دانلود رایگان مقاله استفاده از داده های ثانویه در مدیریت خرید و عرضه (P / SM)

abstract

The use of secondary data, data that has been gathered for another purpose but may be suitable for research, is growing in relevance and importance in purchasing and supply management research. This paper presents issues associated with using secondary data as a principal source of data or as supplemental to other data or methods. As editors increasingly call for multiple data sources in research publications, secondary data become even more relevant. Secondary data have many benefits, and some secondary data sets are well established and highly credible. The authors describe some of the ways that secondary data has been used in purchasing and supply management research, as well as some of the sources of data. Secondary data does have its limitations, ranging from bias in collection and reporting to difficulty in identifying and accessing appropriate sources of secondary data to dealing with its predominantly unstructured nature. Suggestions for improving the reliability and validity of secondary data are provided, as well advice for dealing with big data.

11. Conclusions

While there is a wealth of potentially valuable and interesting secondary data that can be mined by researchers, including a growing store of mainly unstructured big data, the acquisition, cleansing, interpretation and publication of that data is not without extreme challenges. Reviewers may not be familiar with such data. This creates an extra responsibility for the authors to take care in the handling of the data, its interpretation and its presentation to the public. As in all data analysis, care must be taken to strive for validity and generalizability while clearly acknowledging both the limitations and contributions of secondary data analysis.