CALL FOR PROPOSALS
The Journal of Business Logistics Annual Review Issue: Past Accomplishments and Future Challenges within Supply Chain Management Research
The goal of this annual special issue is to provide integrative reviews of supply chain management (SCM) research and to guide its future development. The guest editors invite authors to submit a proposal (not a full paper) that outlines a plan for creating a high-impact scholarly review of an important research stream. In this context, the term 'research stream' refers to a body of work (a) that is focused on a specific topic; or (b) that applies a particular theory across different topics. Quantitative reviews such as meta-analyses are outside the scope of the special issue, as are bibliometric studies and reviews of the application of research methods.
Proposals should be double-spaced with no less than one-inch margins and twelve-point font. Proposals should be no more than seven pages of text. References (single-spaced with a space between entries), tables, and appendices do not count against this page limit; authors can include up to ten pages of such materials in addition to the seven pages of text. Proposals that exceed these limits will not receive consideration. Any given author is limited to participating in one proposal. If an author is listed on more than one proposal, all of those proposals will be rejected without being considered.
Proposals will be evaluated based on these criteria:
Need for a Review. The proposal should center on a significant SCM research stream. The proposal should establish why a review is needed and explain what tasks the planned review will accomplish. Proposals to review research streams for which no recent published reviews exist will have an advantage. If one or more reviews of the stream have been published, the proposal should explicitly explain the contribution beyond such reviews.
Feasibility. In addition to taking on a significant task, the proposal should represent an achievable project within the compressed timeline outlined below. Proposals that need more than four authors to execute are perhaps tackling an overly broad topic. Providing a summary of an initial literature search – such as the set of journals examined, the years examined, and the number of articles found – is not required, but is highly encouraged to help the guest editors assess feasibility.
Breadth of Interest. Proposals of interest to scholars across various SCM specialty areas – and perhaps also in neighboring fields – will have an advantage over proposals of interest to a small set of scholars. Likewise, proposals to review research streams with steady or growing interest will be viewed more favorably than those declining in interest.
Coherence. The proposal should read clearly and in one voice. It should use a logical structure.
Future Research. The proposal should make clear to what degree future research is needed within the research stream and how a full paper would lay a valuable foundation for that work.
Quality. A well-written and presented proposal signals that the authors would likely produce a quality manuscript. A poorly written and presented proposal creates doubts, regardless of the merit of the idea.
The guest editors will not be able to pre-screen ideas or rough drafts. Instead, authors are encouraged to seek feedback from trusted colleagues prior to submission. Also, authors are encouraged to leverage insights from previous articles on how to construct a review article:
Ketchen, D. J. & Craighead, C. W. 2023. What constitutes an excellent literature review? Summarize, synthesize, conceptualize, and energize. Journal of Business Logistics, 44(2), 164-169.
Craighead, C. W. & Ketchen, D. J. 2024. Energizing a literature review to boldly go where no one has gone before. Journal of Business Logistics, 45(2), e12377.
Ketchen, D. J., & Craighead, C. W. 2025. The presenter's paradox and the reviewer's regress: two tricky challenges for supply chain management research. Journal of Business Logistics, 46(3), e70015.
In addition, articles published in the previous STF issues (2023, 2024, 2025, and 2026) should serve as valuable benchmarks. We encourage authors to use these articles as resources in constructing their proposals.
The special issue timeline is as follows:
August 1- September 1, 2026
Proposals may be submitted via the Journal of Business Logistics' online submission portal at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jbl
Please be sure to select Special Issue as the submission type. Please note that early and late proposals will not be considered, nor will proposals submitted directly to the guest editors.
October 1, 2026
Decisions on proposals will be provided. Authors of successful proposals will be offered the opportunity to submit full papers.
March 1, 2027
Full papers due.
June 1, 2027
Feedback to authors on full papers. The hope is that all papers will advance to the next stage, but this is contingent on the quality of the work.
September 1, 2027
Revised papers due.
Early 2028
Issue will be published.
Please note each paper may require different timing and a different number of revisions.
We look forward to receiving your proposals!
GUEST EDITORIAL TEAM
Jessica L. Darby, Auburn University
Rebekah (Bekki) Brau, Brigham Young University
David J. Ketchen, Auburn University
Cheers,
Rebekah (Bekki) Brau, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Supply Chain Management
Marriott School of Business
Brigham Young University
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Rebekah Brau
Assistant Professor
Brigham Young University
Provo UT
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