Content analytic approach to measuring constructs in operations and supply chain management

Abstract

a b s t r a c tThis paper presents and illustrates the content analytic approach to measuring constructs in operations and supply chain management (OSCM). In this paper, a methodological review of OSCM empirical research in 2002-2007 is provided to highlight that OSCM empirical studies, unlike those in other business disciplines, have rarely used content analysis as a methodological tool. This paper then reviews the methodological strengths of content analysis, which lie primarily in its malleability, economy of data collection, repeatability, and unobtrusiveness. These strengths not only make content analysis a viable empirical method but also position it as a method that can be used in concert with other empirical methods in OSCM research, such as survey, case study, and secondary research methodologies. This paper also proposes a generic framework for a content analytic approach to measuring theoretical constructs, illustrates the application of the framework to a construct in the OSCM literature (buyer-supplier relationalism), and reports the satisfactory results of reliability and validity tests for the content analysisbased measure of buyer-supplier relationalism. In addition, this paper proposes and demonstrates that the use of convergence study in tandem with content analysis can substantially reduce the content analysis efforts needed in measuring the construct of interest, thus improving the overall efficiency of the process of content analysis.

Environmental management practices, environmental technology portfolio, and environmental commitment: A content analytic approach for UK manufacturing firms

“…Due to the lack of firm-level secondary environmental data for UK manufacturers (like TRI database in the United States context), this study resorts to the content analysis of the firm produced environmental reports. As Tangpong (2011) To summarize, this study highlights that the motivation to achieve the environmental targets is still economics driven. However, given the growing importance of conformity to environmental regulations, changing landscape to incentives to comply with environment (like carbon trading programmes), UK policy makers need to offer the right package of incentives to manufacturing firms to make them more environmentally proactive.…”

The role of Big Data in explaining disaster resilience in supply chains for sustainability

“…This approach has helped us to overcome the limitations of literature review and in-depth interviews with experts by improving the generalizability of the measurement scales (Chan et al, 2015). Tangpong (2011) argued in his research that content analysis may be questioned for its validity as the information gathered from public sources. In our case we analyzed using tweets and other kinds of messages hence guided by Jick's (1979) suggestions we have attempted to lower the risk of content analysis by using it in tandem with survey research.…”

Literature reviews in supply chain management: a tertiary study

“…In line with that, Schoenherr (2009) stated that a limitation of his work might be that his thematic classification was only conducted by a single author, such that inter-rater reliability could not be achieved. Tangpong (2011), in contrast, overcame potential single author biases by involving additional coders.…”