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Purpose: The purpose of this research is to highlight the significance of advancing research methodologies in logistics, operations and supply chain management. It seeks to expand the scope of research questions and explore areas previously constrained by traditional methodological approaches, thereby enhancing the exploration of complex, real-world business issues. Design/methodology/approach: This commentary introduces and discusses the special issue on "Advances in Research Methodologies for Logistics and Supply Chain Management," exploring methodological innovations, diversity and their potential to address complex business and disciplinary challenges. The commentary assesses a broad spectrum of methodologies, ranging from traditional qualitative and quantitative approaches to overlooked methods such as qualitative comparative analysis, netnography, design science, Bayesian networks, machine learning and repertory grid technique. This diverse methodological approach enables a comprehensive examination of emerging and ongoing challenges in the supply chain. In the final summary section, we highlight additional areas of research method innovation not covered in this special issue, offering a broader perspective on future directions for methodological advancements in SCM research. Findings: The findings suggest that integrating less explored methodologies from various disciplines encourages a richer, multi-level analysis of the supply chain management landscape. This integration facilitates a deeper understanding of emerging challenges, such as geopolitical issues, global supply chain disruptions and the integration of new technologies. Additionally, the exploration of 'white space' in research methodologies indicates significant potential for discovering new insights that bridge practical problems with theoretical contributions. Originality/value: The value of this methodological diversity extends beyond academic enrichment. It catalyzes the generation of innovative insights crucial for business practitioners, policymakers, consultants and academics. By adopting varied research designs and methodologies, the research note can offer a broader spectrum of analytical perspectives, crucial for uncovering nuanced insights into complex, cross-cultural and relationship-based dynamics in supply chain research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Product-centric information management is a key concept in understanding the interoperability between increasingly intelligent and autonomous goods in distributed computing architectures. In the same way as consumers are an important source of data in contemporary platforms, products — especially durable and capital goods — can be considered equally valuable for industries that have not yet been platformatized. By exploiting a blockchain technology approach, this paper makes an effort to combine product-centric information management with platform literature in order to understand possible development trajectories for multi-sided platforms, across industry sectors.Through a novel perspective, this paper offers new insights into product-centric information management and shows that blockchain technology can have interesting and useful applications in the architectural design of industrial platforms. The paper concludes with some managerial implications about the nature of multi-sided markets for durable and capital goods. Furthermore, some policy implications are presented regarding the free flowing of information, as well as the role of the public authority in fostering platform development.Though the examination of an inductive case study, this paper aims to provide a clearer understanding on the ambiguous phenomenon of blockchain technology. The formulation of this particular case study will also assist other scholars in presenting their respective use cases in later studies. Furthermore, the presented case study will also prepare scholars for the complexities that companies face when designing blockchain-based applications and architectures.This paper suggests that understanding blockchain technology is essential when considering the implementation of the product-centric information management approach in practice. The inductive case study herein provides some bottom-up evidence suggesting that companies operating in the markets for durable and capital goods could build multi-sided platforms as a response to the prevalent consumer-centric platform trajectory. For practitioners, our detailed argumentation suggest that companies should consider use cases very carefully to determine which technology generates the broadest network effects in each particular situation.

A chasm is growing between the advanced technologies available for improving manufacturing operations and those effectively used in practice. The vision of Industry 4.0 is to mobilize industry to seek out these possibilities for improvement and to close the gap between opportunity and reality. However, when compared with more established improvement opportunities such as lean manufacturing, the digitalization of manufacturing lacks in both paradigmatic examples and an understanding of how to achieve the benefits. This lack is a complication of concern: Without an appropriate operations strategy to capture the value of digitalization, manufacturing companies will be unable to focus on technological investments and operational changes. To address this concern, operations management academics must develop new theory through active engagement in the practice of digitalization in manufacturing. This research presents a paradigmatic example, based on engaged scholarship, focused on effectively combining novel object‐interactive and conventional manufacturing syntax for benefiting from digitalization in internal operations and the wider supply chain. The contribution to literature is a novel operations strategy—hybrid digital manufacturing—for capturing the value of Industry 4.0 technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]