Haslam College of Business - Haslam’s Supply Chain Faculty Ranked No. 1 Globally for Research

Supply chain faculty at the Haslam College of Business earned the top ranking for research productivity in the world from the Transportation Journal.

Dean Stephen L. Mangum says the ranking testifies to the college’s long-standing excellence in the field and to the passion, energy and dedication of supply chain professors.

“Our supply chain faculty has been consistently creating quality research for decades,” Mangum says. “This recognition of the quantity and caliber of their research is truly exceptional, and we greatly appreciate the recognition of their research impact.”

The journal, a quarterly publication of APICS, tracks research authorship in six of supply chain management’s most prestigious academic publications and ranks schools on a rolling, five-year basis. This edition examined productivity between 2014 and 2016. The Transportation Journal began ranking the top 25 schools for supply chain research productivity in 1967.

The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, has been included in all but one of the Transportation Journal’s assessments since its inception. In the prior two editions, Haslam’s supply chain faculty ranked fourth and first globally, respectively. Mary Holcomb, a Haslam supply chain professor, and Yoshinori Suzuki who are co-editors of the Transportation Journal, said that the ranking reflects UT’s capacity to grow with the field.

“This study began as a means to validate and measure the breadth of a business discipline that is relatively new when compared to accounting or marketing,” Holcomb said. “It essentially tracks the entire history of supply chain research, and UT has been ever-present because of the department’s cultural commitment to remain on the leading edge of what’s happening in business and integrate new faculty.”

The study examines publications in the Journal of Operations Management, Journal of Supply Chain Management, Journal of Business Logistics, International Journal of Logistics Management, International Journal of Physical Distribution and Transportation Journal. The group represents one journal in each of supply chain’s major disciplines. Haslam ranked in the top 10 for publication in four of these highly ranked academic journals.

The University of Arkansas, which placed fourth in the ranking, was the only other school to attain four top-10 placements in journals. The remainder of the top-10 schools was mostly unchanged in overall composition from previous editions, though there was movement within that group. The Ohio State University placed second and Michigan State took third.

Michael J. Maloni of Kennesaw State University and Craig R Carter of Arizona State University conducted the survey, verifying their data set by multiple researchers. The ranking is the longest-known series examining research productivity of supply chain management schools.