Toward greater integration of insights from organization theory and supply chain management David J. Ketchen Jr. a, * , G. Tomas M. Hult b,1 a Department of Management, College of Business, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849-5241, United States b Department of Marketing and Supply Chain Management, Eli Broad Graduate School of Management, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824-1122, United States Available online 14 June 2006 Abstract Organization theory (OT) has the potential to offer provocative and helpful wisdom to the field of supply chain management, yet OT’s potential has remained largely underdeveloped in the supply chain arena. As a result, enormous opportunities exist to integrate insights from organization theory and supply chain management in order to build understanding of why some supply chains excel while others do not. We preview the contributions toward developing such a synthesis offered by each of the articles contained in this special issue. Collectively, the articles take a significant step toward closing the gap between ‘what we know’ and ‘what we need to know’ about supply chain management. # 2006 Published by Elsevier B.V. Keywords: Organization theory; Supply chain management; Integration In putting together the call for papers for this special issue, we noted that organization theory (OT) offers a wide variety of interesting and useful perspectives, including the resource-based view, the knowledge- based view, strategic choice theory, agency theory, institutional theory, and systems theory, to name a few. The application of such theories to a phenomenon often provides greater understanding. Yet, to date, researchers interested in operations management in general and supply chain management (SCM) in particular have made limited use of organizational theories. We believe that the theories that are currently guiding organiza- tional inquiry can shed significant light on SCM research thought and practice as well as function as a bridge between social science areas that are bound to be connected when studying the interdisciplinary phenom- enon of supply chains. In particular, application of organization theories might help ongoing debates as well as open up new areas of investigation. Accordingly, the idea behind special issue on Organization Theory and Supply Chain Management was to attract papers that would shed greater insights on how organizational theories could help describe, explain, and predict supply chain phenomena (e.g., culture, activities, and out- comes). 1. Theories and questions Going into the process of creating the special issue, we realized that the relevant and important theories are many, and the questions that could be addressed are vast. For example, the resource-based view focuses on www.elsevier.com/locate/jom Journal of Operations Management 25 (2007) 455–458 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 334 844 4071; fax: +1 334 844 5159. E-mail addresses: ketchdj@business.auburn.edu (D.J. Ketchen Jr.), hult@msu.edu (G. Tomas M. Hult). 1 Tel.: +1 517 353 4336; fax: +1 517 432 1009. 0272-6963/$ – see front matter # 2006 Published by Elsevier B.V. doi:10.1016/j.jom.2006.05.001