others, like the Intermodal Association of North America and the Warehousing Education and Research Council (WERC), have a more targeted educational focus, as their names suggest.

At the same time, organizations that originally did not have a logistics or supply chain orientation are moving in that direction. For example, APICS, a long-standing production-oriented group, now emphasizes resource management as part of a broader supply chain thrust. Similarly, the Institute for Supply Management (ISM), formerly the National Association of Purchasing Management, now offers a range of educational resources targeted toward supply chain professionals. In short, these associations are entering the supply chain space from diverse directions, giving professionals a variety of educational resources to choose from.

To evaluate how effectively these organizations are responding to the fast-changing needs of their membership, survey respondents were asked to rate each group against the following criteria: role in educating professionals, national conferences, seminars and workshops, prestige of the organization, local/regional meetings, membership characteristics, and professional certification. Before they actually rated the organization, the respondents were asked to rate the relative importance of the criteria themselves.

Both the academic and practitioner respondents said that the most important evaluation criterion for professional associations is their educational role. (The respondents to the 1995 survey, who were all academics, rated the educational role as the most important in that survey as well.) On other criteria, however, the two groups differed significantly. While academics rated national conferences highly, for example, practitioners did not perceive the education offered at these conferences to be of the highest caliber. They rated the educational value of seminars and workshops relatively higher. Also, practitioners valued professional certification to a greater extent than the academics did. This suggests that as logistics and supply chain managers strive to educate themselves, they seek some formal recognition of their efforts.

Based on their perceptions of how well the organization meets the seven criteria considered, respondents evaluated the effectiveness of 15 associations in the transportation/logistics/supply chain management space. A five-point scale was used, with 1=poor, 3=average, and 5=outstanding. Exhibit 1, gives the results of those ratings. Both academics and practitioners rated the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (called, until January 2005, the Council of Logistics Management or CLM) as the top association based on the evaluation criteria. CLM also was the most highly rated organization in the 1995 survey. Notably, more than two thirds of the respondents said that they were active members of CSCMP. AST&L and ISM had the next highest levels of membership among respondents at 44 and 38 percent respectively.

In addition to CSCMP, three other organizations—ISM, WERC, and APICS—were rated highly by both academics and practitioners, receiving overall scores above 4.0. In both respondent groups, there was a drop-off in the ratings between these top four associations and the others (although the drop-off among academic respondents was a bit steeper). Another difference is that practitioners rated the remaining transportation-oriented associations relatively higher than the academics did. These findings suggest two points. First, the academics' focus today is squarely on integrated resource management. Second, while practitioners recognize the emerging importance of supply chain issues, they continue to value organizations that emphasize traditional transportation issues. For these transportation-related associations, however, the challenge will be to attract and retain members as the center of gravity moves toward integrated supply chain management.

The emergence of integrated resource management as a weapon in the battle for customer loyalty and global market share has created a need for more holistic, better-educated supply chain professionals. Universities across the country and around the world are responding to this need by redesigning their business curricula to include supply chain programs. To identify the characteristics deemed important in a university supply chain education, respondents were asked to evaluate the various programs in place at North American universities today.

Using a five-point scale (5=very important, 1=very unimportant), respondents first were asked to rate eight general criteria that affect the quality and reputation of logistics and supply chain programs. These criteria were faculty, research contributions, source for future employees, department reputation, graduate and undergraduate curriculua, alumni visibility, and overall college or university reputation. Exhibit 2 gives the results of this rating process. Not surprisingly, academics said that the faculty was a university program's most important success factor—just as they did in the 1995 study. The practitioner respondents concurred in this regard, although they rated this criterion slightly lower than their academic counterparts.

Beyond this initial point of agreement, academics and practitioners diverged in their view of the most important criteria for logistics and supply chain programs. The biggest difference was in the area of research. Academics rate research contributions as the second most important factor in a successful program (rating of 4.54). Practitioners, on the other hand, put research contributions last among the eight evaluation criteria with a score of 3.75. More important in the minds of practitioners are department reputation, undergraduate curriculum, and the school as a source of employees. Another notable difference pertains to a university's overall reputation. Practitioners view reputation as the third most important criterion, while academics ranked it as the least important.

Using the evaluation criteria, respondents were then asked to identify and rank the 20 top logistics and supply chain programs. To facilitate the ranking process, the questionnaire provided a list of 96 colleges and universities known to offer courses in the discipline. Respondents also could write in schools not on the list. In developing a top-20 list, school rankings were determined by allocating 20 points for each first place ranking, 19 points for each second place ranking, 18 for each third place ranking, and so on down to one point for each 20th place ranking. Point allocations were then summed to arrive at a total score for each school.

Exhibit 3, shows the top-20 results for the academic and practitioner respondents. A quick review reveals that the academic top 20 is significantly different from the practitioner top 20. Therefore, Exhibit 3 is structured to show the academic top 20, the practitioner top 20, and the overall weighted average top 20—much like the college football polls. And as with the football rankings, these results will not likely escape controversy.

Over time and across respondent groups, the most highly respected logistics and supply chain programs remain largely unchanged from the original 1995 survey. Penn State ranked first back then among the academics as it did in this year's survey among all respondents. Other highly regarded programs with long traditions like Michigan State, Ohio State, and Tennessee were ranked at the top of the list this year as in 1995. But that's pretty much where the similarity between the two surveys ends. Nine programs that didn't make the ranking ten years ago were rated among the top 20 programs this year. The highest ranked of the new entrants was Georgia Tech, which came in fifth overall. Other university programs to crack the top-20 overall rankings were Wisconsin-Madison and Georgia Southern University at numbers 7 and 16 respectively. All three of these institutions have been aggressive in their professional outreach programs, which no doubt had a favorable impact on their rankings among practitioners.

Another interesting finding is the appearance among the top 20 of several smaller, regional programs like Nevada-Reno, North Florida, North Texas, and Arkansas State. The emergence of these universities reflects the ability of schools without a long logistics tradition to gain traction and visibility in the supply chain community. By attracting professors with relevant experience and expertise, these schools have established a viable presence in the education field. Importantly, their appearance among the top programs also attests to the growth and attractiveness of logistics and supply chain management as a profession. The growth of these programs at smaller schools is encouraging on another front as well. It shows a commitment on the part of these academic institutions to invest in the resources necessary to build strong logistics programs—often in times of tight financial constraints.

A comparison of the rankings by academics and practitioners reveals some interesting differences between the two groups. For one, academics were much more likely to rank emerging schools that lacked a long tradition higher than the practitioners did. On the other hand, practitioners appear to place a greater value on a school's tradition, national visibility, and potential for providing employees. The fact that none of the smaller, emerging programs made the practitioner's top 20 emphasizes this divergence. Of course, some loyalty or bias may be present in these rankings as many of the practitioners graduated from the schools that were listed. This is also true of the academics. It will be interesting to see if the smaller programs that are now recognized as leaders among the educators gain greater visibility over the next decade among practitioners.

Summarizing the results in this part of the survey, it's clear that academics and practitioners have two decidedly different perspectives on university programs. Academics think more highly of research and value schools with proven researchers. The fastest way to improve in the academic rankings is to hire well-known, productive scholars. In contrast, practitioners see schools as suppliers of management talent and place heavy emphasis on a program's curriculum and reputation. The key to improving in the practitioner rankings is to build a strong curriculum that produces capable problem solvers. Establishing a user-friendly placement program also is vital. Creating publicity and visibility for the program is the final crucial step in becoming a respected program in the minds of practitioners. Moving up the practitioner top-20 list is the more challenging task. Achieving this will require sustained effort, institutional investment, and an emphasis on relevance to real-world problem solving.

Logistics and supply chain educators have always sought to publish in research journals as a way of gaining visibility for their work and advancing the discipline. The ability to publish also plays a big role in tenure and promotion decisions as well as in annual merit evaluations. So while it's fairly evident why academics would value research journals, the practitioner's view on the subject has been largely overlooked...until now. This year's survey asked all respondents to evaluate 35 research journals on their ability to present and disseminate logistics and supply chain knowledge. In addition to the traditional logistics and transportation journals, the survey included related journals in the fields of marketing, operations, and sourcing.

To guide their evaluation of the journals, the respondents were asked to use these seven criteria: quality of articles, impact on the discipline, relevancy, readability, timeliness of topics, theoretical vs. application orientation, and variety of topics covered. Each publication was ranked on a five-point scale with 5=outstanding and 1=poor.

Among academics, the Journal of Business Logistics received the highest overall ranking. The other top-rated journals (those with scores greater than 4.0) were, in order, Supply Chain Management Review (4.28), International Journal of Physical Distribution and Logistics Management (4.23), Journal of Marketing (4.11), Journal of Operations Management (4.11), International Journal of Logistics Management (4.10), and Transportation Science (4.00). The fact that a practitioner-oriented journal (Supply Chain Management Review) achieved the second-highest ranking among academics suggests that educators increasingly recognize the importance of the practitioners' point of view. Further, the eclectic, cross-functional nature of the top-rated journals reflects an increased emphasis on the broader notion of integrated resource management or supply chain management.

Not surprisingly, the practitioners viewed the value of the journals somewhat differently, rating most of the top academic journals significantly lower than their academic counterparts. (Exhibit 4, gives the overall rankings, including both academic and practitioner rankings, for the top ten research journals.) The top two journals from a practitioner perspective are Supply Chain Management Review (4.00) and Journal of Supply Chain Management (3.85). This finding raises the following question for editors as well as for the academics who contribute to these publications: "Who is the journal's target audience?" If publishers desire to increase their influence among practitioners, they need to work to enhance the readability and relevance of the articles published.

The survey also looked into readership of the various research journals. Readership declined for just over half of the publications for which longitudinal data is available. But for the top three journals, readership increased markedly. Almost two-thirds of the respondents regularly read the Journal of Business Logistics. Close to half read the Transportation Journal. And one-third of the respondents now read the International Journal of Physical Distribution and Logistics Management, International Journal of Logistics Management, and Journal of Transportation Management. Among the new journals, Supply Chain Management Review is read by 60 percent of the respondents, and Journal of Supply Chain Management is read by 41 percent.

The apparent disconnect between academic and practitioner perspectives with regard to professional journals bears comment. Academics emphasize rigor, while practitioners value relevance and readability. Academics cannot succeed if their peers do not perceive a journal to be prestigious. Practitioners, for their part, want journals to provide the insight needed to help them solve problems. The key question becomes, "Is it possible to please both worlds?"

Over the past decade, resource management across the supply chain has become much more important to corporate success. Both academics and practitioners recognize this and are seeking resources that will help them succeed in an increasingly cross-functional arena. That explains the relatively higher rankings for programs and professional associations that adopt a broader supply chain perspective. Going forward, the challenge for educational institutions and associations is to expand their perspective while at the same time enhancing the relevance and quality of their offerings.

Respondents' evaluations of publications suggest a similar preference for a broader business approach to the subject matter. Both the academic and practitioner responses reflect a recognition of the growing importance of an integrated, more strategic approach to supply chain management. Interestingly, the practitioners—to a greater extent than the academics—also place value on those publications that target specific subjects like transportation.

Looking at the bigger picture, practitioners appear to be less satisfied than academics with the current offerings of professional associations and supply chain-related journals. From the practitioner's viewpoint, these entities need to enhance the relevance and quality of their product. There's an important message here for those people who teach university courses, manage professional associations, and edit publications. They need to redouble their efforts to ensure that what they are putting out to the supply chain community speaks to real-world needs. Doing so will go a long way toward success in tomorrow's frenetic marketplace. Failing to do so will put them at risk of irrelevance and ultimately obsolescence.