A Guide to the Systematic Literature Review Methodology in Supply Chain Management: Recommendations for Authors, Reviewers and Editors

Literature reviews lay the foundation for almost every academic research project, and sometimes are a scholarly contribution in its own right. To increase rigor and credibility the findings have to be valid and reliable just as in any other type of research. This paper summarizes recent methodological developments in the application systematic literature reviews in supply chain management. It analyzes what approaches researchers in supply chain management have taken to follow the requirements of a systematic review, identifies issues in the approaches and provides authors, reviewers and editors with suggestions to better craft, disseminate, evaluate and select systematic literature reviews in supply chain management. This paper applies a systematic literature review approach to identify and analyze 31 articles published in core supply chain journals. It is the first research to map these developments, since three seminal methodology papers on systematic reviews in management research have been published between 2003-2009. This research shows that there is still a need for more transparency in the approaches taken. Systematic literature reviews have a high potential to advance the field, but a rigorous and transparent application is needed and should be requested by reviewers and editors.