International Supply Chain Management: A Walk around the Elephant

International Supply Chain Management (ISCM) has developed rapidly in the last decade but despite a range of operational and descriptive models, there are no theoretical constructs with which to ground ISCM into business theory and practice. This paper proposes some tools with which those theoretical constructs can be developed, beginning with an operational definition of ISCM and a framework for evaluating ISCM at the operational, design and strategic levels. Finally, taking the approach of the Saxe fable of blind men describing the elephant in front of them by describing the part that they can feel, we walk around the elephant of ISCM and describe it from several theoretical vantage points. This paper suggests that knowledge, power and governance have particular relevance for ISCM. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]