Special Topic Forum onUsing Archival and Secondary Data Sources

in Supply Chain Management Research

Guest Editors:Roger Calantone and Shawnee K. Vickery

Michigan State University

M uch empirical research in supply chain manage-ment has been based on primary data – data that

has been collected for the research at hand. Typicalmethods for collecting primary data include research

surveys/questionnaires, direct observations, and caseinterviews. In contrast to primary data, secondary data isdata that has been collected and possibly analyzed orprocessed by individuals other than the researcher. A

researcher can obtain secondary data from large surveysconducted by other researchers, data from governmentagencies (census data, labor statistics, new housingstarts), and from existing archives. Archival data consists

of historical records from individuals (letters, papers,computer files, financial records, diaries) and organiza-tions (business records, administrative files, memos,emails, official correspondence).

Primary data has a reliability advantage in the sensethat the researcher knows where it came from and how itwas collected since he did it himself. Nevertheless, thereare several advantages to using secondary data inempirical studies. First, secondary data is more publicly

available to a large number of scholars allowing for truere-search as well as replication and validation studies.Second, secondary data sourced from archives is gen-erally more objective than even primary survey data since

it is free from contamination by respondent perceptionsand/or memories of the phenomenon of interest.Indeed, some secondary data (such as the financial per-formance figures and ratios produced by COMPUSTAT)

can be classified as purely objective data. A third advan-tage is that researchers can use secondary data fromsurveys, censuses, etc. to answer questions or testhypotheses that are far removed from the research

intentions or informational requirements of the scholarsand/or agencies whose studies or initiatives generated thedata. This enhances the credibility of the new researchsince it removes the possibility that the purpose or

intention of the research could have influenced thedesign of the research questions, survey instrument, and/or population(s) sampled.

Secondary data research requires less money, less time

and fewer personnel. Furthermore, a variety of specia-lized tasks can be completed prior to new survey collec-

tion such as defining which groups need over sampling,which research questions need elaboration, reasons torevise hypotheses, and the need to refine measures. Sec-ondary data helps facilitate these tasks. Finally, secondary

data can be combined with other types of data toinvestigate phenomena more thoroughly or in an infor-mation setting using tools such as Bayesian inference.

In supply chain management scholarship, locating

archived or secondary data is challenging. Often firmshave tremendous reserves of data which can be extremelyhelpful to academic researchers, yet these researchersoften stop at getting managers opinions of corporate

history rather than physical records of that history. Thus,the value of research librarians in both academic andcorporate settings becomes evident.

In the supply chain management arena, there are a host

of topics that could benefit from the application of sec-ondary data (including archival data). Examples include:

� The validation of perceptual measures of overall firmperformance [sales revenue, return on investment(ROI)] using secondary data (e.g., COMPUSTAT).(Overall firm performance is often a key dependentvariable in supply chain management studies.)

� The use of archival data to examine the effects ofstrategic supply chain initiatives on competitive per-formance

� The use of archival data concerning first tier suppliers’machine change-over times to examine the effects ofchange-over times on key dimensions of deliveryperformance (on-time, flexible, etc.).

� The use of archival data (email and other records)pertaining to communication between engineers ofbuying and supplying firms relative to new productlaunches to examine the effects of frequency and topicsof interactions on launch performance.

� The addition of secondary data from a colleague’s dataset on supplier development practices in North Amer-ica to a researcher’s own Asian and European data setscontaining the identical constructs for a comparativeanalysis of practices by regions.

� The use of secondary data focused on post-mortems offailed new product development initiatives to identifyand examine common themes.

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� The use of archival data related to number of SKUs andthe size of the supply base to examine their effects onquality and cost performance.

In this special topic forum, we welcome the submissionof manuscripts that innovatively employ secondary data,including archival data, to examine cutting edge research

topics in supply chain management. We seek papers that

demonstrate the advantages of using secondary dataeither alone or in combination with primary data toinvestigate questions with clear managerial and practical

implications. Authors should endeavor to show howtheir work contributes to or extends supply chain man-agement theory and/or practice, as well as the techniquesof good secondary data discovery use and value.

THE DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS IS SEPTEMBER 15, 2009

Manuscripts must conform to JSCM style guidelines and submission requirements. Early submissions are welcome andthe review process will be initiated when papers are received.

An electronic copy of the manuscript that conforms to JSCM’s format (see www.blackwellpublishing.com/jscm) shouldbe submitted via e-mail to: Nancy Finger, Editorial Assistant, at nfinger@ism.ws. Please note in the comments to the

editors that the submission is for the Special Topics Forum on Using Archival and Secondary Data Sources.Questions can be addressed to either of the guest editors:

Roger Calantone (rogercal@bus.msu.edu) orShawnee Vickery (vickery@bus.msu.edu).

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