Critical Review of Grand challenges and supplier development in the Global South
Critical Review of Grand challenges and supplier development in the Global South
why experiment with new (ethnographic) intervention research methods
Introduction
The rapid evolution of generative AI tools has drastically changed higher education and has drawn a lot of attention from scholars who are now considering the tools’ pedagogical, ethical, and institutional ramifications. Baig and Yadegaridehkordi (2024) in the International Journal of Educational Research, undertake a very proper and thorough systematic literature review (SLR) on the adoption, applications, and limitations of ChatGPT in higher education. The author is in a fast-changing research environment and dealing with issues such as academic integrity, technology acceptance, and the pedagogical worth of AI-powered tools in universities across the world.
The research proposes three objectives: the first being to identify recent research areas related to ChatGPT in higher education, the second to evaluate the adoption and usage patterns according to the theoretical models, and the last to combine the varied applications and shortcomings that are already mentioned in the literature. In this case, the article intends mainly to address the researchers, academic practitioners, and institutional decision-makers who seek evidence-based insights into the ChatGPT integration in higher education.
Summary of the Article
Vang and Balslev Clausen (2025) link their argument to the current discussions within the SCM field about the necessity of dealing with grand challenges — complex social problems like climate change, inequality, and sustainability deficits that are beyond the reach of traditional analysis. They point out that even though SCM researchers have been advocating for new methods, the suppliers in the Global South have largely been left out of the research in the area. The authors recommend ethnographic intervention research as a powerful alternative to the dominant methodologies that often silence the voices and realities of the supply chain workers in developing countries.
Using various long-term field projects, the study shows that the use of ethnographic methods on suppliers’ capabilities evolution in the context of sustainability and development. The perspective further points out four main insights that support the use of these methods, which are the richness of context, engagement of participants, the power of transformation, and the acknowledgement of the difficult problems that are part of the major challenges. The implications for practice are interventions that are better designed and aligned with the everyday situation of the suppliers, while the implications for the methodology are the opening up of the research lenses in supply chain management to include participatory and interventionist methods.
Critique
Significance and Contribution to the Field
The main point that the paper makes is the use of ethnographic intervention research in supply chain studies, especially in the Global South. The authors, by putting suppliers’ voices and lived experiences through long interactions, confront the positivist and quantitative paradigms’ decline that often ignore the specific contextual dynamics, heavily relying on the grand challenges—sustainability and social justice—places the study at the crossroads of logistics, development, and social sciences, thus, constructing it as a valuable piece of work for scholars who aim to connect theory with practice.
In addition, the authors broaden the SCM research agenda by suggesting the redefinition of rigour not as the strict compliance with the conventional methods but as the correspondence between the method and the complexity of the research problem. This new understanding opens up the floor for the SCM scholars to go back to the high-impact research questions that have been systematically neglected due to methodological conservatism.
Methodology and Research Design
The study presents a viewpoint article that intentionally, and rather a little bit, gives up its empirical generalizability to the advantage of the theoretical stimulation. Although the authors rely on their engagement in the field for insights over the course of decades, the lack of methodical data presentation and systematic evidence raises doubts about the replicability and external validity of the study.
The paper could easily attract very different interpretations as the authors picked up various industry contexts—garment, coffee, tanning, and plastic sectors—but the main argument regarding the methodology is now weaker than strong. Thus, there shall be future research with an emphasis on axis-based case reporting and a clear analytical framework to support the methodological claims even more. However, the practice of utilizing the long-term project experience is always helpful as it provides a valuable heuristic depth that is, unfortunately, often lacking in mainstream SCM research.
Argumentation and Use of Evidence
The authors have structured their argument in a very good way, starting with raising the issue to coming up with a method. They have made the theoretical case for ethnographic intervention research, but their engagement with competing viewpoints in SCM methodology is not very strong. For example, the article could be more critical in discussing alternative qualitative methods like grounded theory or participatory action research. and compare them with their proposed approach.
In addition to that, the article would gain a lot by the author(s) being very open about the potential tensions in the methodology—for instance, how to manage the researcher’s intervention while giving the participants their autonomy—which are likely to occur in ethnographic intervention research. The argumentation is logically coherent, but the evidence used is mostly anecdotal and taken from the authors’ projects rather than being a result of systematic comparative analysis. This poses a limit to their claims regarding the applicability of their findings across different sectors and cultural contexts, as they are less likely to be true.
Ethical Considerations and Omissions
The authors, although touching upon the problems of inequality and power asymmetry, do not enter the discussion of the ethical complexities of interventionist research at all. Ethnographic intervention methods, after all, are not thought to be ever so sensitive to subtle differences in the social setting; hence, the questions of the local people’s consensus, the researcher’s location in the power hierarchy, and the local communities’ and suppliers’ independence from the researchers’ impact arise.
The study has promised a lot in terms of transformation; yet it has also downplayed the ethical pitfalls that interventionist engagement might bring up, especially in the case of economically weak contexts. It would be a good thing if the issues of ethics, power relations, and reflective research practice were explicitly dealt with, as this would add to the robustness of the paper’s methodological recommendations, particularly for researchers who are not used to action-oriented qualitative methodologies.
Writing Style and Structure
The text presents a clear and accessible style for academics, with a coherent progression from macro-level supply chain management challenges to micro-level methodological recommendations. The organisation of the text allows for the understanding of the main story, and the use of supply chain illustrations gives it more context.
Nonetheless, the viewpoint format makes it impossible to elaborate in depth on the methods, which results in short discussions on topics that could have drawn more illustrations—for example, practical methodological steps for performing ethnographic intervention research. The neutral tone helps the article to be regarded as a conceptual jumping-off point but not so much as a practical guide for immediate methodological application.
Conclusion
Vang and Balslev Clausen (2025) present a very good and stimulating contribution to supply chain research through their proposal of ethnographic intervention research as a solution for grand challenges and supplier development in the Global South. The main advantage of the paper is that it changes the view on methodological rigour and it opens the door to SCM inquiry in under-researched areas and to complex sustainability issues. Nevertheless, the paper’s positioning as a viewpoint restricts empirical support and thorough procedural directions, and its ethical considerations could be more elaborate. Future studies can take the proposed methods and concerns as points of reference and, in this manner, create empirically grounded, context-sensitive research that addresses the ethical subtleties faced in interventionist research.
Reference:
Vang, J., & Balslev Clausen, H. (2025). Grand challenges and supplier development in the Global South: why experiment with new (ethnographic) intervention research methods. International Journal of Logistics Management, 36(4), 1136–1146. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJLM-04-2024-0216
We offer our Greatness in Various Parts of Research, and we help you with any phase of your Process. Make a Smart Decision and get your Paper Published.