Supply Chain Resilience research trends: a literature overview

Is there a theory of supply chain resilience? A bibliometric analysis of the literature

Purpose

This study aims to identify the past, present and future lines of research in the supply chain resilience (SCRES) literature and to answer the question of whether resilience is “just another” supply chain (SC) concept or if it constitutes its own theory.

Design/methodology/approach

This study involves a bibliometric analysis of 1,596 research articles published in the Web of Science Core Collection™ database between 2004 and 2021, with a focus on: publications and citations per year, co-citations of articles and authors, co-occurrences of the keywords used and thematic development. Seven SCRES experts have also analysed and discussed the research results.

Findings

The results show how resilience has become one of the main thematic blocks of SC research in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, with a 62.04% increase in academic publications. Despite the abundant literature, there is still no overarching theory of SCRES. One possible hindrance to the creation of such a theory is the variety of existing definitions and models of SCRES. This research identifies this as a shortcoming that future studies should address. As the results show, the combination of SCRES with other fields, such as engineering and ecology, can help in constructing a global theory of SCRES.

Originality/value

Bibliometric analysis is used to confirm the SCRES literature gap in the development of an overarching theory, although resilience constitutes one of the main thematic blocks of the SC literature.

Development of a semi-structured questionnaire to analyse supply chain resilience in the post-COVID business era

The COVID-19 pandemic has had and is having devastating effects on the health of the population, but also on the economic health of companies and their supply chains. The old paradigms of the commercial and industrial world have been inevitably disrupted: global supply chains have shifted from a system based on efficiency to one oriented towards resilience. To this regard, the present research paper aims at investigating how Supply Chain Resilience will evolve in the new paradigms of the post-COVID business era. In order to contribute to this investigation, a semi-structured questionnaire is developed, through a structured research approach. Future research lines will be based on conducting this questionnaire as a basis for a targeted survey, analysable through association rules.

Healthcare management and COVID-19: data-driven bibliometric analytics

Healthcare management and COVID-19 has been broadly studied during the recent few days, especially after declaration of the COVID-19 outbreak in almost all countries in the world. Therefore, the present research article aims to provide an extensive overview of the scientific literature about the study of healthcare management and COVID-19 for choosing the new topic of related research. It conducts four types of analyses where the first analysis is a trend analysis and other three analyses are related to network and density maps. The second analysis is analyzed decisively in order to produce all keywords, author keywords and index keywords co-occurrence network map and country co-authorship network map and tables summarizing the significant scientific trends under the present topics. The third analysis is analyzed purposefully in order to produce all documents, journals, authors and countries bibliographic coupling network maps and tables summarizing the significant scientific trends. The last analysis provides valuable approaching of the most significant used keywords on the research topic and the links among them using keyword co-occurrence network and density maps respectively.

Knowledge Registration Module Design for Enterprise Resilience Enhancement

The present situation characterized by the coronavirus pandemic has made businesses to be aware about the importance of being resilient to face undesirable impacts like the one caused by this pandemic. One of the constituent capacities of enterprise resilience is the recovery ability to bounce back and restore the operations after disruptions' occurrence. This paper is focused on the recovery perspective of enterprise resilience and its enhancement through knowledge registration. This research proposes the design of the Knowledge Registration Module addressed to the register of valuable information at different knowledge level with the main aim to reuse this piece of information to facilitate the recovery process when the same or an unexpected similar disruptive event occurs. Future research lines will be based on applying the knowledge approach to real cases to study the influence of knowledge management in the enhancement of enterprise resilience.

Instructive analysis of engineered carbon materials for potential application in water and wastewater treatment

Water remediation is an essential component for sustainable development. Increasing population and rapid industrialization have contributed to the deterioration of water resources. In particular, effluents from chemical, pharmaceutical, petroleum industries, and anthropogenic activities have led to severe ecological degradation. Many of these detrimental pollutants are highly toxic even at low concentrations, acting as carcinogens and inflicting severe long-lasting effects on human health. This review underscores the potential applications of engineered carbon-based materials for effective wastewater treatment. It focuses on the performance as well as efficiency of activated carbon, graphene nanomaterial, and carbon nanotubes, both with and without chemical functionalization. Plausible mechanisms of action between the chemically functionalized adsorbent and pollutants are also discussed. Based on the keywords from the literature published in the recent five years, a statistical practicality-vs-applicability analysis of these three materials is also provided. The review will provide a deep understanding of the physical or chemical interactions of the wastewater pollutants with carbon materials.

Modeling resilient factors of the supply chain

Purpose

This paper aims to study the concept, characteristics and factors of the resilient supply chain (RSC) and develop a hierarchical structural model and classify the factors based on their interrelationships.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper has used a mixed-approach of literature review and expert opinion to identify the factors of RSC. For the development of the structural model and clustering of the factors, this paper has used the total interpretive structural modeling approach with Matrice d’Impacts Croises-Multiplication Applique and Classment and decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory analysis.

Findings

In total, this study has identified 17 factors that enable the 3R capability of the RSC. The result shows that the factors have a close dependence relationship with supply chain (SC) risk management culture as the most influencing factor. Further, this study classifies the factors into enablers and strategies.

Research limitations/implications

This research work is the theoretical contribution to the RSC concept and helps the experts to develop and improve the resilient ability in the SC. This research is based entirely on subjective expert feedback; thus, the results are sensitive to the expert’s judgment.

Practical implications

This research will help the decision-makers in allocating the resources and policies to develop or improve the SC capabilities.

Originality/value

This research work is the first kind of research in the field of the RSC that considers the 3R concept to identify and model the resilient factors of the SC. Along with the theoretical concept, this research provides empirical evidence for the importance ranking of the factors.

Deploying Resilience Enablers to Mitigate Risks in Sustainable Fashion Supply Chains

The complex structure of supply chains makes them vulnerable to risk, so enhancing their resilience is an important goal. In particular, fashion supply chain research has identified two important issues that need to be addressed: sustainability and risk. However, investigation of these issues is relatively sparse and has primarily been independent with little combinatory research. Therefore, it is crucial to develop a risk mitigation method that can maximize the resilience of sustainable supply chains for fashion companies. The objective of this study is to develop an integrated quality function deployment approach and to mitigate supply chain risk by deploying resilience capabilities and resilience-enhancing features, thus ultimately providing the fashion industry with a useful approach for the development of resilient, sustainable supply chains. Using a fashion company as an example, the practicability of the proposed approach is verified. To strengthen resilience and thus mitigate key risks, it is found that the most urgent tasks are to reallocate the company’s resources, to carry out the real-time monitoring of risk on the spot, to share the risk responsibility, and to establish an incentive system. When these features are strengthened, agility and adaptability can be improved, and finally, the risks of supplier delays, natural disasters, political instability, and problematic supplier materials with the greatest impact can be alleviated. This study provides a new strategy for the fashion industry for the implementation of resilient, sustainable supply chains to mitigate risks.

The Risk of Dissolution of Sustainable Innovation Ecosystems in Times of Crisis: The Electric Vehicle during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Innovation ecosystems evolve and adapt to crises, but what are the factors that stimulate ecosystem growth in spite of dire circumstances? We study the arduous path forward of the electric vehicle (EV) ecosystem and analyse in depth those factors that influence ecosystem growth in general and during the pandemic in particular. For the EV ecosystem, growth implies outcompeting the less sustainable internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, thus achieving a transition towards sustainable transportation. New mobility patterns provide a strategic opportunity for such a shift to green mobility and for EV ecosystem growth. For innovation ecosystems in general, we suggest that a crisis can serve as an opportunity for new innovations to break through by disrupting prior behavioural patterns. For the EV ecosystem in particular, it remains to be seen if the ecosystem will be able to capitalize on the opportunity provided by the unfortunate disruption generated by the pandemic.

Investigating the trends in arctic research: The increasing role of social sciences and humanities

The Arctic Region experienced a series of significant changes due to shifting climate conditions, resulting in multiple opportunities and challenges for international actors, and encouraging both Arctic and non-Arctic states to promote their own national interests. Hence, the region has become a global priority, and a focus of scientific studies across the Natural Sciences, and Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) disciplines. This study systematically analyses the literature on the Arctic Region, conducting a multidimensional bibliometric analysis and content analysis on the basis of semantic clustering. The purpose of the analysis is to determine future Arctic-related research themes. The study follows a three-level research framework. The first level of the analysis highlights a disciplinary shift in the Arctic literature from Natural Sciences towards Social Sciences and Humanities, particularly, focusing on the environment, technology, political and energy-related issues. The second level identifies 9 research themes which are validated in the third level. The third level reveals the most prominent terms and prioritized research areas in the Arctic literature, namely, Governance, Security Issues, Economic Factors, Legal Issues, Energy and Natural Resources, Logistics, Climate Change and Environment, Technology, and Socio-cultural and Ethnic Issues.

Risk Management: Rethinking Fashion Supply Chain Management for Multinational Corporations in Light of the COVID-19 Outbreak

Through an international business risk management lens, the widespread and catalytic implications of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic on the supply chains (SCs) of fashion multinational corporations (MNC) are analyzed to contribute to existing research on supply chain management (SCM). While a movement towards agile, networked supply chain models had been in consideration for many firms prior to the outbreak, the pandemic highlights issues inherent in supply chains that employ concentrated production. We examined the current state of fashion supply chains, risks that have arisen historically and recently, and existing risk mitigation methods. We found that while lean supply chain management is primarily favored for its cost and waste reduction advantages, the structure is limited by the lack of supply chain transparency that results as well as the increasing demand volatility observed even before the COVID-19 outbreak. Although this problem might exist in the agile supply chain, agile supply chains combat this by focusing on enhancing communication and buyer-supplier relationships to improve information exchange. However, this structure also entails an associated increase in inventory and inventory costs. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused supply and demand disruptions which have resonating effects on supply chain activities and management, indicating a need to build flexibility to mitigate epidemic and demand risks. To address this, several strategies that firms can adopt to control for such risks are outlined and key areas for further research are identified which consider parties both upstream and downstream of the fashion supply chain.