The intellectual structure of supply chain management

Supply chain management (SCM) has developed more than 30 years. However, few studies explore intellectual structure of SCM. The purpose of this study is to examine the intellectual structure of SCM through co-citation method. Data was collected from Web of Science online database. A total of 4,033 articles and 117,984 references were identified. Authors' productivity and 41 highly cited/value articles were extracted by using a citation and document co-citation analysis. Using cluster analysis and multidimensional scaling (MDS), we identified four key issues of supply chain management researches: Sustainable SCM (SSCM), strategic competition, value of information, and development of SCM where SSCM is an emerging area. Results in this paper are also compared with the previous studies, to show the shift in intellectual structure of SCM. The contribution of this study is to provide core knowledge for both researchers and practitioners to understand the aspects of SCM.