Shaping the Future of Cold Chain 4.0 Through the Lenses of Digital Transition and Sustainability

Abstract

The digitization of supply chain management lies at the crux of modern industry and similar trends are noticeable in the cold chain (CC) under the cold chain 4.0 (CC 4.0) concept. However, the extant research lacks a systematic summary of existing findings on CC 4.0. Therefore, this article provides a bibliometric and network analysis of 618 high-quality CC 4.0 publications extracted from the Web of Science. The article uses performance assessment and science mapping to investigate the impact of digital and sustainable technologies in the CC domain. Four main research streams and 19 research propositions are identified to provide an informative overview of the most recent developments in the emerging and growing domain of CC 4.0 and the interface between information systems and operations management. The article further identifies the critical role and impacts of digital-sustainable transformation and presents an agenda for future research focusing on critical theoretical and managerial areas that remain understudied.