Emerald

The field of supply chain management (SCM) has historically been informed by knowledge from narrow functional areas. While some effort towards producing a broader organizational perspective has been made, nonetheless, SCM continues to be largely eclectic with little consensus on its conceptualization and research methodological bases. This paper seeks to clarify aspects of this emerging perspective.

A total of 100 randomly selected refereed journal articles were systematically analyzed.

A number of key findings emerged: the field is a relatively “new” one; several disciplines claim ownership of the field; consensus is lacking on the definition of the term; contextual focus is mostly on the manufacturing industry; predominantly “process” conceptual framing prevails; research methods employed are mostly analytical conceptual, empirical surveys or case studies; the positivist research paradigmatic stance is prevalent; and theories related to transaction cost economics and competitive advantage dominate.

This review identifies various conceptual and research methodological characteristics of SCM. From a philosophy of knowledge perspective, it is suggested that SCM be framed as a Lakatosian Research Program, for this has the best potential to assist in the development of SCM body of knowledge in a sustainable way into the future.

The COVID-19 crisis has caused major supply chain disruptions, and these can be traced back to basic supply chain risks that have previously been well identified in literature. The purpose of this paper is to suggest a pathway for closing the gap between supply chain resilience research and efforts in industry to develop a more resilient supply chain.

Based upon virtual roundtables with supply chain executives, supplemented with interviews and publicly available datapoints about COVID-19 impact on the supply chain, we explore challenges in industry and suggest opportunity areas where research can support efforts in industry to improve supply chain resilience.

During the COVID-19 crisis, participating supply chain executives are experiencing textbook supply, demand and control risks in the supply chain. They also observe a lack of preparedness, shortcomings of current response plans and the need for greater supply chain resilience. Focus areas in improving resilience mirror generic recommendations from literature and provide a rich opportunity to reduce the gap between research findings and efforts in industry.

More empirical, event-based and less conceptual research into supply chain resilience has been called for several times during the last two decades. COVID-19 provides a very rich opportunity for researchers to conduct the type of research that has been called for. This research may contribute to the structurally de-risking of supply chains. Areas of research opportunity include decision models for supply chain design that avoid overfocusing on costs only, and that consider the value of flexibility, short response times and multiple sources as well as methods for enriching supplier segmentation and evaluation models to reduce a focus on savings and payment terms only.

Key levers for de-risking the supply chain include the need to balance global sourcing with nearshore and local sourcing, the adoption of multiple sources and a greater utilization of information technology to drive more complete and immediate information availability. Perhaps most importantly, talent management in supply chain management needs to promote a focus not just on costs, but also on resilience as well as on learning from current events to improve decision-making.

There is a great opportunity for supply chain managers to grow their contribution to society beyond risk response into the proactive reduction of risks for the future. Researchers can serve society by informing this progress with impactful research.

This article offers initial empirical exploration of supply chain risks experienced in the context of COVID-19 and approaches considered in industry to improve supply chain resilience. Opportunities for empirical, event-based and less conceptual research that has been called for years, are identified. This research can help close the gap between supply chain resilience research and efforts in industry to improve supply chain resilience. Hopefully the research opportunities identified can inspire the flurry of research that can be expected in response to the multiple special issues planned by journals in our field.

Despite the variety of supply chain management (SCM) research, little attention has been given to the use of Big Data Analytics for increased information exploitation in a supply chain. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to theory development in SCM by investigating the potential impacts of Big Data Analytics on information usage in a corporate and supply chain context. As it is imperative for companies in the supply chain to have access to up-to-date, accurate, and meaningful information, the exploratory research will provide insights into the opportunities and challenges emerging from the adoption of Big Data Analytics in SCM.

Although Big Data Analytics is gaining increasing attention in management, empirical research on the topic is still scarce. Due to the limited availability of comparable material at the intersection of Big Data Analytics and SCM, the authors apply the Delphi research technique.

Portraying the emerging transition trend from a digital business environment, the presented Delphi study findings contribute to extant knowledge by identifying 43 opportunities and challenges linked to the emergence of Big Data Analytics from a corporate and supply chain perspective.

These constructs equip the research community with a first collection of aspects, which could provide the basis to tailor further research at the nexus of Big Data Analytics and SCM.

The research adds to the existing knowledge base as no empirical research has been presented so far specifically assessing opportunities and challenges on corporate and supply chain level with a special focus on the implications imposed through Big Data Analytics.

The purpose of this paper is to consolidate the servitization knowledge base from an organizational change perspective, identifying developed, developing and undeveloped topics to provide a platform that directs future research.

This paper addresses three objectives: it comprehensively examines organizational change management literature for selection of a theoretical framework; it classifies extant studies within the framework through a systemic literature review; and it analyses 232 selected papers and proposes a research agenda.

Analysis suggests increasing global awareness of the importance of services to manufacturers. However, some topics, especially related to servitization transformation, remain undeveloped.

Although the authors tried to include all publications relevant to servitization, some might not have been captured. Evaluation and interpretation relied on the research team and subsequent research workshops.

One of the most significant challenges for practitioners of servitization is how to transform a manufacturing organization to exploit the opportunity. This paper consolidates literature regarding servitization, identifying progress concerning key research topics and contributing a platform for future research. The goal is to inform research to result eventually in a roadmap for practitioners seeking to servitize.

Although extant reviews of servitization identify themes that are examined well, they struggle to identify unanswered questions. This paper addresses this gap by focusing on servitization as a process of organizational change.

This paper, a pathway, aims to provide research guidance for investigating sustainability in supply chains in a post-COVID-19 environment.

Published literature, personal research experience, insights from virtual open forums and practitioner interviews inform this study.

COVID-19 pandemic events and responses are unprecedented to modern operations and supply chains. Scholars and practitioners seek to make sense of how this event will make us revisit basic scholarly notions and ontology. Sustainability implications exist. Short-term environmental sustainability gains occur, while long-term effects are still uncertain and require research. Sustainability and resilience are complements and jointly require investigation.

The COVID-19 crisis is emerging and evolving. It is not clear whether short-term changes and responses will result in a new “normal.” Adjustment to current theories or new theoretical developments may be necessary. This pathway article only starts the conservation – many additional sustainability issues do arise and cannot be covered in one essay.

Organizations have faced a major shock during this crisis. Environmental sustainability practices can help organizations manage in this and future competitive contexts.

Broad economic, operational, social and ecological-environmental sustainability implications are included – although the focus is on environmental sustainability. Emergent organizational, consumer, policy and supply chain behaviors are identified.

The authors take an operations and supply chain environmental sustainability perspective to COVID-19 pandemic implications; with sustainable representing the triple bottom-line dimensions of environmental, social and economic sustainability; with a special focus on environmental sustainability. Substantial open questions for investigation are identified. This paper sets the stage for research requiring rethinking of some previous tenets and ontologies.

– The servitization of manufacturing is a diverse and complex field of research interest. The purpose of this paper is to provide an integrative and organising lens for viewing the various contributions to knowledge production from those research communities addressing servitization. To achieve this, the paper aims to set out to address two principal questions, namely where are the knowledge stocks and flows amongst the research communities? And what are generic research concerns being addressed by these communities?

– Using an evidenced-based approach, the authors have performed a systematic review of the research literature associated with the servitization of manufacturing. This investigation incorporates a descriptive and thematic analysis of 148 academic and scholarly papers from 103 different lead authors in 68 international peer-reviewed journals.

– The work proposes support for the existence of distinct researcher communities, namely services marketing, service management, operations management, product-service systems and service science management and engineering, which are contributing to knowledge production in the servitization of manufacturing. Knowledge stocks within all communities associated with research in the servitization of manufacturing have dramatically increased since the mid-1990s. The trends clearly reveal that the operations community is in receipt of the majority of citations relating to the servitization of manufacturing. In terms of knowledge flows, it is apparent that the more mature communities are drawing on more locally produced knowledge stocks, whereas the emergent communities are drawing on a knowledge base more evenly distributed across all the communities. The results are indicative of varying degrees of interdependency amongst the communities. The generic research concerns being addressed within the communities are associated with the concepts of product-service differentiation, competitive strategy, customer value, customer relationships and product-service configuration.

– This research has further developed and articulated the identities of distinct researcher communities actively contributing to knowledge production in the servitization of manufacturing, and to what extent they are pursuing common research agendas. This study provides an improved descriptive and thematic awareness of the resulting body of knowledge, allowing the field of servitization to progress in a more informed and multidisciplinary fashion.

Sustainability and environmental issues are among the most pressing concerns for modern humanity, governments and environmentally conscious business organizations. Green supply chain management has been acknowledged as a key factor to promote organizational sustainability. Green supply chain management is evolving into an important approach for organizations in emerging economies to manage their environmental responsibility. Yet, despite their importance for easing environmental degradation and providing economic benefits, study of the drivers that influence green supply chain initiatives in an emerging economy is still an under‐researched area. Using survey data collected from ISO 14001 certified organizations from Malaysia, the purpose of this paper is to propose that the drivers that motivate firms to adopt green supply chain management can be measured by a second‐order construct related to the implementation of the firm's green supply chain initiatives.

Structural equation model was used to analyze a set of survey data to validate the research hypotheses.

The research reveals four crucial drivers of green supply chain adoption that collectively affect a firm's green purchasing, design‐for‐environment and reverse logistics initiatives. This study uncovers several crucial relationships between green supply chain drivers and initiatives among Malaysian manufacturers.

The role of the drivers is crucial in motivating these firms to adopt green supply chain initiatives and facilitate their adoption. Firms in emerging countries need to realize that green supply chain initiatives can result in significant benefits to their firms, environment, and the society at large which gives them additional incentives to adopt these initiatives.