Study of supply-chain management in the automotive industry: a bibliometric analysis

The economic and social importance of theautomotive industry explains the need for researching improved ways oforganising andmanaging the diverse processes involved in the production ofmotor vehicles. Furthermore, the management of supply chains and inter-organisationalrelations has acquired strategic significance in recent years and has become akey area of research. At the interfacebetween these two fields, this paper adopts a bibliometric viewpoint to analyse the scholarly literature that has addressedthe study ofsupply chains within the specific sphere of the automotiveindustry. To do so, it has examined the 404 papers on this topic indexedthrough to 2011 in the Business Source Complete database. This has allowedidentifying trends and opportunities related to the what, how and where of research into this matter.