Emerging Markets
Co-editors of special issue: Ananth Iyer, Hau Lee and Aleda Roth
Deadline: December 1, 2008
aroth@clemson.edu]
Over the past decade, there has been increasing interest in operations and supply chain management (O&SCM) issues pertaining to entry and practice in emerging market economies. The term emerging markets came to the limelight during the 90's and is now widely used to describe countries that have reached a minimum level of GDP and are in the growth phases of their market and economic development cycles.. China and India have been among the most significant emerging markets in the Asia Pacific region and globally overall due to their sheer size and market growth potential, and others like Vietnam in the region are on the rise.
However, emerging markets in Eastern Europe, South and Latin America, and most recently, Africa are also of importance to operations and global supply chain management.
Much of the extant academic literature falls in the strategic management and economic domains and cover the broader issues of globalization that have been enabled by the convergence of information and communication technologies, the drive for growth in new markets and resources, and the broad-based perceived need to lower costs. In contrast, O&SCM literature is scant, consisting of qualitative descriptions and anecdotal cases. Much more needs to be done in the way of applying robust research methods in O&SCM to build theory and guide practice. There is a dire need to develop theoretical explanations that underlie the challenges, the opportunities and the decisions regarding O&SCM in emerging markets.
The O&SCM topics pertaining to emerging markets are many. Two of the most prominent "meta" areas include 'outsourcing' and 'offshoring' to emerging markets. Here outsourcing covers the turning over the production of parts, components, systems, and services — and even full production of finished products or complete services -- to another firm; whereas offshoring (or offcounty) broadly refers to a company's moving of its own production and services to another country and/or establishing business operations in the emerging market. Outsourcing and offshoring have been studied extensively in the context of industrialized nations. Yet there is a dire need for further exploration as outsourcing and/or offshoring intensify in emerging markets, where there are substantially more operational risks due to factors like market and financial volatility; cultural, legal, fiscal, and geographic distances; quality fade; supply disruptions; infrastructural challenges; lack of transparency and performance measurement problems; differences in worker norms and business relationships and contracts; and leverage and exposure to financial and operational resources, etc.
Our ultimate goal is to foster the development of a coherent, cumulative body of O&SCM knowledge in emerging markets. Toward this end, we invite manuscripts that rigorously apply analytical methods and empirical science that are of strategic importance to understanding manufacturing and service operations and supply chain management problems and that will stimulate future research. We seek high-quality research that contributes to analytic insights, algorithm development, theory-building and testing. Manuscripts will be judged solely on the relative merits of their contribution to the production and operations management literature, the depth and completeness of thought and ideas that are presented, the integration of the research with the O&SC and other related literature and theory, the quality of the research design and model, the support for the stated contributions, and the clarity and writing quality. Manuscripts that are inappropriate will be promptly returned. In short, we strive for papers that ask, "What's interesting and important for O&SCM in emerging markets?" which serve to accelerate development of our field more broadly.
All submissions must adhere to the format, style and other established guidelines for regular POM submissions. Manuscripts must be submitted by December 1, 2008. Authors should note that in submitting a manuscript to be reviewed for this special issue, they may be invited to serve as potential reviewers for other manuscripts.
O&SCM topics that are of interest for this special issue on emerging markets include but are not limited to:
• Operational risks including supply disruptions, performance measurement, hidden costs, complexity, and tradeoffs
• Models examining outsourcing and offshoring
• Contracts used in emerging economies
• Outsourcing and procurement management
• Collaboration approaches for design, development and manufacturing
• Service/product strategies for culturally diverse customers
• Quality management, certification, compliance strategies
• Logistics outsourcing and partnerships
• Service supply chains
• Alignment of competitive environments, capabilities and O&SCM strategies
• Governance structures and corporate social responsibility in offshoring and/or outsourcing
• Cultural and organizational issues in behavioral operations
Please submit an electronic copy to any one of the editors:
Ananth V Iyer [aiyer@purdue.edu]
Hau Lee [haulee@stanford.edu]
Aleda Roth [
