Perceived influence structures of resilience capabilities in agri-food supply chains and the role of big data analytics: Insights from a fuzzy hybrid decision model

PurposeGiven the increasingly turbulent business landscape and unprecedented incidents (e.g. Covid-19), firms must achieve supply chain resilience (SCRes) as a dynamic capability to bounce back from adversities and ensure continuity of operations. The purpose of this study is to integrate the three interrelated [knowledge management, risk management culture (RMC) and resilience] but often separately discussed concepts to advance the understanding of their intertwined influence on SCRes in the agri-food supply chains.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses a cross-sectional survey approach where quantitative data is collected from 349 participants from the Australian agri-food supply chains to test the proposed hypotheses.FindingsExposure to supply chain risks triggers the deployment of specific knowledge management practices in the agri-food supply chains. Further, the analysis on serial mediation suggests that firms’ knowledge management practices work sequentially (knowledge acquisition, assimilation and application) and develop a RMC to achieve SCRes amid supply chain risks.Practical implicationsThe findings of this study inform practitioners and policymakers who seek to understand the key mechanisms that facilitate the development of SCRes when facing supply chain risks, particularly in the Australian agri-food supply chains.Social implicationsThe growth of the food industry through more resilient food supply chains could ensure sustained food supply and more employment opportunities.Originality/valueUsing dynamic capability theory, the authors devise a novel empirical model that explicates how knowledge management practices and RMC instigate the dynamic capability of SCRes amid supply chain risks facing agri-food supply chains.

PurposeThis systematic literature review analyzes the academic literature to understand SC risk and resilience across different organizational sizes and industries. The academic literature has well discussed the causes of supply chain (SC) risk events, the impact of SC disruptions, and associated plans for SC resilience. However, the literature remains fragmented on the role of two fundamental elements in achieving SC resilience: the firm's size and the firm's industry as firms' contingent factors. Therefore, it is important to investigate and highlight SC resilience differences by size and industry type to establish more resilient firms.Design/methodology/approachBuilding upon the contingent resource-based view of the firm, the authors posit that organizational factors such as size and industry sector have important roles in developing organizational resilience capabilities. This systematic literature review and analysis is based on the structural and systematic analysis of high-ranked peer-reviewed journal papers from January 2000 to June 2021 collected through three global scientific databases (i.e. ProQuest, ScienceDirect, and Google Scholar) using relevant keywords.FindingsThis systematic literature review of 230 high-quality articles shows that SC risk events can be categorized into demand, supply, organizational, operational, environmental, and network/control risk events. This study suggests that the SC resilience plans developed by startups, small and mdium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and large organizations are not necessarily the same as those of large enterprises. While collaboration and networking and risk management are the most crucial resilience capabilities for all firms, applying lean and quality management principles and utilizing information technology are more crucial for SMEs. For large firms, knowledge management and contingency planning are more important.Originality/valueThis study provides a comprehensive review of the literature on SC resilience plans across different organizational sizes and industries, offering new insights into the nature and dynamics of startups', SMEs', and large enterprises' SC resilience in different industries. The study highlights the need for further investigation of SC risk and resilience for startups, SMEs, and different industries on a more detailed level using empirical data. This study’s findings have important implications for researchers and practitioners and guide the development of effective SC resilience strategies for different types of firms.

Mapping pathways for building resilient supply chains: A systematic literature review

Agri-food supply chain (AFSC) resilience is receiving increasing attention as AFSC stakeholders perceive its benefits in recovering from unexpected disruptions. However, which resilience capabilities are more effective in mitigating AFSC risks remains unclear. To address this gap, this article presents a novel AFSC risk and resilience analysis based on a systematic literature review (SLR). In total, 95 journal articles on AFSC risk and resilience management published between 2004 and 2020 are analyzed to identify key risks and resilience capabilities in AFSCs, the relationships, correlations and causalities between them, and research gaps and future research directions in the field. Our SLR reveals eight types of AFSC risk and seven types of AFSC resilience capability, and enables us to develop a one-to-one resilience-risk correspondence model. Suggestions for future research include: cross-country comparative analysis to gain a deeper understanding of risk and resilience management; identification of risk and resilience strengthening strategies through a multi-sectoral approach; longitudinal studies to determine the long-term effects of resilience capabilities; research to understand resilience from the perspectives of supply-chain collaboration, traceability, redundancy, knowledge management, innovation, leadership, and flexibility; investigations of the positive effects of AFSC risks in triggering resilience capabilities; and cross-disciplinary research to understand the relationships between resilience and other disciplines.

PurposeResilience in agri-food supply chains (AFSCs) is an area of significant importance due to growing supply chain volatility. While the majority of research exploring supply chain resilience has originated from a supply chain management perspective, many other disciplines (such as environmental systems science and the social sciences) have also explored the topic. As complex social, economic and environmental constructs, the priority of resilience in AFSCs goes far beyond the company specific focus of supply chain management works and would conceivably benefit from including more diverse academic disciplines. However, this is hindered by inconsistencies in terminology and the conceptual components of resilience across different disciplines. The purpose of this study is to use a systematic literature review to identify which multidisciplinary aspects of resilience are applicable to AFSCs and to generate a novel AFSC resilience framework.Design/methodology/approachThis paper uses a structured and multidisciplinary review of 137 articles in the resilience literature followed by critical analysis and synthesis of findings to generate new knowledge in the form of a novel AFSC resilience framework.FindingsFindings indicate that the complexity of AFSCs and subsequent exposure to almost constant external interference means that disruptions cannot be seen as a one-off event; thus, resilience must concern the ability to not only maintain core function but also adapt to changing conditions.Practical implicationsA number of resilience elements can be used to enhance resilience, but their selection and implementation must be carefully matched to relevant phases of disruption and assessed on their broader supply chain impacts. In particular, the focus must be on overall impact on the ability of the supply chain as a whole to provide food security rather than to boost individual company performance.Originality/valueThe research novelty lies in the utilisation of wider understandings of resilience from various research fields to propose a rigorous and food-specific resilience framework with end consumer food security as its main focus.

Sustainability issues often trigger risks that require systematic management. Risks associated with various sustainability factors in the supply chain are becoming more pertinent in many food industries because of growing concerns about food safety and quality. This paper aims to identify the development of research topics related to risk management and sustainability in agri-food supply chains and to identify future research opportunities related to these topics through bibliometric analysis. We analyzed 320 articles from the Scopus database to determine publication trends, the most productive journals, the largest publishers, and the most cited articles. We visualized this bibliometric analysis using VosViewer version 1.6.20. The analysis reveals that “sustainability” is the most frequently studied keyword, clustering together with “risk management”, “agri-food supply chain”, “circular economy”, “supply chain resilience”, “artificial intelligence”, and “blockchain”, indicating a close relationship between these topics. “Food supply chain” and “agri-food supply chain” are also topics that have emerged in the last few years. However, there are still a few authors who publish on this topic. The combination of these keywords offers a potential avenue for future research.

Purpose The food supply chain has faced many challenges due to its complex and complicated nature. Blockchain technology is one of the mechanisms used to improve agri-food supply chain processes by evolving organization capabilities. A study is being conducted to scrutinize the adoption of blockchain technology in the agri-food supply chain through the lens of the operational capability approach. It further makes an attempt to identify the capabilities of blockchain to improve supply chain processes.Design/methodology/approach The qualitative research method with semi-structured interviews was used to gather information from experts and professionals in the food supply chain and blockchain technology. The authors have adopted a systematic approach of coding using open, axial and selective methods to depict and identify the themes that represent the blockchain-enabled agri-food supply chain. The data were collected from 32 interviews of selected participants.Findings The result shows five critical areas where blockchain can come up to enhance the agri-food supply chain performance by providing traceability, transparency, information security, transactions, and trust and quality. Further, the study reveals that blockchain will provide safety, lower the cost of transactions and can create trust among users to communicate within the whole supply chain without the intervention of a third party. This study demonstrated that the capabilities need to be considered when introducing technology into the practice.Research limitations/implications The study implies thought-provoking implications for bridging the theory-practice gap by examining the empirical data to demonstrate how the operational capabilities of blockchain technology further strengthen the agri-food supply chain. Additionally, this study provides some suggestions for utilizing the results and proposes a framework to understand more about blockchain use cases in the agri-food supply chain as well as extend the application of blockchain using an operational capability approach for future academic researchers in this area.Practical implicationsThis study presented some more important managerial implications which reveal that the majority of organisations were in the initial stages of adoption process of blockchain technology. Further, the positive influence of managers and IT experts can help the information technology companies (IT) and stakeholders for developing and promoting blockchain solutions in the agri-food supply chain. The important implication of blockchain enabled agri-food supply chain is to maintain information security and incresae supply chain performance. Originality/value The study shows the operational capabilities of agri-food supply chain using blockchain technology. Blockchain can contribute in enhancing the agri-food supply chain to increase traceability and transparency and helps to reduce the risk of disruptions.

Agri-food supply chains are inherent with some unique characteristics and that can be easily disrupted compared with other supply chains. Therefore, supply chain resilience factors are relevant and can be taken into consideration. In this paper an attempt has been made to build a theoretical framework of resilience factors in agri-food supply chains with the help of total interpretive structural modelling and matrix of cross impact multiplications applied to classification analysis. The results of the total interpretive structural modelling demonstrate that leadership plays a vital role in enhancing the resilience of the agri-food supply chain. Furthermore, the matrix of cross impact multiplications applied to classification analysis results indicate that leadership and working team stability along with strong driving power should be given critical focus by agri-food supply chain managers to facilitate the improvement of agri-food supply chain resilience. This paper contributes to the extant theory building in the field of agri-food supply chain resilience, to fill the gap that a few researches have been conducted on agri-food supply chain resilience theory building.

Agri-food supply chains are inherent with some unique characteristics and that can be easily disrupted compared with other supply chains. Therefore, supply chain resilience factors are relevant and can be taken into consideration. In this paper an attempt has been made to build a theoretical framework of resilience factors in agri-food supply chains with the help of total interpretive structural modelling and matrix of cross impact multiplications applied to classification analysis. The results of the total interpretive structural modelling demonstrate that leadership plays a vital role in enhancing the resilience of the agri-food supply chain. Furthermore, the matrix of cross impact multiplications applied to classification analysis results indicate that leadership and working team stability along with strong driving power should be given critical focus by agri-food supply chain managers to facilitate the improvement of agri-food supply chain resilience. This paper contributes to the extant theory building in the field of agri-food supply chain resilience, to fill the gap that a few researches have been conducted on agri-food supply chain resilience theory building.

Since the first case was identified, COVID-19 has spread to more than 200 countries. As of October 25, 2022, it had resulted in over 6 million deaths and 600 million confirmed cases. The rapid widespread of COVID-19 led to large-scale disruptions with major supply and demand shocks in supply chains, causing significant negative impacts on the global economy. The World Bank reported that the world GDP growth rate for 2020 was −3.27%, indicating the worst recession since 1961. First, the initial epidemic-control efforts blocked the flows of raw materials across the world, and limited labor movements by imposing temporary travel restrictions. As a result, many firms struggled with supply disruptions and labor shortages, setting off a chain reaction of disruption in global supply chains. Fortune (2020) reported that as of February 21, 2020, 94% of the Fortune 1000 companies had experienced supply-chain disruptions due to COVID-19.1 According to the Institute for Supply Management, almost 75% of companies reported supply-chain disruptions in some capacity due to coronavirus-related transportation restrictions.2 A survey conducted by the National Association of Manufacturers reported that 78.3% of manufacturers believed that COVID-19 had a significant negative influence on their financial performance, and 35.5% of them had experienced some type of supply chain disruptions.3 Second, the demand for essential personal-protective equipment increased dramatically because the virus was easily transmitted from person to person through air-borne droplets; accompanied by a drop in the need for other manufactured products (Nicola et al., 2020). For example, COVID-19 had caused a surge in the demand of face masks that were necessary to prevent infection among frontline workers (who were directly exposed to the virus when treating infected patients or conducting nucleic acid tests) and individuals in public places. China was the main producer of masks at the start of the crisis, accounting for approximately half of world production. In January 2020, China could produce 20 million masks per day, which was insufficient to equip even just healthcare workers in China. As a result of extensive efforts by the government and companies, Chinese production increased six-fold and reached 116 million masks per day by the end of February, 2020. But even this was insufficient to meet its own demand, and China imported a large quantity of masks. Similarly, Germany also experienced very limited availability of face masks in the spring of 2020. To increase the supply of face masks, the German government contracted with hundreds of companies and introduced a series of incentives to encourage local, non-medical manufacturers to temporarily transform to produce masks. More generally, demand patterns for supplies of all types became less predictable from the beginning of pandemic. Significant changes on the demand side included quick shifts of buying patterns (from physical stores to online stores) and rapid shifts of product mix (e.g., decline in office equipment to be used on site, but increases in appliances for home-office use). Compared with previous pandemics, COVID-19 has affected supply chains more durably and globally. As this special issue approaches publication, the COVID-19 pandemic has lasted for over 3 years. The extended duration of this external shock has been sufficient to permanently change the behavior of supply-chain partners (Poelman et al., 2021). These changes have encouraged firms to demonstrate an innovative bent, leading to structural process changes in a variety of industries. For example, demand for in-person restaurant dining decreased, whereas demand for take-away foods greatly increased, though by 2022, this pattern had begun to reverse. Under this change, firms needed to explore new ways of organizing their supply chains with respect to factors like product diversity and cooperation with more partners in the supply chains. This made it possible to define products and services to benefit quickly from pandemic-related opportunities (van der Vegt et al., 2015). The COVID-19 pandemic has also affected global supply chains as economic integration interacted with travel restrictions and worldwide lockdowns (Nikolopoulos et al., 2021) to create unprecedented challenges for enterprises to respond to changes in demand and supply, employee shortages, and lack of access to financial capital. These long lasting, structural, and global supply-chain impacts have led enterprises to increase responsiveness and resilience (2Rs) via management mechanisms and technological innovations. Based on the media reports and literature review, such innovative measures include cross-enterprise cooperation (e.g., Unilever and Terra Drone), government-enterprise cooperation (e.g., Hubei Provincial Government and JD Logistics), adjustments to manufacturing activities (e.g., BYD, Foxconn, Pernod Ricard, and Bauer shifted their production to face masks/shields), as well as the adoption of digital technologies (e.g., JD Logistics, New HAVI). This 2R emphasis represents a major departure from the usual emphasis on cost reduction (Caunhye et al., 2016). Observing that some companies have performed well in responding quickly to changes in demand and supply, and flexibly to disruptions, we seek to learn from the innovative practices and experiences of that have yielded success in dealing with this large-scale disruption. What were the key lessons learned in terms of selecting suppliers and managing supplier/customer relationships, designing global supply networks, and adopting new digital technologies and big data analytics? What were the long-term impacts of COVID-19 on the structures of global supply chains and the strategic positioning of major supply chain players? This special issue focuses on uncovering the key success factors and lessons from these innovative practices. We aimed to gain deeper understanding of how the adoption of technological innovations, business model innovations, and innovations in collaboration mechanisms and methods of operations improvement/optimization have helped companies enhance 2Rs in supply chains. To frame this special issue, we define some key concepts and briefly review some literature published in leading operations management journals focusing on supply chain responsiveness, supply chain resilience, supply chain integration, and big data analytics. To address disruptions and demand shocks, a great deal of emphasis has been placed in research on strategies to enhance the 2Rs in supply chains (Hendricks et al., 2009). Responsiveness is defined as the ability of a supply chain to respond purposefully within an appropriate timeframe to customer requests or supply changes in the marketplace (Shekarian et al., 2020). Generally speaking, responsiveness to changes in demand and supply is reflected in multiple aspects (Williams et al., 2013), including volume flexibility, variety flexibility, product/service modification flexibility, new product flexibility, and so on. According to Singh and Sharma (2014), a responsive supply chain could ensure a reduction in lead time, the right service quality, the right service quantity, and the on-time response to requirements of customers. Roh et al. (2014) asserted that the goal of a responsive supply chain design is to provide customers with the right product at the right place in the right length of time. The recent literature and practice show that effective measures to improve the responsiveness of supply chains include signing flexible contracts with suppliers, forecasting the trend of future demand and supply, conducting multi-source procurement, making centralized decision-making, and investing in digital technologies. Resilience is defined as the ability to mitigate the negative effects, rapidly accommodate, and react to a supply chain disruption (Kim et al., 2015). Wieland and Durach (2021) stated that resilience does not just relate to the ability of a system to bounce back after a disruptive event but also to the capacity to adapt and transform. Combining these perspectives, resilience generally refers to the ability to absorb or cushion against damage or loss, as well as the ability to rapidly recover from a disruption (Hora & Klassen, 2013). Thus, resilience is dynamic instead of static, which is considered as a fundamental attribute that supply chains need to adopt for maintaining stable growth in the face of external disruptions (Essuman et al., 2020) such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Supply chain resilience consists of multiple constituent elements, including stability, agility, robustness, collaboration, redundancy, centralization, visibility, and information sharing (Hosseini et al., 2019). Tukamuhabwa et al. (2015) emphasized the importance of building collaborative relationships in improving supply chain resilience. Other measures include maintaining slack resources, adopting a flexible production strategy, and building a risk-management infrastructure (Ambulkar et al., 2015; Modi & Mishra, 2011). Although 2Rs are the key attributes for enterprises to improve supply chain performance, there is limited research on how to develop responsive and resilient strategies to deal with long-lasting, structural, and global impacts. Previous studies mainly focused on normal situations, in which supply chain integration and big data analytics are the bases of building 2Rs supply chains. Supply chain integration is the ability to integrate all activities among a company's internal functions and external partners (supplier, distributor, retailer, etc.), until the finished product arrives at the end customer (Zhao et al., 2013). From the perspective of collaborative partners, supply chain integration could be divided by horizontal strategies and vertical strategies (Mesquita & Lazzarini, 2008), while the vertical integration is further divided by integration with suppliers (also known as upstream integration) and integration with customers (also known as downstream integration). In the era of Industry 4.0, supply chain integration consists of three dimensions: process and activity integration, technology and system integration, and organizational relationship linkages (Tiwari, 2020). A recent editorial in JOM (Browning, 2020) discussed related aspects of organizational and process integration. In recent years, under the influence of economic globalization, supply chains have been transformed. Since globalization has become pervasive, suppliers have pursued global markets, and most companies source extensively from global suppliers (Cohen & Lee, 2020). This has led to an increase in outsourcing activities and a corresponding decline in vertical integration of supply chains. As a result, supply chain networks have become flatter and more complex, composed of different organizations dispersed across multiple tiers and different geographies, and extended beyond a single country's boundaries (Choi & Hong, 2002). Global supply chains are characterized by focal firms that distribute across multiple countries, locate production facilities abroad, or source from offshore suppliers. Munir et al. (2020) showed that integration in the global supply chain could increase companies' resilience in making flexible deliveries and the number of products. Big data refers to data that arrive at a high volume and velocity with considerable variation, while analytics refers to the ability to gain insights from data via statistics, learning, optimization, or other techniques. The applications of big data and analytics are closely interlinked to enable firms to make better decisions. Hence, prior literature has typically discussed them together as big data analytics, which allows the use of advanced computing techniques, strategies and architectures to store, extract, and analyze multi-source, heterogeneous data to support decisions, and has been commonly used in operations management (Wamba et al., 2015). In the era of economic globalization, supply chain management has become extremely complex, with large-scale and online decision-making challenges emerging (Yang et al., 2021), for example, the joint decision-making between proactive planning and reactive operations in the forms of demand forecasting, production planning, inventory management, supply allocation, transportation, and distribution. It is no longer efficient to rely on traditional analytics methods. Many firms have been exploring how to take big data analytics to promote lean and agile activities in supply chain management (Baruffaldi et al., 2019). Existing studies have shown that applications of digital technologies can help improve supply chain performance by enhancing visibility and reducing supply chain risks (Govindan et al., 2018). The digitalization of supply chains produces large volumes of data, which is regarded as a new kind of resource and has the potential to create value and enhance competitiveness. Singh and El-Kassar (2019) proposed that digital technologies have transformed traditional supply chain management into a more data-driven approach, which requires a much higher level of big data analytics capabilities compared to traditional supply chain management. Following the call for papers, the submission of 114 manuscripts, and the review and revision process, seven articles were selected for this special issue that contribute to our understanding of the impact of COVID-19 on supply chains and its effect on addressing the 2Rs. In "Strengthening supply chain resilience during COVID-19: A case study of JD.com" (Shen & Sun, 2023), the authors used quantitative operational data obtained from JD.com4 to analyze the impact of the pandemic on supply chain resilience. They described the challenging scenarios that retailing supply chains experienced in China and the practical response of JD.com over the course of the pandemic the pandemic. JD.com was observed to respond well to the exceptional demand and severe logistical disruptions caused by COVID-19 in China based on its highly integrated supply chain structure (including both process and activity integration and technology and system integration) and comprehensive digital technologies. In particular, the existing, intelligent platforms and delivery procedures were modified slightly but promptly to deal with specific disruptions. The joint efforts of multiple firms, the government, and the entire Chinese society contributed to surmounting the challenges. The experience of JD.com contributes to understanding of the value of investing in operational flexibility and beyond-supply-chain collaboration given the possibility of large-scale supply chain disruptions such as the COVID-19 outbreak. In "Breaking out of the pandemic: How can firms match internal competence with external resources to shape operational resilience?" (Li et al., 2023), the authors explored how firms sought to effectively combine internal competence with external resources from the supply chain network to improve operational flexibility and stability during the COVID-19 pandemic. The internal flexibility refers to product diversity, the internal stability refers to operational efficiency, the external flexibility refers to structural holes, and the external stability refers to network centrality. Drawing upon matching theory, the authors provided an internal-external combinative perspective to explain operational mechanisms underlying different matchings. Based on the empirical results of 2994 unique firms and 5293 observations, they found that more heterogeneous combinations between internal (external) flexibility and external (internal) stability may result in a complementary effect that enhances operational resilience, whereas more homogeneous combinations between internal flexibility (or stability) and external flexibility (or stability) may have a substitutive effect that reduces operational resilience. With the COVID-19 pandemic having had a significant impact on supply chains, government initiatives have played a central role in managing the crisis. In "The impact of governmental COVID-19 measures on manufacturers' stock market valuations: The role of labor intensity and operational slack" (Chen et al., 2023), the authors investigated the impact of the Chinese government's Level I emergency-response policy (Ge et al., 2020) on manufacturers' stock-market values, and the role of manufacturers' operational slack on adding resilience. Specifically, through an event study of 1357 Chinese manufacturing companies listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, the authors found that the government's emergency-response policy triggered a statistically significant positive reaction from the stock market for manufacturers. However, the authors also found negative impacts on stock market values for manufacturers in labor-intensive industries because of the labor immobility triggered by the Level I measures. In addition, this article identified the positive role of operational slack in the form of financial slack and excess inventory in helping to maintain operations and business continuity, mitigate risks caused by the labor mobility restrictions, and improve supply chain resilience, which identifies operational slack as a supply chain resilience strategy to mitigate pandemic-related risks. When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, the medical-product industry faced unprecedented demand shocks for personal protective equipment, including face masks, face shields, disinfectants, and gowns. Companies from various industries responded to the urgent need for these potentially life-saving products by adopting ad hoc supply chains in an exceptionally short time. In "Realizing supply chain agility under time pressure: Ad hoc supply chains during the COVID-19 pandemic" (Müller et al., 2023), the authors explored the use by 34 German companies of ad hoc supply chains to produce personal protective equipment. From these cases, the authors developed an emergent theoretical model of ad hoc supply chains around enablers of supply chain agility such as dynamic capabilities (the ability to integrate, build, and reconfigure internal and external competences to address rapidly scenario changes), entrepreneurial orientation (proactiveness, risk-taking, innovativeness, autonomy, and competitive aggressiveness), and temporary orientation (speedy action in a limited time). To cope with the COVID-19 crisis, many firms allowed their employees to work from home (WFH). In "Working from home and firm resilience to the COVID-19 pandemic" (Ge et al., 2023), the authors examined whether a firm's WFH capacity increased its resilience. The authors put forward and tested a unique data set that combines listed firms' financial data, epidemiological data, and online job postings data from China. They found that imposing COVID-19 anti-contagion policies on firms and their suppliers or customers significantly increased their operating revenue volatility, slowed their recovery, and had repercussions on their supply chains. WFH enhanced firms' resistance capacity by reducing the effect of COVID-19 on their operating revenue volatility and disruptions to their supply chain partners; however, it also decreased their recovery capacity by extending the time taken to return to normal. Firm attributes, along with workers' occupations, education, and experience, impacted the effect of WFH on firm resilience. This article enhances our understanding of shock transmission across supply chains and identifies WFH as a source of firm resilience. In "Developing supply chain resilience through integration: An empirical study on an e-commerce platform" (Qi et al., 2023), the authors developed a framework that described the impact on supply chain resilience of process and activity integration between an e-commerce platform and suppliers. An analysis of data from a Chinese e-commerce platform found that integration between the e-commerce platform and suppliers in terms of information sharing, joint planning, and logistics cooperation had positive impact on supply chain resilience, while procurement automation had the opposite effect. Manufacturing flexibility positively moderated the impact of information sharing, joint planning, and logistics cooperation. The results contribute to understanding of the factors that encourage the development of supply chain resilience, suggesting that the relationship between integration and resilience is best examined within a contingency framework. There is ongoing debate about whether a firm should develop a concentrated supply chain, with the literature reporting both benefits and drawbacks. In "Opportunities or constraints? A network embeddedness perspective on the role of supply chain concentration during the pandemic" (Jiang et al., 2023), the authors examined this puzzle. Drawing on the interdependence perspective, the authors investigated how customer and supplier concentration affected supply chain resilience during the disruption and recovery stages of the pandemic, where customer concentration refers to the extent to which a firm's sales are dependent on a few major customers, and supplier concentration refers to the extent to which a firm's purchases are from a few major suppliers. The analysis of 26,488 firm-quarter observations from 2366 Chinese-listed manufacturing firms revealed that concentration can be both detrimental and beneficial, contingent on the exchange role and the crisis stage. To be specific, customer concentration accentuated the downside of firm productivity in the disruption stage but facilitated productivity restoration in the recovery stage, while supplier concentration had no significant impact on productivity in the disruption stage but hindered firm productivity from bouncing back in the recovery stage. The guest editorial team (Xiang Li, Xiande Zhao, Hau L. Lee, and Chris Voss) would like to thank the co-editors-in-chief of the Journal of Operations Management, Suzanne de Treville and Tyson Browning, for their support. The authors would also like to acknowledge all of the many reviewers and associate editors for their extensive reviews and expert advice on the large number of articles submitted to this special issue. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 71931001, 71722007). The research of Prof. Zhao was partially suported by the Major Program of National Social Science Foundation of China (22&ZD082).

Since it is an important human need and many organizations are involved in the value chain, the agricultural food supply chain is exposed to various risks that arise naturally or through human actions. This study aims to develop the application of a quality function deployment approach to increase the resilience of the food supply chain by understanding customer needs and logistical risks in the food supply chain. In-depth studies with empirical analysis were conducted to determine the importance of customer needs, food supply chain risks, and actions to improve supply chain resilience of SMEs in the agri-food industry. The result shows that the top three customer needs are "attractive, bright color", "firm texture" and "fresh smell". The top three risks in the agri-food supply chain are "improper storage," "Harvest Failure" and "Human Resource Risks" and the top three resilience actions are "continuous training," "preventive maintenance," and "supply chain forecasting." The implications of this study are to propose an idea that broadens the perspective of supply chain resilience in the agri-food industry by incorporating the needs of customers in considering how to mitigate the existing risks to the satisfaction of customers, and it also highlights the relatively low skill and coordination of the workforce in agri-food supply chains.

Since it is an important human need and many organizations are involved in the value chain, the agricultural food supply chain is exposed to various risks that arise naturally or through human actions. This study aims to develop the application of a quality function deployment approach to increase the resilience of the food supply chain by understanding customer needs and logistical risks in the food supply chain. In-depth studies with empirical analysis were conducted to determine the importance of customer needs, food supply chain risks, and actions to improve supply chain resilience of SMEs in the agri-food industry. The result shows that the top three customer needs are "attractive, bright color", "firm texture" and "fresh smell". The top three risks in the agri-food supply chain are "improper storage," "Harvest Failure" and "Human Resource Risks" and the top three resilience actions are "continuous training," "preventive maintenance," and "supply chain forecasting." The implications of this study are to propose an idea that broadens the perspective of supply chain resilience in the agri-food industry by incorporating the needs of customers in considering how to mitigate the existing risks to the satisfaction of customers, and it also highlights the relatively low skill and coordination of the workforce in agri-food supply chains.

Purpose This study aims to conduct a comprehensive systematic literature review to evaluate the role of big data analytics (BDA) in enhancing supply chain resilience (SCRes) in the manufacturing sector, particularly in the post-COVID-19 context. It identifies key trends, conceptual developments and thematic focus areas. Design/methodology/approach The study adopts a systematic literature review methodology following a transparent protocol. A total of 115 peer-reviewed articles published between 2020 and 2025 were retrieved from five leading databases. The selected studies were examined using both descriptive and content analysis techniques. Descriptive analysis explored trends across publication years, countries, journals, and methods, while content analysis focused on identifying BDA and SCRes antecedents and the benefits of BDA deployment. Findings The analysis revealed a significant rise in research interest on BDA and SCRes after COVID-19, especially from developing manufacturing countries. The review identified multiple BDA antecedents (e.g. digital infrastructure, data-driven culture, BDA skills), and SCRes drivers (e.g. visibility, collaboration, agility, responsiveness). The review also identifies that BDA significantly contributes to SCRes by enhancing visibility, transparency and flexibility in supply chain operations. It plays a crucial role in supporting decision-making, proactive risk management and implementing predisruption resilience measures. Research limitations/implications The scope of this paper is limited to the post-COVID-19 literature based on original research on BDA in SCRes, with a focus on the manufacturing industry. With the integration of BDA antecedents, resilience mechanisms and realized benefits, it provides both theoretical clarity and actionable intelligence for researchers, policymakers and supply chain practitioners. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is one of the first systematic literature reviews to focus exclusively on the intersection of BDA and SCRes in the post-COVID-19 manufacturing context. It offers an updated synthesis of research, proposes a conceptual understanding of BDA-driven resilience mechanisms and highlight the importance of BDA deployment for resilience supply chain.

Purpose Agri-food supply chains (AFSCs) are vulnerable to disruptive shocks, making supply chain resilience critical for continuous food supplies. Developing countries are under-prepared and over-exposed to shocks, and their strategies to build supply chain resilience remain limited in scope. The purpose of this study is to explore whether outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) could serve as an innovative strategy for developing countries to improve home-country AFSC resilience, using the case of the 2008 Chinese melamine crisis. Design/methodology/approach This study uses a novel theoretical intersection between supply chain resilience and OFDI theory. Applying conditional logistic regressions to Chinese dairy investment data between 2008 and 2020, collected from Thomson Reuters, the Financial Times and the Chinese Global Investment Tracker, the paper analyses key resilience elements including redundancy, flexibility and visibility to explore potential OFDI strategies. Findings Results show that strategies aimed at reducing AFSC vulnerabilities appear favoured in international investment decisions over those promoting closer partner linkages. This emphasises firms may stabilise domestic AFSCs following shocks by investing internationally in host countries with excess capacities. Originality/value The study introduces OFDI as a potential strategy for enhancing home-country AFSC resilience, an angle largely absent from current research. It contributes novel empirical insights in a field where quantitative studies remain scarce and suggests policy makers in developing countries could learn from the Chinese experience when dealing with shocks. Novel policy instruments - such as capital controls and food safety regulation - could be considered to proactively enhance AFSC resilience by incentivising OFDI.

Supply chain environmental risks are pivotal situational factors that significantly influence the intricate relationship between a business’s supply chain agility, supply chain resilience, and its ultimate supply chain performance. This study aims to explore the interplay between supply chain agility, supply chain resilience, and supply chain performance, while also investigating the moderating effect of supply chain environmental risks. Data analysis was conducted using hierarchical regression based on a questionnaire survey involving 416 companies in Taiwan’s manufacturing supply chain. The findings reveal several key insights. Firstly, supply chain agility has a positive influence on supply chain resilience, highlighting the importance of a flexible and responsive supply chain to handle challenges effectively. Secondly, supply chain resilience plays a vital role in determining supply chain performance, underscoring its significance in maintaining operational efficiency and effectiveness. Furthermore, the study identifies that supply chain environmental risks can act as a positive moderator in the relationship between supply chain agility and supply chain resilience. In other words, when faced with environmental risks, companies with higher supply chain agility can leverage this capability to reinforce their supply chain resilience, leading to improved supply chain performance. Additionally, the results shed light on the mediating role of supply chain resilience between supply chain agility and supply chain performance. This suggests that a resilient supply chain acts as an intermediary mechanism through which the positive effects of supply chain agility translate into enhanced overall performance. Given the uncertain and turbulent market environment today, these findings emphasize the importance of adopting supply chain agility and supply chain resilience as indispensable business strategies. Therefore, enterprise leaders and managers should proactively implement measures to enhance these aspects of their supply chain to effectively navigate and overcome environmental risks, ultimately driving supply chain performance.