Emergence of security in supply chain management literature

Abstract

The topic of security for supply chains and logistics functions has risen in importance both in practice as well as in the research and has emerged as its own area of research within SCM and logistics. This paper presents a review of the development of the topic of security in supply chain management literature. The article aims to categorize the main security issues dealt with in the literature on supply chain security, enumerate the theoretical approaches applied to these issues and present a discussion of the emergent solutions coming out this research. The article considers three benefits for the supply chain security that form a core set of research goals in the literature on SCS: improving security, making supply chain processes more efficient, and improving supply chain resilience. While operationalization of supply chain security is still not well developed in the literature, some findings of particular interest relate logistics planning to supply chain security. Improving responsiveness of supply chains is still an area that requires a lot of research attention. Underlying the proposed and experienced supply chain security measures is the requirement for integration of security measures in strategic and operational activities across the supply chain.