Thirty Years of the International Journal of Logistics Management: A Retrospective Analysis

Purpose: International Journal of Logistics Management (IJLM) celebrated 30 years of its publication in 2019. This study provides a retrospective overview of the IJLM articles between 1990 and 2019. Design/methodology/approach: The authors applied bibliometrics to study and present a retrospective summary of the publication trends, citations, pattern of authorship, productivity, popularity depicting influence, and the impact of the IJLM, its contributors, their affiliations, and discusses the conceptual layout of IJLM's prolific themes. Findings: With 23 yearly articles, IJLM contributed 689 specialized research papers on Supply Chain Management (SCM) by 2019. Authorship grew by 42 new contributors adding up to 1,256 unique IJLM authors by 2019. Each of its lead contributors associated with 1.55 other authors to contribute an article in the journal among which 93% are cited at least once. Survey-based research dominated in last 30 years. The h-index of the journal is 73 while its g-index suggests that 133 IJLM articles were cited at least 17,689 times in Scopus. IJLM authors affiliated to the Cranfield University and the US contributed the highest count of articles. Bibliographic coupling analysis groups IJLM articles into eight bibliographic clusters while network analysis exposes the thematic layout of IJLM articles. Research limitations/implications: The literature selection is confined to the Scopus database starting from 1990, a year before the inception of the IJLM, thereby limiting its scope. Originality/value: This study is the first retrospective bibliometric analysis of the IJLM, which is useful for aspiring contributors.