Title: Systematic literature reviews in purchasing and supply management research: a tertiary study

Authors: Simon Hochrein; Christoph H. Glock

Addresses: Chair of Business Management and Industrial Management, Faculty of Economics, Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, Sanderring 2, 97070 Würzburg, Germany ' Carlo and Karin Giersch Endowed Chair 'Business Management: Industrial Management', Department of Law and Economics, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Hochschulstr. 1, 64289 Darmstadt, Germany

Abstract: This paper studies systematic literature reviews (SLRs) in purchasing and supply management (PSM) research. First, a process-oriented framework for conducting SLRs in PSM research is developed and criteria for evaluating SLRs in this domain are defined. Subsequently, the framework is applied in a case study and the state of the art of reviewing the literature in PSM research is presented and evaluated. The results of our study show that literature reviews are becoming more and more popular in the PSM domain, but that reviews in this area often lack methodological rigour. The framework presented in this paper may assist researchers in writing high-quality SLRs in PSM research in the future.

Keywords: sourcing; purchasing; procurement; buying; supply; systematic review; meta-analysis; state-of-the-art; systematic overview; systematic literature review; SLR; tertiary study; supply management.

DOI: 10.1504/IJISM.2012.052773

International Journal of Integrated Supply Management, 2012 Vol.7 No.4, pp.215 - 245

Received: 05 Apr 2012
Accepted: 28 Nov 2012
Published online: 10 Apr 2015 *

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