Geopolitical disruptions in global supply chains: a state-of-the-art literature review

Abstract

This paper systematically reviews the literature on the impact of geopolitical disruptions on supply chains to identify primary discourses, emergent themes and key gaps to set a future research agenda. The guiding research question is ‘how do geopolitical disruptions affect the configuration, flow, and management of global supply chains?’. The study applies a systematic literature review of 50 papers from the Association of Business Schools’ (ABS) ranked academic journals in the fields of operations, production, and supply chain management published between 1995 and 2022. Through an in-depth literature analysis, this paper demarcates geopolitical disruptions and the resulting impact on supply chains as a new subfield of research. The results indicate that the impact of geopolitical disruptions on supply chains can be mitigated through: (1) supply chain re-design including regionalisation, back-shoring, and moving away from just-in-time delivery models as well as (2) the implementation of emerging technologies, such as blockchain, 3D printing and artificial intelligence, to improve supply chain transparency and the development of modularised manufacturing. This paper is one of the first to define the current state of research and thinking on the impact of geopolitical disruptions on supply chains, laying a firm foundation for future research by setting a detailed research agenda based on identified gaps.