Managing external resources: Preliminary results from a literature review

Researchers increasingly share the view that firms are more and more reliant on various external actors in their business operations. In this paper we present some intermediate results of a systematic review of studies dealing with the management of external resources in six leading academic journals within operations management, strategic management, and marketing fields during the period 1997-2012. The analysis shows a growing interest among researchers towards external resource management. Most of the eight key themes identified from the 601 coded articles are studied in all three disciplines, but different concepts are often used for the same issues; therefore the studies do not always meet. Cross-citation analysis revealed that OM/SCM studies refer greatly to studies of strategic management and marketing, while strategic management is very self-absorbed. It seems that formal theories are increasingly used in all three disciplines, and they are becoming a link between the studies.