“This ranking points to the impact of learning from and working with the best scholars in the field."”

Two professors in Supply Chain Management at the Harbert College of Business, Glenn Richey and Beth Davis-Sramek, are ranked among the world’s elite researchers according to a recent peer-reviewed article.

The paper, “Supply Chain Research Leadership: The Ranked Agents and Their Networks,” ranked the Top 50 supply chain management authors based via a network analysis that highlighted “the potential they possess to stimulate research and the quality of research outcomes by serving as hubs of connectivity and informational bridges between entities engaged in supply chain research.”

Of 3,337 supply chain management authors published globally in leading academic journal between 2001-2015, Richey is ranked No. 19 and Davis-Sramek is ranked No. 25. This is yet another accolade for Harbert College’s Supply Chain Management program, which was ranked No. 3 among undergraduate programs in North America by Gartner in 2018.

“This is great for supply chain management at Auburn in terms of visibility,” said Richey, the Raymond J. Harbert Eminent Scholar and Professor in Supply Chain Management. “Our strength has been in our undergraduate program, and seeing more accolades on the research side is fantastic. It makes us an even more well-rounded program. The next step is further expansion into graduate programs supported by our newly approved supply chain innovation certificate in collaboration with the college’s Center for Supply Chain Innovation.”

Davis-Sramek, the Gayle Parks Forehand Professor in Supply Chain Management at the Harbert College, said the rankings point to the significance of building strong academic networks. “This ranking points to the impact of learning from and working with the best scholars in the field. I was very fortunate that I had access to highly respected researchers early in my career, and that helped me launch my own network,” said Davis-Sramek.

As highly recognized researchers in their field, is it not surprising that Davis-Sramek and Richey were chosen as the incoming Co-Editors of the field’s top research outlet, Journal of Business Logistics. In fact, Davis-Sramek was awarded the journal’s Outstanding Associate Editor award in 2013, while Richey won the same award in 2019. The journal will call Auburn home from 2021 to 2026.

“Our strength has been in our undergraduate program, and seeing more accolades on the research side is fantastic. It makes us an even more well-rounded program."”

Richey’s work has been cited almost eight thousand times, with his most cited paper “Supply Chain Collaboration: What’s Happening?” earning 696 citations. “I have always worked on exploratory kinds of things across business relationships,” Richey explained. “My interest has always been what’s new, what’s out there, and what’s pacing ahead. I enjoy researching how companies respond to the environment, stakeholders, employees, governments, customers and partners. This was a surprising bit of recognition for me as half my work is in supply chain and the other half is in marketing, management, and international business relationships.”

In 2019, Richey was a runner up for research for awards for both the Journal of World Business and the Journal of International Marketing.

Davis-Sramek’s work has been published in the elite supply chain and marketing journals. She was inspired long ago. In a 2007 Journal of Business Logistics article that she co-authored as a doctoral student, she had the opportunity to interview many of the visionaries in the field of supply chain management. She said that one of the interviews has impacted her career ever since.

“One of greats in the field said that the future of supply chain management was to help solve the world’s biggest problems," she noted. "He said that it just didn’t make sense for people to be starving while there is food rotting on the ground. He challenged the future generation of scholars to ask how we can use our knowledge to make a better world.”

Richey and Davis-Sramek’s intrinsic desire to learn more in an ever-evolving, dynamically-changing business climate help produce the research to do just that: make the world a better place.