Qualitative studies in supply chain management research: potential contributions of centring resonance analysis

The historical strong emphasis on quantitative studies in supply chain management (SCM) is giving place to more qualitative studies. The execution of SCM activities as well as interactions among participants in the chains generates lots of information which can be analysed using qualitative methods. A common methodological problem in such analyses is how to move beyond specific linguistic material to generalisations. One method suited for this is centring resonance analysis (CRA), which allows the synthesis of texts into smaller categories. This article discusses the contributions and potential future use of CRA in SCM field by performing a systematic literature review in studies that adopted this technique. Results showed that CRA has been adopted in SCM since 2010 in order to analyse documents that vary from training materials and corporate social reports to interviews and software documentation. A characterisation of methods applied in conjunction with CRA is also provided.