How to advance theory through literature reviews in logistics and supply chain management

Purpose The discipline's most common uses for literature reviews-identifying gaps, developing research agendas, and categorizing the literature-too often fail to challenge, change or advance theoretical perspectives. The authors offer guidance to theorization through literature reviews. The key to theory advancement is consistency between the state of theory and the chosen review type. Design/methodology/approach A conceptual approach is taken. The authors identify shortcomings in literature reviews of logistics and supply chain management (L&SCM) research and develop a framework to aid theorization from literature. Findings Literature review types are categorized as inductive theory building, contextualized explanations, theory testing and interpretive sensemaking. The authors argue that the effectiveness of a review type depends on the prior state of theory, which ranges from nascent, to intermediate, to mature. The authors propose the interpretive sensemaking review as a novel review type rooted in the interpretive paradigm. Practical implications This study should be of immediate interest and value to logistics and supply chain management scholars-as well as scholars in other fields-because it offers a pathway to theory development through literature reviews. Appropriate applications of the proposed review types will result in more comprehensive theories. Originality/value This article lays down arguments for the need to change the way L&SCM scholars use literature reviews. It extends earlier work from the authors (Durach et al., 2017; A New Paradigm for Systematic Literature Reviews in Supply Chain Management, Journal of Supply Chain Management) by outlining four review types, and offering further insights to theorization, as is typically the goal in the synthesis step of literature reviews.

Automated summary

This article discusses the common uses of literature reviews in the discipline, as well as the key to theoretical advancement. The authors provide guidance on theorization through literature reviews, categorizing review types into inductive theory building, contextualized explanations, theory testing, and interpretive sensemaking. They argue that the effectiveness of a review type depends on the prior state of theory.