Editorial

Strategic enterprise information systems for global supply chain competitiveness

This paper designed and implemented a blockchain-based multisignature approach to digitally transform supply chain governance in multi-tier food supply chains, particularly in a geographically dispersed beef supply chain. An exploratory case study was utilised to demonstrate the design, implementation, and evaluation of a blockchain-based multisignature approach that was deployed on the Smart Trade Networks (STN) Proof of Authority (PoA) blockchain system for data collection and validation in a beef supply chain context. The multisignature approach was implemented with a use case to track a shipment of 92 cattle and meat products through key events from farm to food service. The use-case deployment records approximately 6000 data points registered on the STN PoA blockchain system. The real-case deployment illustrates the capability of the blockchain-based multisignature approach to digitally improve beef supply chain governance by enabling whole-of-chain transparency and trustworthy information sharing and supports supply chain professionals to have a better understanding of how to unlock blockchain potential for supply chain transformation.

This paper offers a systematic review of the literature on the use of information technology (IT) in logistics and supply chain management to achieve competitive advantage. While IT has revolutionized traditional logistics and supply chains to achieve numerous benefits such as increased efficiency and responsiveness, it is not still clear to what extend IT has contributed to competitive advantage within logistics and supply chains. This paper contributes to this debate by: (i) reporting the literature on the role of IT in achieving competitive advantage within logistics and supply chains based on the linkages between ‘adaptation’, ‘alignment’, and ‘agility’, (triple A’s) (Lee, 2004), and (ii) discussing managerial implications and identifying future research directions.

The Information Systems (IS) field has never been more relevant as digital innovations are emerging at a rapid pace fuelled by recombinant innovations based on digital infrastructures, advanced middle-ware layers, and mobile and ubiquitous technologies. This paper argues, based on a bibliometric study of the representation of a mobile ICT discourse within the AIS Senior Scholars’ ‘basket’ of eight IS journals over the past 15 years, that the field needs to become much more academically agile. The study showed that a mere 3.2% of all papers published during this period had any relationship to one of the key technological phenomena in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The paper formulates the hypothesis that the relative shift in impact between European- and US-based journals within the ‘basket of 8’ could have been influenced by editorial strategising to further encourage academic agility exploring new horizons rather than emphasis on further exploitation of existing ground. The paper, further argues that the IS field seems to more readily engage in a debate of phenomena involving centralised and organisationally-bound technological innovations whereas distributed, decentralised and infrastructural discourses find it much more difficult to gain a foothold. So, whilst the IS field may still be stuck in the mainframe age, it needs to move beyond in order to fully engage with the world we live in.