Matias Enz, an assistant professor in the Department of Supply Chain and Analytics, won the 2024 Bernard J. LaLonde Best Paper Award at the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals conference. (Photo by Derik Holtmann)

The best research ideas, Matias Enz has long believed, come from honest conversations with managers and executives working in industries around the globe, as opposed to theoretical discussions that take place in purely academic environments.

In the hands of the right researchers, those practitioner-oriented projects have the potential to impact industry. A paper co-authored by Enz, an assistant professor in the Department of Supply Chain and Analytics at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, and Douglas M. Lambert, an academy professor at The Ohio State University – titled “A supply chain management framework for services” – did exactly that after it was published in the Journal of Business Logistics in September 2023.

Not only was their work the most downloaded research paper published by JBL in 2023, but last fall their paper was named winner of the 2024 Bernard J. LaLonde Best Paper Award, as presented by the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals. The award is given annually to “the most valuable paper published in the Journal of Business Logistics.”

For supply chain researchers, the LaLonde Award is prestigious.

“For me it is a very special recognition and tremendous honor,” Enz said.

Word spread quickly among Enz’s colleagues.

“I have sat in on the award ceremony many years and never thought it would go to one of my colleagues at UMSL,” said Mitch Millstein, a professional practice professor at UMSL. “I cannot tell you the level of prestige associated with winning this award. I was excited beyond description for UMSL, our department and Matias. This raises the visibility of our department to a group of universities that are among the founders of this field, such as the University of Tennessee, Michigan State, Penn State, University of Arkansas and Arizona State.”

Enz still remembers, very clearly, the pre-COVID conversation with an executive at a multinational credit card company that sparked the idea for this award-winning paper. The executive was interested in learning how to implement supply chain management best practices but mentioned to Enz and Lambert the lack of emphasis research involving service-intensive companies.

A literature review showed the executive was correct; there was plenty of research related to supply chain management for product-intensive supply chains, but not for the service-intensive supply chains which represent 86.8% of the United States economy. So Enz and Lambert got to work. What they quickly found was an incredible appetite within the industry for their research.

They worked with executives from 13 service companies in a wide variety of industries: airline, banking, car rental, credit card, grocery retail, health care provider, parcel delivery, personal finance, private jet charter, professional service, restaurant, retail and food service. Lambert said nine of the 13 companies have revenues of more than $10 billion, and three have revenues north of $50 billion.

The research and writing of the paper took close to four years. Both Enz and Lambert stressed the importance of being thorough in their work, and the importance of working for institutions that not only allow but encourage that quality of research. For this project, that thorough approach meant lots of interactions and interviews with executives, case studies, focus groups and presentations. Enz said they conducted and transcribed multiple interviews with more than 30  executives. They used qualitative data analysis tools to come up with the findings.

The industry has responded with enthusiasm.

“The best reward after publishing research, is to be called by a manager or executive saying, ‘Hey, your research is something I can use. Can you come and help me implement it in my company?’’ Enz said. “For me, that is what drives me to be a researcher. The best form of validation is knowing that what you are doing is having an impact and is being used.”

Enz said the response to the paper will fuel further research on the subject.

“The beauty of it is that it’s a virtuous cycle,” he said. “The more you engage with managers, the more research you can publish that addresses real needs. This leads to greater dissemination and practical implementation, creating new insights that become ideas for other research projects. Also, executives want to support more research. This award helps facilitate this cycle.”

Enz and Lambert have been regular research collaborators for more than a decade, producing a string of impactful research papers in that time. Lambert was Enz’s advisor while Enz was working toward his PhD in business administration with a focus on business logistics at Ohio State.

Lambert also founded The Global Supply Chain Forum at OSU’s Fisher College of Business, which provided funding for Enz’s research for his doctoral dissertation; Lambert was chair of the dissertation committee.

“Matias is intelligent, kind and thoughtful, and he is thorough in his work,” Lambert said. “We share the desire to do meaningful research with companies that will impact management practice. While many business-school faculty say that practitioners are the customers for their research, few are willing to do what it takes to make this a reality. Faculty members need to regularly interact with executives to identify research topics and then work with companies to conduct the research and implement the findings. Most faculty members do not feel comfortable doing this or are not prepared to invest the time and effort required. Matias is.”

To Lambert the LaLonde Award is representative of the quality – both of research ideas and research projects – he’s come to expect from Enz.

“The fact that executives and educators find value in the research that Matias and I conducted is rewarding,” Lambert said, “but not unexpected.”

Receiving the LaLonde Award has extra significance to Enz and Lambert, too. LaLonde was a mentor to Lambert at Ohio State, where LaLonde, who died in 2017, authored more than 120 articles and books and chaired 60 doctoral dissertation committees. Lambert, in turn, has been a huge influence on Enz’s career in supply chain research.

“It was very special for us because the award is named for Doug’s mentor,” Enz said. “In a recent paper, LaLonde was called one of the four giants in the fields of logistics and supply chain management.”

For Enz, working on research projects like these reaffirm his choice to join UMSL’s College of Business Administration, where he began working in 2017. He knew about the supply chain and analytics department’s reputation in the industry through colleagues, so when a job opened, he went after the opportunity, even though he was then back in his native Argentina at the time.

“I saw the university’s focus on the community and on applied research, especially in the supply chain and analytics department,” Enz said. “The most important part here is the working culture, the openness to discuss ideas, synergies among the different fields, and clear direction from COBA and UMSL leadership. This is a good working environment; everybody’s willing to collaborate and push forward. I feel good being here.”