Logistics for a better world

Abstract

I think that the discipline, as it matures, has to have some social responsibility and say, ‘how do we use logistics to make a better world?’ … At the end of the day when we stand up to be counted, how have [we] made the world a better place? And I think we can, we just haven't done it yet.—Bud Lalonde At a time when the Journal of Business Logistics (JBL) was at a crossroads, two starry-eyed Ph.D. students wanted to understand more about the history and the maturity of the field. What better way than to talk to the “visionaries” of the logistics discipline (Davis-Sramek & Fugate, 2007). One of those visionaries was Bud Lalonde, the founding editor of JBL and a forefather of the logistics and supply chain management (L&SCM) discipline (Goldsby & Zinn, 2018). He offered us wisdom about how scholars should use their research capabilities to address social challenges. His words were quite profound at the time, and they continue to shape our careers. Since this “visionaries” article was published, the succession of JBL editors broadened the scope and reach of the Journal. The current editor team is fortunate to have the foundation to continue to call for a more comprehensive body of knowledge about an expansive range of phenomena. L&SCM scholars also have a unique opportunity to extend our research, teaching, and service in ways that inform business practice and provide insight into a more extensive cast of stakeholders. There is the opportunity to fulfill Dr. LaLonde's aspiration for the discipline to “make the world a better place.” We find it encouraging that over the last several years, JBL has both called for and consistently published research demonstrating these efforts. For instance, scholars have designed studies to understand the unique challenges social enterprises and microentrepreneurs face at the base of the pyramid markets (Bals & Tate, 2018; Iyengar et al., 2021; Pal & Altay, 2019). There has been encouraging work on sustainable supply chain management related to procurement decisions (Mukandwal et al., 2020), implementation challenges (Nath et al., 2021), the impact of digitization (Sanders et al., 2019), macrolevel factors like country risk (Reinerth et al., 2019), new concept development like supply chain integrity (Castillo et al., 2018), and opportunities for future research (Carter & Washispack, 2018). Likewise, JBL has published articles that challenge commonly held conceptions about sustainable supply chain management (Davis-Sramek et al., 2018; Sheffi, 2018). Additionally, a focus on supply chain resilience has led to articles about public–private collaboration (Gabler et al., 2017) and the ability to “bounce forward” after a disruption (Novak et al., 2021; Wieland & Durach, 2021). JBL has also called for research that addresses modern social challenges related to women (Zinn et al., 2018) and race (Esper et al., 2020)—issues that significantly impact supply chain practice. Finally, we look forward to a future issue that includes the articles from the transformative supply chain research special topic forum (STF), which calls for research that emphasizes well-being outcomes. One area of inquiry that has been under-researched in JBL is humanitarian logistics, and we would like to see this area of research become an essential focus. There is a rich opportunity to examine the synergies between how companies plan for and respond to supply chain disruptions and how humanitarian organizations prepare for and respond to natural or manmade disasters. For instance, Kovács and Falagara Sigala (2021) note that structural flexibility, or the ability of the supply chain to adapt or reconfigure in response to changes, is embedded in humanitarian logistics research but is less understood in the traditional business research domain. In the aftermath of the pandemic, companies are assessing how to build more resilient supply chains to mitigate the financial consequences of a disruption (Sarkis, 2021). Alternately, humanita