Social media in operations and supply chain management: State-of-the-Art and research directions

Abstract

Recently, industrial and academic communities in the operations and supply chain management (OSCM) field are paying increasing attention to social media. However, the value of social media in OSCM is quite unclear, and more investigations are still needed. To pave the way for directed future research, this paper systematically reviewed and synthesised 152 peer-review journal papers to identify research focus and gaps in this area, supported by an appropriate conceptual framework. The result reveals that the research interests in this area have increased dramatically within the last decade across various industries and regions. Different companies’ OSCM activities, such as sourcing and delivery, can benefit from employment of social media. This paper also indicates that future research can explore the value of social media in sourcing, delivery, product return and reverse logistics, forecasting and inventory management, and product development and production.