Search results

Circular economy advocates innovations that upcycle wastes in the food supply chain to generate high added-value materials. These innovations are not only disruptive and green but also they are often initiated by startups, leading to the emergence of novel open-loop supply chains connecting actors in food and non-food sectors. While earlier research has highlighted the need to seek legitimacy for disruptive innovations to survive and grow, little is known about how these innovations occur and evolve across sectors. This paper aims to elaborate on this mechanism by exploring the function of the circular economy as a boundary object to facilitate legitimacy-seeking strategies.

An exploratory multiple-case research design is adopted and features food waste innovation projects with multi-tier supply chains consisting of a food producer, a startup and a buying firm. The study is investigated from the legitimacy and boundary object lenses.

The findings proposed a framework for the role of a boundary object in enabling legitimacy-seeking strategies for novel food waste innovations. First, the interpretative flexibility of the circular economy affords actors symbolic resources to conduct manipulation strategy to achieve cognitive legitimacy. Second, small-scale work arrangements enable creation strategy for the new supply chain to harness moral legitimacy. Finally, pragmatic legitimacy is granted via diffusion strategy enabled by scalable work arrangements.

This paper provides novel insights into the emergence of food waste innovation from a multi-tier supply chain perspective. It also highlights the key role of the boundary object in the legitimacy-seeking process.

The COVID-19 outbreak has imposed extensive shocks embracing all stages of the food supply chain (FSC). Although the magnitude is still unfolding, the FSC responds with remarkable speed, to mitigate the disruptive consequences and sustain operations. This paper aims to investigate how operationalising supply chain agility (SCA) practices has occurred amid the COVID-19 crisis and expectations for how those practices could transform the supply chain in the post-COVID-19 era.

Following an exploratory case-based design, this paper examines the various agile responses that three supply chains (meat, fresh vegetables and bread) adopted and elaborate using the dynamic capability (DC) theoretical lens.

First, the findings demonstrate how, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, each affected case pursued various agile responses through sensing and seizing capabilities. Sensing includes identifying and assessing the relevant opportunities and threats associated with the specific supply chain context. Seizing involves acquiring, combining and modifying the tangible and intangible resources at the firm and supply chain levels. Second, supply chain transformation is likely if firms and their supply chain develop the sustaining capability to ensure that the desirable changes outlast the crisis.

This study provides an actionable guide for practitioners to develop agile responses to systemic changes in times of crisis and to sustain favourable changes so as to enable their outlasting of the crisis.

This study provides a novel and unique perspective on the role of SCA in crisis – in this case, the pandemic. This paper synthesises the empirical stories of the agile responses in the FSC and elaborates on the DC framework, to identify theoretical and practical implications. This paper establishes the sustaining capability as the missing DC capability for enabling transformation in the post-COVID-19 era.

Managing risks is becoming a highly focused activity in the health service sector. In particular, due to the complex nature of processes in the pharmaceutical industry, several risks have been associated to its supply chains. The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyze the risks occurring in the supply chains of the pharmaceutical industry and propose a decision model, based on the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method, for evaluating risks in pharmaceutical supply chains (PSCs).

The proposed model was developed based on the Delphi method and AHP techniques. The Delphi method helped to select the relevant risks associated to PSCs. A total of 16 sub risks within four main risks were identified through an extensive review of the literature and by conducting a further investigation with experts from five pharmaceutical companies in Bangladesh. AHP contributed to the analysis of the risks and determination of their priorities.

The results of the study indicated that supply-related risks such as fluctuation in imports arrival, lack of information sharing, key supplier failure and non-availability of materials should be prioritized over operational, financial and demand-related risks.

This work is one of the initial contributions in the literature that focused on identifying and evaluating PSC risks in the context of Bangladesh. This research work can assist practitioners and industrial managers in the pharmaceutical industry in taking proactive action to minimize its supply chain risks. To the end, the authors performed a sensitivity analysis test, which gives an understanding of the stability of ranking of risks.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a conceptual overview of potential diasporic influence in India by Indian diaspora and to outline a wide spectrum of policy interventions for better utilisation of diasporic resources, which are under-exploited.

This paper used a systematic review approach to analyze the vast empirical and theoretical literature, up to 2016, and to assess the different kinds of impacts of diaspora on the homeland. A list of top-tier journals in the field of international migration, diaspora and ethnic entrepreneurship was compiled. From there, each and every paper was identified, examined, coded and classified into high-level themes. These were then reviewed, analyzed and interpreted.

Indian diasporic affair has undergone numerous changes since India’s independence. This study presents a conceptual framework on the role of migration and diaspora in the country of origin with a special focus on India and point out the possible directions for future studies.

The systematic review approach has a qualitative nature, in which the relevant literature was interpreted based on the authors’ domain knowledge and expertise.

Academicians and policy practitioners can gain a comprehensive understanding of the dynamic relationships among the key influential factors in migration, diaspora and its developmental role in homeland, as presented in the conceptual framework in the study. Accordingly, policymakers will be able to develop effective strategies to leverage the positive impacts of diasporic role in India and the other South-Asian developing countries.

This systematic review synthesizes the findings reported in most recent publications and government reports and develops an integrated conceptual framework, anchoring on possible positive impacts of diaspora in homeland. This framework provides a visual diagram to practitioners for a better understanding of the relevant literature and assists researchers and policymakers in developing a new strategy for future diasporic affairs.