The other day I came across eSourcingWiki, “a global collaborative effort for supply management best practices and dynamic content creation.” Personally, I have access to a college library. Not everyone has, so can they learn from eSourcingWiki? Is this a place where I can put out my own research, or search for knowledge from others? Is the information academically sound and valid?
I remember when Wikipedia started, back in 2001. I remember saying to myself, “Fun. But this will never survive.” Well, it has survived. Not only that, many Wiki-like websites have sprung up after that, following Wikipedia’s model, where every article in may be edited anonymously or with a user account, while only registered users may create a new article.
eSourcingWiki is sponsored by Iasta, a software and global service provider of cost effective Supply Management solutions. Does this bias the information? Not as far as I am able to tell. However, I focused mainly on the Supply Risk section. What I did notice was that the bibliography articles were dominantly industry-related references and white papers. That is not necessarily a bad thing. Another thing to be noted for supply chain risk researchers is that eSourcingWiki is talking about Supply Risk or Sourcing Risk more than Supply Chain Risk.
On a side note, I also found another Supply Chain Wiki, but their section on Supply Chain Risk is less convincing and worse, void of any references.
And finally, here’s is Wikipedia’s own article on Supply Chain Management.
Overall, I think there’s a lot to be learned from the Wikis, without visiting a library or reading an academic journal, and surprisingly, the sponsored Wiki was less biased than I thought it would be.
If you know of or find more Supply Chain Wikis, particularly about Supply Chain Risk, please let me know. Thank you.
