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Mythbusting in the logistics domain: a second look at systems theory usage

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Logistics Research

Abstract

Logistics has been said to rest on a foundation of systems theory. Recent research has however indicated that such claims merely are myths that have been passed on. These myths are in this paper put to the test. An international survey of logistics/SCM academics rendered 178 usable responses. Two main research questions are examined. One concerns the views on and valuation of the terms systems approach, systems thinking, and systems theory, in relation both to each other and to the logistics discipline. The other concerns the extent to which logistics researchers are familiar with and have explicitly cited scholars that are central to a number of different schools of systems theory. Results point clearly in one direction: myth busted. That is, there is little support for claiming that logistics is rooted in systems theory. Also, more evidence is found that the scope of systems theory that actually has influenced the discipline is rather narrow. There are hints of myopic tendencies. The paper is wrapped up with a glimpse of one possible remedy for this, a rather recent strand of systems theory labelled critical systems thinking.

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Notes

  1. These two papers will be part of a cumulative dissertation at Linköping University, Sweden.

  2. As with many academic disciplines, there are not always clear-cut, uncontested distinctions within and between (sub-)disciplines. The distinctions made here are thus not the only possible way of structuring the diverse domain that could bear the label Systems theory.

  3. This figure is however an overestimation, due to limitations in research methodology that meant counting multiple hits in one single bibliography as being hits in several articles. The true number is therefore even lower.

  4. Important scholars are Jay W. Forrester, John D. Sterman, and Peter M. Senge.

  5. Ludwig von Bertalanffy.

  6. Peter M. Checkland.

  7. See also http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/mythbusters/.

  8. See http://w3.webropol.com/.

  9. The scales for these items are ordinal ranks, which normally would imply that comparing group means would be of little meaning, since individuals might attach different meaning to the scale points. However, in this particular context, the mean is calculated for each case respectively across a set of variables for which it is reasonable to believe the respondent have attached the same meaning to the scales for each variable. The resulting mean is thus expressed in the same scale as the constituting variables and is therefore meaningful when used for examination of single cases.

  10. For a more comprehensive list of sources, please refer to the original article [12].

  11. A remark: The questionnaire items were formulated as statements, one each for the terms, and were worded so that that they would reflect the statements found in literature (see examples above). Hence, one possible explanation for the differences in ranking is the intentionally stronger wording of item 6 (“rooted in”) compared to the other two (“central to”).

  12. See http://cscmp.org/aboutcscmp/definitions.asp.

  13. The Mentzer and Kahn [43] article explicitly postulates a positivist foundation of logistics research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Science and Technology, Linköping University, 601 74, Norrköping, Sweden

    Magnus Lindskog

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  1. Magnus Lindskog
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Correspondence to Magnus Lindskog.

Appendices

Appendix 1

See Table 13.

Table 13 The questionnaire
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Appendix 2

See Table 14.

Table 14 Demographic profile of sample
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Lindskog, M. Mythbusting in the logistics domain: a second look at systems theory usage. Logist. Res. 5, 3–20 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12159-012-0078-9

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