AN EXAMINATION OF LOTKA€™S LAW & AUTHOR€™S PRODUCTIVITY IN THE FIELD OF SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT

Background: The development of supply chains appeared in a structured way in the 1990s. Previous studies have not examined in detail the research productivity patterns of the distribution of individual supply chain management authors with a lengthy time frame. Previous studies have also not set standards of individual research productivity, in terms of both quantity and quality, which are necessary to be ranked among the leading contributors in the field.

Methods: To address the above mentioned issue in this field, the paper examine 458 articles written by 980 authors from 2005 through 2014. The study presents six metrics concerning quality and quantity of productivity and identifies the aggregate productivity standards necessary for individual authors to be ranked at various positions in the field of supply chain management. In the last, the paper examines the validity of Lotka's law to authorship pattern in the field of supply chain management. Lotka's law was tested using generalized form, and K-S goodness-of-fit tests were applied.

Results: This study provides a set of comprehensive, useful and recent standards for individual publication productivity in supply chain management discipline within the selected journal outlets. The findings suggests that to be in position top 10, top 20, and top 50 an author required h-index value 4, 3, and 2 respectively. This work contributes to the literature by identifying standards of individual research performance across six different metrics of quantity and/or quality. The results can inform current supply chain management scholars and administrators of productivity standards as implicitly established by the body of scholars in the SCM field.

Conclusions: The result found that the author productivity distribution data in the supply chain management field follow Lotka’s law. The results of this study provide a new outlook on supply chain management research. In the last, major research areas and potential future directions were also provided.