Current Trends and Issues for Supply Chain Management

Introduction
As the instructor for this MBA class, you must supply the reading materials for your students to understand the current trends and issues for supply chain management. What are professional informative articles, literature reviews, and empirical articles that are best suited to teach your material and why?
Appropriate resources may include textbooks, scholarly research articles, reports on practitioner research, or videos. The key is selecting materials that are current, address the aspects of a topic you want to focus on, and are the appropriate level for your students. You should also be considering how the resources will fit together collectively to provide your students with a comprehensive view and understanding of what you are trying to teach.
Overview
Reminder: Assessments in this course are designed to be completed in the order they are presented in the course room.
For this assessment, you will research various resources to teach your MBA supply chain course, then select and analyze five resources relevant to your course content and objectives.
Instructions
Review the resources from the Topic Exploration Quickstart Literature Guide: Global Operations & Supply Chain Management. This guide presents current and relevant scholarly, academic, and practitioner resources related to supply chain management. Your first step for this assessment is to select five appropriate resources that your MBA students would engage with to help learn the baseline supply chain management knowledge they need, as well as illustrate the three important current trends and issues that you have identified to teach your students (that is, which current trends or issues you discussed in your welcome video).
As you are selecting the five resources, remember to consider:

• Relevance to the current trends, issues, and best practices related to supply chain management or foundational concepts and frameworks related to supply chain management.
• Relevance of information to the concepts you are planning to teach.
• Variety of resource types:
o Have you selected a mix of textbook readings, peer-reviewed journal articles, professional practitioner articles, and/or multimedia?
• The planned use of the resource in the course and what objective it will specifically teach your MBA students.
• The degree to which the resources fit with the adult learning framework, Bloom’s taxonomy, and personal teaching philosophy you are applying to your course.

o Refer to your course readings when considering this item.

Once you have identified your five resources, write a 3–page analysis in which you address the following within the context of the MBA course you are teaching:

• Summarize the major takeaways of current trends and issues in supply change management and/or foundational supply chain management concepts and frameworks.
• Synthesize how the selected resources illustrate the three selected current trends or issues in supply chain management to be taught in your MBA course.
• Explain how the chosen resources are appropriate for your MBA students and supportive of the course objectives.
• Reflect on the degree to which the resources and your planned use of them fit with the adult-learning framework and personal teaching philosophy you are applying to your course.

Additional Requirements
As you complete your assessment, be sure your submission meets the following guidelines:

• Written communication: Use error-free, doctoral-level writing, with original (non- plagiarized) content, logical phrasing, and accurate word choices.
• APA formatting: Format all references and citations according to current APA style and formatting guidelines. Refer to the Academic Writer as needed.
• Font and font size: Use a consistent, APA-compliant font, 12 points.
• Length: 3 double-spaced content pages plus a reference list.
• File naming protocol: Follow the standard naming conventions for any files you upload. Refer to the DBA Submissions Requirements for details.
• Scholarship: In addition to the five resources that you will be using to teach your MBA students, cite 1 resources as needed to support your application of adult learning frameworks as well as an analysis, synthesis, and explanation of how your five teaching resources will be used within the context of the MBA course you are envisioning. Overall, you should be citing 6 scholarly and professional practitioner resources.

Supply Chain Management Models & Theories
Your students will need to learn key theories and models of supply chain management. To prepare you to teach supply chain management, we will examine these theories, beginning with the Theory of Constraints, which was introduced by Dr. Eliyahu Goldratt in 1984 and later developed by him and others. It is based on the premise that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link—the constraint—and that learning how to optimize and leverage that constraint is

the key to achieving goals and, ultimately, profitability. Because constraints (or obstacles to achieving a goal) are the core of the theory, fundamental concepts are that (a) a goal must be clearly defined; and (b) constraints to achieving the goal must be identified. Constraints may be internal or external.
There are three main components and five goals that you must teach the MBA students:
Components

1. Rate of production.
2. Operational expense.
3. Inventory.

Goals

1. Identify the constraints or system of constraints.
2. Decide how to exploit the constraints.
3. Subordinate everything else in order to address Goals 1 and 2.
4. Alleviate the system’s constraints.
5. Stop everything if a constraint has been broken and start again. Do not let it build up to start another constraint.

The following resources will help you build your understanding of models and theories of supply chain management through the lens of its historical and contemporary definitions, models, and applications. Each resource is accompanied by a brief summary or excerpt of its abstract and/or introduction to help you frame your understanding before engaging with the resource.

• Koss, J. P. (2021). How integrated is the supply chain? Beverage Industry, 112(1), 44.
o Each phase of a supply chain is dependent on the next; if one fails, the system breaks down. This article discusses how integration is key to success of any supply chain.
• Mentzer, J. T., DeWitt, W., Keebler, J. S., Min, S., Nix, N., Smith, C. D., & Zacharia,
Z. G. (2001). Defining supply chain management. Journal of Business Logistics, 22(2), 1–26.
o This article examines the historical research and concepts of supply chain management to present a unified definition and foundational conceptual model that informs contemporary supply chain management.
• Sarmah, S. P. (2016). Supply chain management strategies for effective channel coordination[Video]. IGI Global.
o This video explores several facets of supply chain coordination and managerial strategies for achieving an efficient and profitable supply

chain. Highlighting essential concepts, practical examples, and theoretical perspectives of logistics and operations management, this video is an essential reference source for graduate-level students, business professionals, and researchers.
• Worth, J., & Wilding, R. (2020). Route to net zero: A new supply chain model. Logistics & Transport Focus, 22(5), 36–38.
o This article discusses what logisticians and others should do to make modal transfer an option for moving goods. The biggest single strategic decision logistics managers and professionals can make is to move the key facilities progressively to rail-connected locations, which enables cost—as well as carbon—to be taken out of the supply chain. It also examines key considerations for optimizing the proposed model.

Contemporary Supply Chain Management Concepts
These resources will help you identify and use appropriate course materials for your MBA students:

• Brockhaus, S., Fawcett, S. E., Knemeyer, A. M., & Fawcett, A. M. (2019). How to become a supply chain rock star. Supply Chain Management Review, 23(2), 42–49.
o This article examines the critical role that contemporary supply chain managers play in ensuring the success of supply chains.
• Kassaneh, T. C., Bolisani, E., & Cegarra-Navarro, J. (2021). Knowledge management practices for sustainable supply chain management: A challenge for business education. Sustainability, 13(5), 2956–2970.
o In recent decades, business competition has been increasingly among supply chains (SCs) rather than individual firms. Today, considering the challenges of environmental, social, and economic sustainability, it is becoming even more vital to coordinate and co-manage company resources, activities, and innovative efforts at the SC level. This article examines how key knowledge management practices can help to optimize supply chains.

Online Learning Concepts
These resources examine education concepts specifically focused on online learning and can help you plan how to use the materials you choose for your online MBA supply chain management course.

• Choi, P., Harris, M. L., Ernstberger, K. W., Chris Cox, K., & Musgrove, C. F. (2019). An exploratory study on part-time MBA program choice factors and

characteristics of part-time MBA students. Journal of Education for Business, 94(3), 139–147.
o The authors present considerations related to MBA program design and student choice factors that educators should keep in mind when developing programs and curricula.
• Palmer, F. (2020). The shift to e-learning solutions in a changing world. Logistics & Transport Focus, 22(8), 68.
o This article discusses how e-learning solutions shift in a changing world and the need to adopt more accessible learning and professional development solutions.
• Tanis, C. J. (2020). The seven principles of online learning: Feedback from faculty and alumni on its importance for teaching and learning. Research in Learning Technology, 28, 1–26.
o Tanus analyzed survey results from post-secondary faculty and alumni to identify seven key principles of online education.

Teaching Models and Strategies for the Online Adult Business Educator
These resources can help you increase your understanding of various models and strategies that you can apply in developing curricula and materials for adult learners in business-related online courses and programs. Each resource is accompanied by a brief summary or excerpt of its abstract and/or introduction to help you frame your understanding before engaging with the resource.

• Aisami, R. S. (2020). Chapter 1, The 5Ds model for planning and teaching online courses: Introduction and overview. In Utilizing a 5-Stage learning model for planning and teaching online courses: Emerging research and opportunities (pp. 1– 13). IGI Global.
o The 5Ds model for planning and teaching online could be leveraged when developing resources, lesson plans, and other materials that go into online courses.
• Chuang, M. (2019). A web-based simulation game for teaching supply chain management. Management Teaching Review, 5(3), 265–274.
o This article provides detailed implementation protocols for using a Web- based SCM game including game descriptions, classroom pedagogy, and simulation assessment.
• Gaumaa, R., Anderson, L., & Zundel, M. (2018). What can managers learn online?
Investigating possibilities for active understanding in the MBA classroom. Management Learning, 50(2), 226–244.
o This article looks at ways to apply a community of inquiry model to drive engagement and learning in an online MBA course environment.

• Kodzi, E. T. (2019). From design to delivery: Teaching supply chain management to IB majors. Journal of Teaching in International Business, 30(4), 342–372.
o The design of specific courses in any curriculum must be purposeful in terms of what is taught, how it is taught, and how all the course components fit together. For a supply chain management course targeted at international business (IB) students, one key purpose is to understand how competitiveness is developed across the extended enterprise, rather than within the confines of individual companies. This “winning together” view helps foster capabilities for connectedness and cooperation in IB environments typically characterized by geographic dispersion and cultural dissimilarities.
• Özelkan, E. C., & Rajamani, D. (2006). 5P framework for teaching and characterizing supply chains effectively [Conference paper]. IIE Annual Conference Proceedings, Norcross, 1–5.
o The “five P’s” in the 5P framework are Products, Pain points, Performance measures, Physical structure, and Processes.