Bridging the research-practice gap in supply chain risks induced by the COVID-19

Abstract

PurposeThis study aims to explore the gap between research and practice on supply chain risks due to COVID-19 by exploring the changes in global emphasis on supply chain risk research.Design/methodology/approachThis work designed a research framework to compare the research of supply chain risks before and during the COVID-19 pandemic based on machining learning and text clustering and using the relevant publications of the web of science database.FindingsThe results show that scholars' attention to supply chain crisis has increased in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, but there are differences among countries. The United Kingdom, India, Australia, the USA and Italy have greatly increased their emphasis on risk research, while the supply chain risk research growth rate in other countries, including China, has been lower than the global level. Compared with the pre-pandemic period, the research of business finance, telecommunications, agricultural economics policy, business and public environmental occupational health increased significantly during the pandemic. The hotspots of supply chain risk research have changed significantly during the pandemic, focusing on routing problem, organizational performance, food supply chain, dual-channel supply chain, resilient supplier selection, medical service and machine learning.Research limitations/implicationsThis study has limitations in using a single database.Social implicationsThis work compared the changes in global and various countries' supply chain risk research before and during the pandemic. On the one hand, it helps to judge the degree of response of scholars to the global supply chain risk brought about by COVID-19. On the other hand, it is beneficial for supply chain practitioners and policymakers to gain an in-depth understanding of the relationship between the COVID-19 pandemic and supply chain risk, which might provide insights into not only addressing the supply chain risk but also the recovery of the supply chain.Originality/valueThe initial exploration of the changing extent of supply chain risk research in the context of COVID-19 provided in this paper is a unique and earlier attempt that extends the findings of the existing literature. Secondly, this research provides a feasible analysis strategy for supply chain risk research, which provides a direction and paradigm for exploring more effective supply chain research to meet the challenges of COVID-19.