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A New Methodology for Supply Chain Management: Discourse Analysis and its Potential for Theoretical Advancement

This paper responds to recent calls for methodological diversification and ‘in-house’
theory development within the discipline of SCM, by introducing discourse analysis to
readers of the Journal of Supply Chain Management. One of the merits of discourse analysis
is the way in which it ‘problematizes’ taken-for-granted aspects of organizational life,
including supply chains, to show that what we assume to be natural, inevitable and beneficial
is rarely quite so straightforward as it may seem. In addition, through the way in which it
emphasizes the interrogation of meaning, discourse analysis can broaden conceptualizations
of the supply chain to include actors that have previously been overlooked, such as
employees, workers, not-for-profit organizations, regulators, consumers and the media. Using
examples that are familiar to SCM researchers – the discourses of lean, sustainability, modern
slavery and big data – we illustrate how discourse analysis can help to theorize SCM
phenomena by problematizing established meanings and revealing how they reproduce power
relations among actors. We then show how insights from discourse analysis can complement
existing theories of the supply chain and, in so doing, potentially rejuvenate the field of SCM
by inspiring novel theory development, opening up different empirical settings, and
promoting new ways of analyzing data.