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Reverse supply chain (RSC) is one of the ways to handle product returns efficiently. Recovery of residual value from product returns also helps in achieving sustainability. Its successful implementation requires coordination among all the channel members involved in the activities, from the acquisition to collection to the disposition of returned products. This article aims to review the literature about coordination issues in the RSC.

A systematic literature review of 151 articles published during 2004–2021 is carried out. Theory, context and methodology (TCM) framework of the literature review is used to identify the research gaps for future research directions.

This study identifies the characteristics of RSC coordination. It includes channel structures; coordination mechanisms; performance measuring parameters; the methodology applied and explored industries. The review shows that game-theoretical modeling in RSC coordination is the most commonly used method to coordinate the channels. It was found that issues like disruption, fairness and corporate social responsibility are not explored in-depth and offer much potential for future research.

There are very limited studies on coordination issues in the RSC. The proposed articles add value by considering RSC issues from different strategic, government, consumers' behavior and functionality decision-making point of view.

In globalized market, organizations of all sizes are having huge opportunities for growth. However, due to various resource constraints, it has become challenging for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) of growing economies to survive in this global competition. Effective supply chain management (SCM) can be a major driving factor for success of Indian SMEs in dynamic world economy. SMEs face many operational challenges while implementing effective SCM. The purpose of this paper is to study different strategic issues for successful implementation of SCM in Indian SMEs.

A survey has been conducted in Indian SMEs of different sectors. Major constructs of survey instrument are motivations, hindrances, investment priorities, supply chain practices and performance. In total, 1,500 Indian SMEs have been approached for collecting response through survey instrument. 257 complete responses were finalized. Statistical analysis of data acquired from survey is performed by using SPSS software.

It is observed that managing customers, organization resources, and inventory are main SCM practices. Major investment areas are systems for developing quick response and quality management. Currently, human resource and knowledge management have been found to be less priority areas for SMEs. The major focus of Indian SMEs is on cost and lead time reduction by having effective SCM.

Novelty of this study is that strategic issues for effective SCM in context to Indian SMEs have been analyzed. The findings of the study will help Indian SMEs in doing strategic planning for being competitive in the global market.

Nowadays, many firms are finding ways to enhance the survivability of sustainable supply chains (SUSSCs). The present study aims to develop a model for the SUSSCs of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) during the COVID-19 pandemic.

With the help of exhaustive literature review, constructs and items are identified to collect the responses from different SMEs. A total of 278 complete responses are received and 6 hypotheses are developed. Hypotheses testing have been done using structural equation modeling (SEM).

Major constructs identified for the study are supply chain (SC) performance measurement under uncertainty (SPMU), supply chain cooperation (SCCO), supply chain positioning (SCP), supply chain administration (SCA), supply chain feasibility (SCF) and the SUSSCs. From statistical analysis of the data collected, it can be concluded that the considered latent variables contribute significantly towardsthe model fit.

The present study contributes to the existing literature on disruptions and survivability. The study can be further carried out in context to different countries and sectors to generalize the findings.

The research findings will be fruitful for SMEs and other organizations in developing strategies to improve survivability during uncertain business environments.

The study has developed a model that shows that the identified latent variables and their indicators contribute significantly toward the dependent variable, i.e. survivability. It contributes significantly in bridging the research gaps existing in context to the survivability of SMEs.

Today, most of the manufacturing systems are changing very fast in terms of the adoption of new technologies. New technologies being implemented are Internet of Things, cyber physical systems, cloud computing, Big Data analytics and information and communication technologies. Most of the organizations in the value chain are implementing these technologies at the individual level rather than across the whole supply chain. It makes the supply chain less coordinated and causes suboptimal utilization of resources. For efficient and optimal use of modern technologies, supply chains should be highly coordinated. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate an approach for determining the index to quantify coordination in the supply chain.

From the literature review, total 32 factors have been identified. These factors are further clubbed into six clusters for evaluation of the coordination index. The graph theoretic approach has been used for evaluating the coordination index of a supply chain of an Indian organization.

This study has illustrated a comprehensive approach to quantify coordination of a supply chains for effective benchmarking of the supply chain performance in the Industry 4.0 era. Presently, it is observed that top management is giving more focus on organizational issues such as lean organization structure, organization culture and responsiveness factors for improving coordination in the supply chain rather than on Industry 4.0 technologies.

This framework can also be used for comparison, ranking and analysis of coordination issues in different supply chains in the era of Industry 4.0. Organizations can use this approach for benchmarking purpose also to improve different supply chain processes for meeting dynamic market requirements.

Globalization and liberalization of the world economy have leveled the field for all competitors across the globe. To face global competition successfully, SMEs have to break their isolation in the value chain. To overcome the dynamic challenges of the market, supply chain management can be an important tool for SMEs. The purpose of this paper is to synthesize different issues related to the coordination and responsiveness of supply chain management in SMEs, through a review of the literature.

In all, 116 research papers, mainly from referred international journals, are reviewed to identify the thrust areas of research. On the basis of the review, gaps are identified and a research agenda is proposed.

It is observed from the review that SMEs have not been very proactive in implementing supply chain management. These organizations face a lot of problems in coordinating their operations with other members of the supply chain. They are localized in functioning. On export fronts SMEs face many constraints due to lack of resources and poor innovative capabilities. To face the challenges of open global market, SMEs have to manage their problems and supply chain risks effectively. Research gaps are identified in different areas of the supply chain such as coordination and responsiveness issues, service quality issues, and performance benchmarking for future directions of research.

This paper explores the major areas for research on coordination and responsiveness of SME supply chains. The findings of the paper will be highly useful for the researchers to decide the direction of their research.

This study aims to explore the challenges faced by the tourism and hospitality industry following the COVID-19 pandemic and to propose effective strategies for recovery and resilience of this sector.

The study analysed the challenges encountered by the tourism and hospitality industry post-pandemic and identified key strategies for overcoming these challenges. The study utilised the modified Delphi method to finalise the challenges and employed the Best-Worst Method (BWM) to rank these challenges. Additionally, solution strategies are ranked using the Criteria Importance Through Intercriteria Correlation (CRITIC) method.

The study identified significant challenges faced by the tourism and hospitality industry, highlighting the lack of health and hygiene facilities as the foremost concern, followed by increased operational costs. Moreover, it revealed that attracting millennial travellers emerged as the top priority strategy to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on this industry.

This research contributes to understanding the challenges faced by the tourism and hospitality industry in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. It offers valuable insights into practical strategies for recovery. The findings provide beneficial recommendations for policymakers aiming to revive and support these industries.

With gaining popularity, online communities are increasing. It is leading to the data and information overflow. So, there are some challenges like cyber frauds, cyberbullying, etc. while engaging with online communities. Not only this, anonymity of the participants, stress and racism are also big challenges in online communities' interaction. Online harassers' attack tactics have changed over time. In addition, there are challenges like quality of discussion, inequality in participation of the users, etc. may scale online communities towards incitement and activism. Therefore, this study will try to analyse these challenges for overall benefit of the society.

The underlying fuzzy set theory is employed to handle the fuzziness of users' perceptions since the attributes are expressed in linguistic preferences. Through exhaustive literature review, the authors have identified 15 challenges. These challenges are further categorised as cause and effect by using DEMATEL (Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory) approach.

Lack of strategic planning and uninspired discussions between users has emerged as a major challenge in cause category. This study further demonstrates how individual challenge can be managed and developed to navigate the online communities to maintain a healthy environment in society.

Results are based on limited dataset. Therefore, findings cannot be generalised for all online communities.

The research findings offer a suitable direction to policymakers to formulate and design policies, laws and regulations to increase user engagement in the online community. The study is beneficial to firms and researchers in understanding the factors influencing effective management of online communities.

Manufacturing industries are facing dynamic challenges in today’s highly competitive world. In the recent past, integrating Industry 4.0 with the lean six sigma improvement methodologies has emerged as a popular approach for organizational excellence. The research aims to explore and analyze critical success factors of lean six sigma integrated Industry 4.0 (LSSI).

This research study explores and analyzes the critical success factors (CSFs) of LSSI. A three-phase study framework is employed. At first, the CSFs are identified through an extensive literature review and validated through experts’ feedback. Then, in the second phase, the initial list of CSFs is finalized using the fuzzy DELPHI technique. In the third phase, the cause-effect relationship among CFSs is established using the fuzzy DEMATEL technique.

A dyadic relationship among cause-and-effect category CSFs is established. Under the cause category, top management commitment toward integrating LSSI, systematic methodology for LSSI and organizational culture for adopting changes while adopting LSSI are found to be topmost CSFs. Also, under the effect category, organizational readiness toward LSSI and adaptability and agility are found to be the uppermost CSFs.

The study offers a framework to understand the significant CSFs for LSSI implementation. Insights from the study will help industry managers and practitioners to implement LSSI and achieve organizational excellence.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, CSFs of LSSI are not much explored in the past by researchers. Findings will be of great value for professionals in developing long-term operations strategies.

In complex business environment of today, organizations are trying to be flexible and agile for meeting dynamic demands of customers in terms of product variety, cost cutting and decreasing product life cycle. The main purpose of this paper is to identify different attributes of flexibility and to propose an approach for evaluating flexibility index of a supply chain.

Total 33 factors are identified from the literature and further clustered into six major groups. They are top management commitment, organizational factors, mutual understanding, flow of information, relationship and decision-making and responsiveness. On the basis of these factors, an index has been developed by using graph theory matrix approach to evaluate the flexibility intensity of the supply chain for the firm in consideration.

The proposed approach has been illustrated in context to an Indian automobile organization, and value of the flexibility index has been evaluated. Framework proposed will help the supply chain managers to evaluate the flexibility index of their respective organizations.

As values taken for different flexibility sub-factors are based on inputs given by managers of case organization, chances of bias may be there. Therefore, a study may be validated with more case studies to validate the proposed framework. Based on the flexibility index, organizations can find their strong and weak areas for strategy development.

A firm can also compare the flexibility index of its own supply chain with other’s supply chain or with the best in the industry for benchmarking purpose. Benchmarking of flexibility will help organizations in developing strategies to compete in dynamic market scenario.

This study aims to identify service quality dimensions for logistics service providers (LSPs) and to examine their relationships with customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.

Service quality dimensions are identified from vast literature review. Customers who take services from LSPs were surveyed to collect data on basis of developed survey instrument. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) is applied to test the proposed research hypotheses.

The study shows that all the five service quality constructs, i.e. “Operational Quality”, “Resource Quality”, “Information Quality”, “Personnel Contact Quality” and “Customization and Innovation Quality” have direct relationship with customer satisfaction. They also have indirect relationship with customer loyalty, implying the full mediation of customer satisfaction.

The results of the study suggest that the logistics service quality (LSQ) can be measured multi-dimensionally. It provides clear implications to LSPs for improvement of service quality. The present research work is expected to be useful for both, logistics service providers and the customer organizations, which take services from LSPs. LSPs can develop strategies to improve their service quality on basis of findings from this study.

The present research will help in extending the existing literature on service quality in context to LSPs.