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Severe disruptions to maritime supply chains, including port closures, congestion and shortages in shipping capacity, have occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper’s purpose is to explore flexibility-based countermeasures that enable actors in maritime supply chains to mitigate the effects of disruptions with different characteristics.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with shipping lines, shippers, forwarders and ports. Data on the COVID-19 pandemic's effects and countermeasures were collected and compared with data regarding the 2016–2017 Gothenburg port conflict.

Spatial, capacity, service and temporal flexibility emerged as the primary countermeasures, whilst important characteristics of disruptions were geographical spread, duration, uncertainty, criticality, the element of surprise and intensity. Spatial flexibility was exercised in both disruptions by switching to alternative ports. During the COVID-19 pandemic, ensuring capacity flexibility included first removing and then adding vessels. Shipping lines exercising service flexibility prioritised certain cargo, which made the spot market uncertain and reduced flexibility for forwarders, importers and exporters that changed carriers or traffic modes. Experience with disruptions meant less surprise and better preparation for spatial flexibility.

Understanding how actors in maritime supply chains exercise flexibility-based countermeasures amid disruptions with different characteristics can support preparedness for coming disruptions.

Comparing flexibility-based measures in a pandemic versus port conflict provides insights into the important characteristics of disruptions and the relevance of mitigation strategies. The resilience of maritime supply chains, although underexamined compared with manufacturing supply chains, is essential for maintaining global supply chain flows.

This study aims to increase understanding of factors influencing the international marketing (IM) strategy of products from emerging markets (EMs) to international markets.

This study conducted case studies by collecting qualitative data through semistructured interviews with respondents from four food product companies in Bangladesh.

This study finds that the firms employ local Bangladeshi people who are knowledgeable in the company culture. They strategically focus on countries where the Bangladeshi diaspora lives and initially target them, approaching natives later. They adapt and customize products to the importers’ requirements to make them visible and increase understanding between product providers and local customers. The findings show that EM firms encounter a mentality that poor countries produce poor quality products; this mindset makes the internationalization of their business difficult.

This research contributes to international product marketing of EM firms by constructing a model of a modern people-oriented marketing strategy for food products. This study contributes to literature on culture by illustrating that the cultural dimensions of collectivism and uncertainty avoidance enhance the development of networks and trust and impact marketing strategy.

This study theorizes the importance of context and an innovation-driven modern people-oriented IM strategy that adapts to customers’ preferences for food products and emphasizes the contribution of diaspora. This research reveals that Bangladeshi firms face challenges both because customers link the country and the companies to low-quality products and because governmental regulations prevent them from establishing a local presence in other countries. This study analyzes challenges EM firms face in the process of IM and the factors affecting Bangladesh in particular.

After completion of the case study, students will be able to understand the concept of clustering and identify clusters for improving capacity utilization, analyse transport routes to optimize logistics resources, analyse the impact of a full truckload on resource optimization, evaluate unused capacity and ascertain the impact of reverse milk run to reduce the same and apply clustering and reverse milk run to optimize the logistics resources.

The case study is about a freight forwarding company that offered end-to-end logistics solutions for the exporters based in India. Within a short time span, the company became one of the sought-after service providers for its clients. However, when the company planned to expand its business by expanding its client base, the efficiencies reduced and hurt the profitability of the company. It was all excellent with the limited number of clients, but as the number of distantly located clients surged, the operating costs increased. Trucks were running with partial loads, thus reducing efficiency. The rate of increase in cost surpassed the rate of revenue every time. The cost per mile of transportation was on the rise. The surging fuel prices were adding to the heat. In spite of being one of the first choices for clients, the company could not generate good profit margins. If they chose to increase prices, the company would have lost customers to the cheaper unorganized players in the market. It was time to choose between growth and survival. The company could not sustain itself without devising a mechanism to reduce costs. The company would not have sustained itself without devising a mechanism to reduce costs. To sustain in the business, the company had to device a mechanism to reduce costs. Whether to continue operating the conventional way or to transform? Was there a logistics strategy that would have improved transportation efficiency and reduced the costs for the company?

The case study is suitable for teaching post-graduate management courses in operations and logistics, supply chain management and supply chain analytics, as well as entrepreneurship-related courses.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CCS 9: Operations and logistics.

The purpose of this paper is to explore issues relating to imposing a ban on the importation of asbestos-contaminated building materials (ACBMs) in the Australian context to better understand the multiple accountabilities and consequences.

This study undertakes a qualitative content analysis of the multiple accountabilities and stakeholder expectations using the lens of actor–network theory. This study further explores the weaknesses and complexities associated with implementing a complete ban on asbestos, ensuring that only asbestos-free building materials are imported to Australia. This study uses data collected from 15 semi-structured interviews with stakeholders, responses from the Australian Border Force to a questionnaire and 215 counter accounts from the media, the Australian Government, industry organizations, non-governmental organizations and social group websites during the period from 2003 to 2021.

This study reveals that stakeholders' expectations of zero tolerance for asbestos have not been met. This assertion has been backed by evidence of asbestos contamination in imported building materials throughout recent years. Stakeholders say that the complete prevention of the importation of ACBMs has been delayed because of issues in policy implementations, opaque supply chain activities, lack of transparency and non-adherence to mandatory and self-regulated guidelines.

Stakeholders expect public and private sector organizations to meet their accountabilities through mandatory adoption of the given policy framework.

This research provides a road map to identify the multiple accountabilities, their related weaknesses and the lack of implementation of the necessary protocol, which prevents a critical aspect of legislation from being effectively implemented.

This article aims to explore the concept of chain value of the public port system in Ecuador from the perspective of importing/exporting companies, analyzing how perceived value in the use of port services affects customer satisfaction and the intermediate links of the influence of trust and commitment on customer loyalty.

Relying on a survey of 634 Ecuadorian companies with experience in international trade as port users and a theoretical framework well-established in the literature on consumer behavior, the empirical study found evidence of a positive and significant relationship with the knowledge of chain effects.

The findings confirm the chain effect and reveal ways to maintain an ongoing satisfactory, trust and committed relationship with users, thereby ultimately gaining and maintaining their loyalty. The conclusions suggest how this postulate can help to close the gap referred to the effective management of port services, and point out that port managers should be concerned with a continuous in-depth understanding of the perceived value and its chain effects.

The authors add evidence of the use of the postulate of the chain of effects on these dimensions, whose applicability is very well established, tested and consensual for the doctrine in industrial marketing. In contrast, it is scarcely present in the port relationship with its users.

This paper aims to examine the existing literature on firms’ power through the lens of the supply chain and highlights some gaps that could be covered by future research.

This study uses a systematic framework-based review combining the insights of the antecedents, decisions and outcomes (ADO) and theories, contexts and methods (TCM) frameworks. The review was carried out using a sample of 108 articles published between 1984 and 2022 in 25 prestigious journals.

The ADO framework maps out the state of the art of the antecedents of power (i.e. sources and types of firm power), the decision to use power and the effect that exercising power over other firms may have on firm performance and the quality of inter-firm relationships. In addition, this framework highlights factors that mediate or moderate the decision to exercise power and the factors that mediate or moderate the outcomes of exercising power or power asymmetry. The TCM framework provides insights into the theories, contexts (i.e. countries, industries, level of analysis and sources of data) and methods used by the existing literature. The content analysis using the aforementioned frameworks provides the basis to elaborate propositions for future research on power in the supply chain from the perspective of gender differences.

This systematic literature review offers a comprehensive guide for researchers to understand the antecedents, decisions and outcomes of firm power in the supply chain, as well as the TCM used in the literature. The content analysis using frameworks provides a road map to investigate the proposed factors that might moderate the decision to exercise power and the outcome of exercising power or power asymmetry from the perspective of gender differences. In addition, based on content analysis, the authors make propositions about TCM that could be applied in future research.

From a practical perspective, this systematic literature review may help managers to better understand the sources and consequences of their firm’s power. This would allow managers to make better decisions when negotiating with their supply chain parties, which could potentially lead to better performance for their firms and the whole supply chain.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to conduct a comprehensive systematic literature review of the different dimensions of firms’ power in the supply chain.

Purpose of this study is to explore the nature of relationship between internationalization of firms, sustainability of their supply chains, and the extent of their green innovations. Understanding of the relationship between these constructs is important because of the ever increasing sustainability awareness of consumers in the leading economies of the world. This awareness is now compelling importers of goods from cheap-labor countries to ensure that their suppliers comply with sustainability regulations. This compliance becomes very challenging because of the lack of control on second-tier and third-tier suppliers in a supply chain. First-tier suppliers in this case may drive this effort but need to be motivated enough to do so. In case of environmental sustainability, green innovation (GI) may provide a gradual, and thus more affordable and practical, move toward more eco-friendly ways. As far as the motivation to commit to sustainability and GI is concerned, internationalization and export business expansion may act as one of the most effective motivators for these suppliers. However, the nature of relationship between these three constructs, i.e. internationalization of firms, sustainability of their supply chains and the extent of their GI requires a better understanding.

The work uses a novel data set collected from 146 medium and large textile firms operating in Pakistan. The partial least square-structural equation modeling approach is used for data analysis.

All three constructs of internationalization, GI and sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) are significantly associated and thus complement each other.

This work uses a novel agency theory perspective to analyze the relationship between internationalization, GI and SSCM. In that sense, the findings indicate that internationalization could be one of the incentives that can be used by the principals to deal with agents’ goal conflict and information asymmetry.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the evolution of the rules of origin (RoO) of Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).

This analysis is done by comparing them with those of existing FTAs/EPAs of ASEAN with other RCEP member countries, and also examining the impact of recent mega-FTAs/EPAs, such as TPP11 and Japan-EU EPA, in which some of the member countries participated.

RCEP holds great significance in that it connects Japan and China and Japan and South Korea, which previously have not had any EPAs/FTAs, transforms this massive economic sphere from one with minutely divided and differing RoO under ASEAN plus FTAs to one that is seamlessly connected with those of having evolved into the unified RoO under RCEP, and realizes ideal production networks in Asia.

This paper makes it clear that RCEP, while based on ASEAN plus FTAs, reflects progressive provisions of recent mega-FTAs/EPAs, and adopts simpler and more systematic rules. These provisions limit the distortive effect on trade, realize ideal production networks in Asia, and are appropriate as uniform RoO connecting networks across this massive economic sphere. It also points out that there are provisions that have not been introduced and those that are considered to have been incomplete as a result of negotiations, and the possibility of evolving into more ideal RoO by utilizing the system for revisions established under the agreement.

This study explores the influence of informal “psychological contracts” (PCs), (as opposed to formal contractual relationships) on exporter–distributor relationships.

Data were obtained from a sample of 127 exporting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in New Zealand. The authors employed partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) for analyzing the measurement and structural models.

Psychological contract fulfillment (PCF) enhances affective commitment and calculative commitment. Moreover, affective and calculative commitments mediate the relationship between PCF and export venture performance (EVP). The authors also find that institutional distance (ID) weakens the relationship between PCF and both affective and calculative commitment. Additionally, ID moderates the strength of the mediating mechanism for affective commitment; thus, the authors present a moderated-mediation model.

To date, international relationship marketing (IRM) literature has focused on PC breach, and business-to-business (B2B) marketing literature has focused on the effects of PCs on affective/relational commitment. This study offers novel insights by demonstrating the positive indirect effect of PCF on EVP via the mediating variables – affective and calculative commitment. The authors' findings also present a conditioning role of ID on the micro-level relationships of PCs.

To better understand the supplier's role in promoting supply chain sustainability (SCS), the authors investigated the learning process as it relates to sustainability knowledge. Through the lens of the knowledge-based view, they understand the shift of sustainability knowledge from rhetoric to common knowledge existent between suppliers and buyers.

A case study method was employed to study sustainability knowledge learning between a key global coffee supplier and its geographically dispersed buyers. The research was developed with data collected from 2019 through 2021. Interviews and secondary data were analyzed using both deductive and inductive approaches.

Results were organized to demonstrate how the supplier developed and transferred its own sustainability knowledge within supplier–buyer dyads. The authors uncovered that buyer selection was a vital strategy used to appropriate the value created to ensure SCS learning. Four learning stages were analyzed, and while the results indicated that all buyers acquired knowledge, they also showed that only four distributed it. Moreover, different levels of interpretation were identified, two of which were associated with a low level of understanding of the meaning of sustainability knowledge. In addition, the data provided little evidence of organizational memory. All links were guided by common sustainability knowledge learned through multiple learning loops between the supplier's knowledge management and buyers' SCS learning, thus boosting sustainability in the coffee supply chain.

A greater understanding of how sustainability knowledge is learned in supply chains helps managers develop better SCS strategies.

Unlike previous research, this paper illustrates that common sustainability knowledge is key to SCS implementation, which is made possible by carefully selecting buyers and by facilitating sustainability knowledge learning through two-way interactions.