Traders as sustainability governance actors in global food supply chains: A research agenda

Corporate actors are rapidly gaining ground as nontraditional forms of authority that shape sustainability governance efforts in global food supply chains. This paper highlights the critical, but underresearched role of traders—companies whose core business lies in the movement and exchange of agricultural commodities between producers and manufacturers—in linking corporate sustainability ambitions to on-the-ground impacts. Drawing on a systematic analysis of the major transnational corporations trading cocoa, coffee, and palm oil, we present advantages and potential pitfalls of relying on traders as implementers of sustainability governance and outline a future research agenda that focuses on producer-level impacts, changes in supply chain organization and power dynamics, and traders' interactions with state and other nonstate actors. At the intersection of supply chain management, political economy, geography, and global governance, research on traders as key sustainability governance actors also provides novel opportunities for interdisciplinary work and stakeholder engagement.     

Managing supply chain resilience to pursue business and environmental strategies

Resilience has become a crucial topic in the field of strategic management as it requires companies to design resilient business models to tackle managerial and environmental disruptions of individual firms and supply chains. However, extant research still lacks deep insights into how companies design and manage supply chains according to the resilience principles. With this premise, this paper aims at conducting a state of the art review on supply chain resilience (SCR) considering 125 relevant papers collected from Scopus and Web of Science academic search engine. Starting from the results of the literature review, this study proposes a systemic framework of SCR assessment and contributes to improve the understanding of the impact of different empirically tested constructs on the development of the resilience concept. Further, the findings are summarized in several areas including barriers in developing resilience, metrics to measure the resilience performance, and effective strategies to foster the SCR. Finally, this study outlines promising future research directions for scholars and practitioners.     

Inclusive purchasing and supply chain resilience capabilities: Lessons for social sustainability

In the face of unexpected changes in their dynamic business environment, purchasing and supply chain (SC) managers have been challenged to boost SC resilience while maintaining their sustainability concerns. In this changing environment, this paper aims to explore: (1) how (social) sustainability affects SC resilience and (2) what the role of purchasing is for SC resilience. Through a dynamic capability view as the theoretical lens, we investigate whether and how an inclusive purchasing programme could enhance SC resilience capabilities to cope with the Covid-19 outbreak. We developed a Case study with various SC members of a multinational cosmetics company that, despite suffering from a sudden demand disruption during the outbreak, maintained its sustainability actions. The results show that four operational SC resilience capabilities were amplified: ‘visibility’, ‘adaptability’, ‘collaboration’ and ‘financial strength’. In addition, a new capability entitled ‘empowerment’ was mobilised during this period. These factors helped the inclusive purchasing maintenance and were essential to supporting social sustainability. In addition, our results show that sustainable PSM, which is overlooked in the literature, is key for SC resilience. This article contributes to theory and practice because it demonstrates the role and relevance of (inclusive) purchasing in a company's ability to cope with SC disruptions, such as those resulting from the outbreak.     

Designing business models in circular economy: A systematic literature review and research agenda

The concept of circular economy is increasingly receiving attention in different domains, including strategic management, operations management, and technology management. It requires companies to design their business model (i.e., the value network, the relationships with the supply chain partners, and the value propositions towards customers) around a new concept of sustainable development that reduces consumption of natural resources and preserves the environment. However, extant research falls short in terms of explaining how companies design their business model according to the circular economy principles. Starting from this premise, the present paper provides a systematic review of the literature on the design of business models in the context of circular economy, aiming to offer an overview of the state of research and outline a promising research agenda.     

基于突发事件的供应链恢复能力研究

随着市场竞争的日益激烈,在突发事件发生以后,企业如何从遭到的破坏中迅速恢复,提高供应链的恢复能力已成为人们非常关注的问题。通过分析突发事件的表现形式,以及供应链安全的关键要素,提出提高供应链恢复能力的方法,以实现供应链安全。     

A systematic literature review to integrate lean,agile, resilient,green and sustainable paradigms in the supply chain management

The main focus of this study is to conduct a systematic literature review to integrate lean, agile, resilient, green and sustainable (LARGS) paradigms in the supply chain (SC) domain. To achieve this aim, several research questions were designed: First, how to locate LARGS research in context of SC domain? For this, it is important to understand which types of research articles should be selected for the study? Further, where such studies were conducted (geographical location)? Second, what is the focus of research in LARGS paradigm in SCs? For this, it is important to study, which types of industries or sectors have been targeted in literature? In addition, which tools and techniques have been used mostly? Third, what are the current trends in the relationships of LARGS paradigms, among themselves, and with SC performance measures? Fourth, what are the emerging issues, unexplored areas in this field, based on these what could be future research avenues in this subject domain have been proposed? A total of 160 relevant articles published during 1999–2019 were used for analysis. Based on analysis, findings are summarised, and main research issues and possible future research directions in LARGS paradigms in SCs are highlighted.     

Information technology for sustainable supply chain management: a literature survey

In supply chain management (SCM), two topics have gained importance over the last years. On the one hand, sustainable SCM (SSCM) has become increasingly relevant and many publications have contributed to the topic. On the other hand, information technology (IT) is being progressively considered as a key enabler for efficiency in supply chains. Several research efforts have contributed to the field of IT for SSCM. However, this paper is the first recent attempt to summarise the current state of the art of how IT can affect SSCM in any structured way and to compare it with IT for ‘general’ SCM to give guidance for future research. This paper surveys 55 peer-reviewed articles that were retrieved through keyword searches (until May 2014). The analysis identifies research deficits as well as a lack of scientific discourse employing empirical techniques and a lack of investigations on the social sustainability. Additionally, possible topics for further research were derived by comparing the survey’s results with the current research on IT for ‘general’ SCM following the analysis of 631 articles. Six fields could be identified, namely output/effects of IT, machine communication and multiagents, inputs and IT-supported processing, IT-enabled interorganisational exchange, quantitative IT approaches and a sector focus.     

Public procurement for innovation through supplier firms' sustainability lens: A systematic review and research agenda

Public sector purchasing processes are gaining increasing prominence as a demand-side innovation tool for addressing national sustainability challenges. Accordingly, there has been growing research attention to this topic. Prior studies suggest three key rationales that underlie the use of public sector procurement to drive innovation: (i) the buyer–user rationale (for creating new needs); (ii) the market/system failure rationale (for improving suppliers' capacity to innovate); and (iii) the public services rationale (for improving public services). However, operational activities at the upstream supply chain affecting the sustainable innovation capacities of supplier firms appear to be under-researched in the public procurement for innovation (PPI) scholarship, despite knowledge about innovation capacity being critical to successfully implementing PPI. This paper adopts a systematic literature review approach to synthesise existing fragmented literature on sustainability-oriented PPI, focusing on supplier perspectives. Findings from a synthesis of 41 relevant articles suggest, among others conditions, that a procurement framework that maintains a good balance of competition and innovation, builds buyer–supplier relationship and urges strong supply networks, maintains a stable political commitment, offers security for niche markets with effective innovation risk management culture would enhance suppliers' sustainability capacity and propensity to innovate. This paper contributes to the PPI literature and the literature on determinants of sustainable innovation systems from supplier firms' sustainability lens.     

Improving resilience of the healthcare supply chain in a pandemic: Evidence from Europe during the COVID-19 crisis

The severe scarcity of critical medical supplies caused by the COVID-19 pandemic led to considerable procurement challenges in the healthcare supply chain (HCSC). As ensuring the availability of such supplies during disruptions is critical, the debate on how to increase supply chain resilience in healthcare has gained new momentum. We present empirical evidence from a multi-tier case study spanning nine European medical supplies manufacturers and hospital groups. Based on the resource dependence theory, we investigated procurement-related strategies to improve medical supplies availability. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 39 procurement and supply chain management experts and derived seven propositions on buffering and bridging approaches for managing evolving resource dependencies and thereby strengthening supply chain resilience in a pandemic. Overall, we confirm the resource dependence theory's applicability for explaining companies' mitigation measures in a pandemic disruption. We find that bridging measures within the healthcare supply base, such as offering procurement support for suppliers or leveraging long-term buyer-supplier relationships, are more effective for securing medical supplies than buffering measures. Complementing bridging with buffering, such as extended upstream procurement or resource sharing among hospitals, can lead to superior risk mitigation as capacities of the present supplier base may not suffice. Furthermore, we extend the resource dependence theory by showing that the severity of disruptions caused by a pandemic triggers new forms of buffering external to the HCSC. Both traditional and new buffering measures establish novel flows of medical supplies in the HCSC that can enable higher supply security in a pandemic.     

Getting back into the swing of things: The adaptive path of purchasing and supply management in enhancing supply chain resilience

The COVID-19 crisis posed significant challenges to global supply chains (SCs) and exposed their vulnerability to disruption. As SCs have evolved into complex structures comprising a multitude of globally dispersed companies that collaborate closely with one another, purchasing and supply management (PSM) have played a key role in addressing the crisis. The existing PSM measures for increasing supply chain resilience (SCRES) were stress tested and it became evident that these methods are applicable only to a limited extent due to their static perspective and their lack of a network character. Thus, this paper examines the role of PSM by identifying implemented response measures. By conducting 40 semi-structured interviews with experts from original equipment manufacturers and first-tier suppliers in the German automotive industry, a comprehensive overview of the industry was obtained. To reflect the network nature of the industry and the adaptive path of PSM, the data analysis is framed by resource dependence theory and the adaptive cycle approach. The results of the study are 25 response measures of PSM to enhance SCRES, categorized into three waves of measures: initial measures upon the occurrence of the disruption, temporary measures during the disruption, and post-disruption measures. In this way, the study contributes to the existing literature by demonstrating that PSM takes on a major role in increasing resilience by implementing diverse response measures. In addition, the study shows that PSM follows the path of an adaptive cycle, and that after the disruption and the initial and temporary measures, PSM adapts, which is reflected in the post-disruption measures. For practitioners, the study provides a list of response measures to increase resilience that can be used to review existing measures or implement new ones.     

The effect of cross-organizational governance on supply chain resilience: A mediating and moderating model

This study examines the effect of a novel antecedent, namely cross-organizational governance (which can be further divided into contractual and relational governance), on supply chain resilience. Additionally, it explores the mediating and moderating effects of supply chain collaboration and institutional environment, respectively, on the relationship between cross-organizational governance and supply chain resilience. Accordingly, a research model, together with four hypotheses, is constructed based on institutional theory. These are further tested based on data collected from a single-respondent survey of 358 Chinese manufacturing companies. The results reveal that contractual and relational governance have significant positive effects on supply chain resilience; supply chain collaboration plays a partially mediating role and institutional environment plays a moderating role in the effects of contractual and relational governance on supply chain resilience. This study enriches the understanding of the relationships between cross-organizational governance, supply chain collaboration, supply chain resilience, and institutional environment. It also provides a reference for supply chain managers’ decision-making activities.     

On the conceptualization and measurement of dynamic capabilities for sustainability: Building theory through a systematic literature review

We performed a systematic literature review to explore and understand how the 23-year long debate about dynamic capabilities has addressed sustainability issues. Based on this, we propose a unifying framework that distinguishes different facets of dynamic capabilities for sustainability (DCsS) based on the different types of performance they are more suitable to predict. The theoretical contribution is twofold. First, we add to the literature by highlighting the dependence of different forms of DCsS on different levels of the centrality of sustainability outcomes in corporate strategies. Second, we shed light on the operationalizations of DCsS by providing guidance on the adoption of pertinent constructs and measurement models. The review concludes with a discussion of the managerial implications of the proposed conceptual framework to help decision makers better understand, which strategic moves to make to achieve their intended sustainability goals.     

Expatriates' families: A systematic literature review and research agenda

The influence of family on expatriates and their families' international assignments experience have been long discussed in various disciplines. We undertake a systematic review of 151 articles on expatriates' families published between 2006 and 2020 in peer-reviewed academic journals in Business and Management, Medicine, Psychology, and Decision Sciences. Adopting a step-wise approach to conduct the review and using Leximancer, we analyze the literature and categorize it into five major themes: family's influence on expatriates; expatriation's influence on expatriate families; family and individual adjustment in the expatriation process; organizational practices concerning family issues in expatriation; and expatriate families' social interaction. This mapping, thematizing and systematic organizing of the literature allows us to identify research areas that have been overpopulated and others that have not received sufficient scholarly attention. By doing so, this study contributes to the literature by providing a multidisciplinary perspective on the issue of expatriates' families. We also present a research agenda to advance knowledge in the field and make recommendations for practice.     

Improving agility and resilience of automotive spares supply chain: The additive manufacturing enabled truck model

The global supply chain disruption by the COVID-19 pandemic is difficult, if not impossible, to estimate as over 94% of the top 1000 fortune companies were badly affected. The need for building resilient supply chains to mitigate the effect of such disruptions is rising rapidly than ever before across the global business spectrum. Building resilience in the automotive spare parts (ASPs) supply chain is critically important as any disruption to automotive spares supply chain will affect the operations of the logistics sector, the backbone of global supply chains. This research work contributes to improving the resilience of the automotive spare parts supply chain by proposing a Viable Supply Chain (VSC) framework design that incorporates Additive Manufacturing (AM) enabled trucks in the automotive spares supply chain network. Based on the proposed model, conceptual case models are developed and tested with proposed AM enabled truck manufacturing closer to end customer. A heuristic approach called shortest time heuristic is also proposed to solve the routing and scheduling of an AM enabled truck to deliver customers’ orders of the spare parts through an online platform. Importantly, the study demonstrate how additive manufacturing can help the ASPs industry to switch from the existing practice of make-to-stock to a more efficient inventory management and cost saving make-to-order model while also achieving resilience and sustainability in by providing a source of spares support for discontinued models of vehicles.     

Sustainability concerns in luxury supply chains: European brand strategies and French consumer expectations

Sustainability in supply chain management has become a concern in both research and practice. Although consumption and purchasing have been significantly explored in the luxury sector, a gap in supply chain studies is still evident. Therefore, the aim of this article is to examine how industry bodies and supply chain partners address sustainability concerns in the European luxury sector and how they respond to consumer expectations. In an explanatory study, we have collected data about sustainable supply chain practices in 11 European luxury good companies, by interviewing and surveying 13 managers. In a first consumer study, we held interviews with French luxury consumers in Bordeaux about their sustainability expectations (N = 170). The results show that while the distribution of attention is dependent on the respective supply chain activities, luxury goods companies address sustainability concerns and aim to take responsibility for their activities. However, the emphasis is on the dimension of economic sustainability. A comparison with sustainability expectations of French luxury goods consumers suggests that business practices are not perfectly well aligned with these expectations. Consumers put more emphasis on social and environmental sustainability dimensions. On the other hand, business activities concerning waste reduction and raw material management rather well match consumer expectations.     

Environmental management systems and green supply chain management: complements for sustainability?

Some researchers question the legitimacy of EMSs since organizations can claim to have one when in fact they make no attempt to reduce their environmental harm. In instances where EMSs enhance an organization's environmental performance, critics argue that improvements are likely to occur within the organization's operational boundaries rather than being extended throughout the supply chain. However, previous research suggests that the organizational capabilities required to adopt an EMS may facilitate GSCM implementation and the institutional pressures to adopt both management practices are similar. Consequently, EMS adopters may have a greater propensity to expand their focus beyond their organizational boundaries and utilize GSCM practices to minimize system‐wide environmental impacts. This research illuminates the debate by empirically evaluating the relationship between EMS and GSCM practices. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

The role of innovation in the implementation of green supply chain management practices

How organizational green practices become routinely embedded in supply chains remains underexplored in the literature. Based on the practice‐based view and normalization process theory, this study adopts a novel perspective on green supply chain management (GSCM) practices implementation and suggests that innovation is a crucial mechanism in such process. Specifically, we theorize and test the mediating effect of product and process innovation on the relationship between GSCM practices and sustainability performance. Survey data from 173 manufacturing firms were used to test the model hypotheses. Our findings show that product and process innovation mediate the relationship between GSCM practices and sustainability performance. The findings also suggest that the relevance of different innovation mechanisms depends on the stage of the operational lifecycle within which the practices are implemented. Our study provides insights for managers and scholars seeking to define innovation strategies to ensure the successful implementation of GSCM practices.     

Circular economy in Latin America: A systematic literature review

The purpose of this study is to identify circular economy concept trends of Latin America with regards to Europe, in which a systematic review of literature (SRL) was made using Scopus data in order to define the search, to select the relevant articles, and to analyze the results. Seventy‐one articles from Scopus were reviewed, and the analysis was complemented by the analysis with 57 documents from other scientific Web browsers such as Mendeley, Scopus, Academic Google, ScienceDirect, and SciELo which sum a total of 128 documents which the majority have come from Europe. Main concepts were identified, barriers and trends. The main conclusion was which the current concept is not very clear; in spite of Europe knows that limitation, Latin America is making the same mistake implementation.     

Sustainable supply chain management in tourism

Sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) encapsulates the trend to use purchasing policies and practices to facilitate sustainable development at the tourist destination. Most research has focused on environmental aspects of manufacturing, while other aspects of sustainability or the challenges for the service sector are largely ignored. Yet SSCM is particularly important for tour operators, as the product depends on the activities of suppliers, such as accommodation, transport and activities. Therefore, tour operators' contribution to sustainable tourism will be more effective through the definition and implementation of policies that acknowledge responsibility for the impacts of suppliers. Exploratory research of SSCM practices amongst tour operators generated a wide range of examples of good practice across the whole supply chain, and recommendations are made for more widespread engagement. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.