Supply Chain Finance Revisited: A Critical Review with Future Prospects

Abstract

Supply Chain Finance (SCF) is a relatively recent thinking in Supply Chain Management (SCM) literature. Major Interest in SCF has steadily increased since the past decades and especially during the global financial crisis of 2008. However, SCF places the focus of research on the interconnection among SCM, corporate value and financial performance, away from the myopic perspective of managing solely the cost when studying financial aspects of SCM. Despite the crisis-related research interest and the growing importance of SCF, academic contributions on the subject remain vague, while scarce research efforts have been identified toward the systematic documentation of its core concepts and the development of a “general theory” of SCF. This paper aims to redefine the term SCF by shedding light on theoretical ambiguities, provide an up-to-date systematic literature review of the SCF concept and identify research gaps. The goal is to also highlight emerging areas like the “Supply Chain Financial Bullwhip Effect” and Blockchain Technology.