Eleven years of cyberattacks on Chinese supply chains in an era of cyber warfare, a review and future research agenda

Abstract

PurposeThe contribution of this study aims to twofold: First, it provides an overview of the current state of research on cyberattacks on Chinese supply chains (SCs). Second, it offers a look at the Chinese Government’s approach to fighting cyberattacks on Chinese SCs and its calls for global governance.Design/methodology/approachA comprehensive literature review was conducted on Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science, in Social Sciences Citation Index journals, Scopus and Google Scholar, published between 2010–2021. A systematic review of practitioner literature was also conducted.FindingsChinese SCs have become a matter of national security, especially in the era of cyber warfare. The risks to SC have been outlined. Cybersecurity regulations are increasing as China aims to build a robust environment for cyberspace development. Using the Technology-organization-environment (TOE) framework, the results show that the top five factors influencing the adoption process in firms are as follows: relative advantage and technological readiness (Technology context); top management support and firm size (Organization context) and government policy and regulations (Environment context).Research limitations/implicationsThis review focuses on cyberattacks on Chinese SCs and great care was taken when selecting search terms. However, the author acknowledges that the choice of databases/terms may have excluded a few articles on cyberattacks from this review.Practical implicationsThis review provides managerial insights for SC practitioners into how cyberattacks have the potential to disrupt the global SC network.Originality/valuePast researchers proposed a taxonomic approach to evaluate progress with SC integration into Industry 4.0; in contrast, this study is one of the first steps toward an enhanced understanding of cyberattacks on Chinese SCs and their contribution to the global SC network using the TOE framework.