This study suggests a new approach to supply chain (SC) disruption risk management where SC behaviour is less dependent on the certainty of our knowledge about the environment and its changes. The ...unpredictability of the occurrence of disruption and its magnitude suggests that designing SCs with a low need for 'certainty' may be as important, if not more so, than predetermined disruption control strategies. In this setting, this study calls for the development of a new perspective in SC disruption management, i.e. low-certainty-need (LCN) SCs. A number of principles and concepts is derived in recent, relevant literature to structure the characteristics of the LCN framework and its management. Structural variety, process flexibility, and parametrical redundancy are identified as key LCN SC characteristics that ensure efficient disruption resistance as well as recovery resource allocation. Two efficiency capabilities of the LCN SC are shown, i.e. low need for uncertainty consideration in planning decisions and low need for recovery coordination efforts based on a combination of lean and resilient elements. The results allow the identification of an LCN SC framework, concepts and technologies for its implementation as well as missing themes and new research questions which contribute to a better understanding of SC disruption risks. Special focus is directed on the digital technology usage in the LCN framework implementation.
Purpose
– With today's increasing globalization and associated growing demand for talented supply chain managers, human resource management (HRM) in supply chain management (SCM) has emerged as a top ...priority for firms. However, a thorough analysis of HRM issues in SCM research has not been made so far. To address this gap this paper provides a systematic and comprehensive literature review. The purpose of this paper is threefold: to analyze HRM/SCM issues published in leading SCM journals, to identify different HRM research streams in the SCM literature and to propose areas for future research.
Design/methodology/approach
– This paper employs a systematic literature review methodology. The selected journal articles are categorized on the basis of an analytical framework that contains seven HRM/SCM research streams derived from the extant literature.
Findings
– The systematic literature review indicates a growing focus on HRM/SCM issues in recent years, a trend that is predicted to continue. Additionally, the study findings show that research has primarily emphasized certain popular categories while other crucial ones lack analysis.
Originality/value
– This paper presents a structured overview of 109 peer-reviewed articles published in leading academic journals from 1998 to 2014. The review structures extant HRM/SCM literature and highlights its critical importance in SCM research. Topical gaps in the literature are identified as areas for future research.
Research on the phenomenon of supply chain resilience Hohenstein, Nils-Ole; Feisel, Edda; Hartmann, Evi ...
International journal of physical distribution & logistics management,
01/2015, Volume:
45, Issue:
1/2
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Purpose
– This paper provides a robust and structured literature review on supply chain resilience (SCRES), the supply chain’s ability to be prepared for unexpected risk events, responding and ...recovering quickly to potential disruptions to return to its original situation or grow by moving to a new, more desirable state. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the extant research through focussed questions and provide an insightful framework with propositions to guide further publications and identify future research needs.
Design/methodology/approach
– The findings underlie a systematic literature review methodology requiring a robust method of literature analysis. The sand cone model is adopted to develop a comprehensive SCRES framework.
Findings
– The literature review reveals a strong need for an overarching SCRES definition and a clear terminology for its building elements. It indicates that most research has been qualitative and lacks in assessing and measuring SCRES performance.
Originality/value
– This paper contributes a structured overview of 67 peer-reviewed articles from 2003 to 2013 on an emerging area of supply chain research. The review formulates an overarching definition of SCRES, groups and synthesizes the various SCRES elements into proactive and reactive strategies for the ex-ante/ex-post disruption stage and illustrates SCRES measurement through performance metrics. It provides a comprehensive SCRES framework with propositions and indicates gaps in the literature to target for further development.
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the research development in supply chain resilience. We undertake a literature survey to review the literature on enterprise and supply chain resilience. ...We aim to provide a platform for researchers and practitioners trying to identify the existing state of the work, gaps in current research, and future directions on the topic. For this purpose, we employed two methods to collect publications in supply chain resilience. First, we selected keywords and searched the relevant databases and journals. Next, we tracked the references of those papers collected in the first method to look for other publications published in conference proceedings and book chapters. As a result, a sample of 100 papers was collected, studied, and analyzed. We summarize our findings in several areas including enterprise and supply chain resilience definitions, supply chain resilience principles, and supply chain resilience strategies. Based on the assessment, we develop a framework for the principles of supply chain resilience that can be used as a basis for understanding supply chain resilience.
Recently, the applications of Blockchain technology have begun to revolutionise different aspects of supply chain (SC) management. Among others, Blockchain is a platform to execute the smart ...contracts in the SC as transactions. We develop and test a new model for smart contract design in the SC with multiple logistics service providers and show that this problem can be presented as a multi-processor flexible flow shop scheduling. A distinctive feature of our approach is that the execution of physical operations is modelled inside the start and completion of cyber information services. We name this modelling concept 'virtual operation'. The constructed model and the developed experimental environment constitute an event-driven dynamic approach to task and service composition when designing the smart contract. Our approach is also of value when considering the contract execution stage. The use of state control variables in our model allows for operations status updates in the Blockchain that in turn, feeds automated information feedbacks, disruption detection and control of contract execution. The latter launches the re-scheduling procedure, comprehensively combining planning and adaptation decisions within a unified methodological framework of dynamic control theory. The modelling complex developed can be used to design and control smart contracts in the SC.
Supply chain orientation (SCO) has the potential to contribute to supply chain sustainability performance. The literature, however, has not determined whether SCO has a direct effect on supply chain ...sustainability performance, nor has it differentiated between the effects of different categories of SCO on supply chain sustainability performance. A SEM analysis of data collected from supply chain managers determined that the SCO construct of supply chain collaboration and communication could directly affect both supply chain environmental and social sustainability performance. The SCO construct of internal supply chain coordination, however, affected only supply chain environmental sustainability performance and this effect was mediated by the organisation's internal supply chain sustainability practices. A second path between supply chain collaboration and communication and supply chain environmental sustainability performance, which was mediated by internal supply chain sustainability practices was also identified. These findings indicate that different SCO constructs have different effect pathways in relation to supply chain sustainability performance. The identification of the effects of different categories of SCO and the SCO – performance relationship has important implications for SCO research design.
Supply chains (SC) are generally complex and are characterized by numerous activities spread over multiple functions and organizations, which pose interesting challenges for effective SC ...coordination. To meet these challenges, SC members must work towards a unified system and coordinate with each other. A systematic literature review is presented in this paper to throw light on the importance of SC coordination. The objectives of this paper are to: report and review various perspectives on SC coordination issues, understand and appreciate various mechanisms available for coordination and identify the gaps existing in the literature. A framework is suggested indicating scope for further research.
The lack of industrialization, inadequacy of the management, information inaccuracy, and inefficient supply chains are the significant issues in an agri-food supply chain. The proposed solutions to ...overcome these challenges should not only consider the way the food is produced but also take care of societal, environmental and economic concerns. There has been increasing use of emerging technologies in the agriculture supply chains. The internet of things, the blockchain, and big data technologies are potential enablers of sustainable agriculture supply chains. These technologies are driving the agricultural supply chain towards a digital supply chain environment that is data-driven. Realizing the significance of a data-driven sustainable agriculture supply chain we extracted and reviewed 84 academic journals from 2000 to 2017. The primary purpose of the review was to understand the level of analytics used (descriptive, predictive and prescriptive), sustainable agriculture supply chain objectives attained (social, environmental and economic), the supply chain processes from where the data is collected, and the supply chain resources deployed for the same. Based on the results of the review, we propose an application framework for the practitioners involved in the agri-food supply chain that identifies the supply chain visibility and supply chain resources as the main driving force for developing data analytics capability and achieving the sustainable performance. The framework will guide the practitioners to plan their investments to build a robust data-driven agri-food supply chain. Finally, we outline the future research directions and limitations of our study.
Purpose
Are major and frequent disruptions transforming global supply chains? This study aims to investigate how multinational companies (MNCs) are responding to the phenomenon of accumulated major ...disruptions in recent years and plausible new paradigm of unstable conditions and environmental uncertainty from a supply chain resilience (SCRES) perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
Following an inductive interpretivist approach based on interpretive phenomenology, this study gathers insights from ten MNCs supply chain managers and international consultants who participated as key informants via semi-structured interviews, sharing their experience of the phenomenon. Additionally, secondary sources such as press releases, media articles and industry reports were used for data collection.
Findings
Findings include five categories of recovery actions, i.e. levelling, rationing, buffering, bridging and boundary redefining, key strategic changes in competitive priorities, internal organisation and coordination structures, and a hierarchy between SCRES characteristics, integrated in an empirically derived conceptual framework connecting these constructs. This contributes to middle-range theories within SCRES body of knowledge. The authors also identify a set of areas for future SCRES research.
Practical implications
Findings can support MNCs’ supply chain professionals in designing and managing resilient global supply chains, based on learnings from the recent highly disruptive environment, particularly, regarding recovery actions and resilience-building strategic changes contributing to agility and robustness in global supply chains.
Originality/value
Non-positivist interpretive and inductive works are scarce in SCRES research. By adopting this novel approach for this field, the authors broadened the categorisation of responses used in previous works and identified prominent strategic changes and SCRES characteristics and relations among constructs, thus bringing conceptual clarity to SCRES research within the context of the study.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to determine the antecedents of dynamic supply chain capabilities (DSCCs). The authors test entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and supply chain learning orientation ...(SCLO) as two antecedents of DSCCs.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses structural equation modelling to test a hypothetical model. Data are gathered from a survey of 275 operations managers in Pakistan’s turbulent manufacturing industry.
Findings
The findings suggest that the weaker direct effects of EO, in comparison to the indirect effects, indicate that an SCLO mediates the relationship between EO and DSCCs.
Research limitations/implications
It is widely accepted that firms do not compete with each other, instead, it is end-to-end supply chains that fight for market dominance. Many scholars use the dynamic capabilities view to understand supply chain level competition. However, the dynamic capabilities view is firm-centric in its examination of how companies transform internal resources to compete in the external environment. The theoretical contribution of this paper is a roadmap of how to build dynamic, supply-chain level and capabilities by determining the key antecedents. This paper explains that DSCCs emerge when buyers and suppliers share strategic orientations. Firms with an EO and the ability to learn with supply chain partners are well-positioned to develop DSCCs. This provides a new angle to theory testing by indicating that dynamic capabilities are enabled by an EO and an ability to learn with supply chain partners.
Practical implications
Managers are given the building blocks of DSCCs, starting with fostering an entrepreneurially-oriented mindset in the company and then learning with supply chain partners. Entrepreneurially-oriented managers are encouraged to take risks and co-develop innovative ideas with suppliers during the supply chain learning process.
Originality/value
This study is one of the earliest efforts to determine the strategic orientations that antecede the emergence of DSCCs.
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