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As firms consider initiatives to enhance their social sustainability performance, supplier diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) have become significantly more important. As such, the purpose of this study is to theorize, operationalize and develop an empirical scale to measure supplier DEI.

The following three-phase scale development method was used: first, identification of scale items from the literature; second, a qualitative component involving interviews with expert panels; and third, a psychometric evaluation through two survey rounds with 327 managers from multiple areas of supply chain management.

Although not necessarily a new concept, this study provides a more complete understanding of supplier DEI beyond traditional aspects of supplier diversity (e.g. women and minority-owned suppliers) to feature additional considerations (e.g. LGBTQIAP+) and reflect broader societal considerations, such as human rights. Therefore, validated items for the three dimensions (i.e. diversity, equity [human rights] and inclusion) were identified.

This study provides systematically validated scales to measure supplier DEI based on three dimensions. Each dimension can be developed separately from the others, but they are intertwined, which reinforces the contribution to both scholars and practitioners.

Companies today observe an increase in the complexity and vulnerability of their supply chains (SCs) as a result of global scale networks and a turbulent environment. The purpose of this paper is to explore knowledge management (KM) as a potential way of reducing SC vulnerability and answer the following question: how does inter-organisational KM influence efforts to reduce SC vulnerability?

Drawing on the resource-based view and the knowledge-based view (KBV), a single case study in the energy industry is conducted by collecting various data through interviews, observations and internal documents.

This edifying case study indicates that a lack of KM hinders any attempt to mitigate SC vulnerability.

This research shows several limitations such as data privacy, generalisation and the decision to study an atypical SC.

The paper points out in a dedicated section the key actions a company should take in order to develop the required characteristics of knowledge expressed in the KBV.

This is the first qualitative research that investigates the relationships between SC vulnerability and KM, and more particularly in a recycling context where a strong research gap exists.

The purpose of this paper is to study the following research question: how can information systems (ISs) be the real sources of uncertainty for supply chain management (SCM), despite their positive roles in the effectiveness of modern supply chain (SC) organization?

A typology of the uncertainties linked to ISs and their usage is developed. Then, five explanatory case studies conducted in diverse industries allow to characterize this typology.

The case studies allow to identify the most frequently recurring uncertainties, namely, “limited IS capacity” and “data unreliability.” In addition, “company size” does not seem to be a relevant dimension for assessing the vulnerability of a SC to uncertainties linked to ISs. On the other hand, the “business sector,” with its implied power influences, was found to be a relevant dimension.

This research does not allow to rank uncertainties according to their level of criticality.

This paper enables SC and information systems managers, as well as ISs/SC project managers to be aware of the need to consider ISs not only as the vectors for performance, but also as the factors for uncertainty in SCs.

ISs are generally considered to be a vector of performance. Nevertheless, their use remains problematic in many companies. This paper falls within both the ISs and SCM research areas. In the latter field, typologies of the uncertainties are common, but often ignore the uncertainties linked to ISs and their usage. The authors suggest envisaging ISs as the potential factors for uncertainty in the context of SCM.

The business environment is increasingly volatile, complex, uncertain and ambiguous. Today, COVID-19 represents a super-disruption situation. This paper aims to explore small and medium-sized enterprises’ (SMEs’) resilience from continuous improvement lenses. It explores the role of continuous improvement in building organizational resilience across SMEs.

A Delphi methodology has been adopted to capture evidence and opinions from 38 experts from several Jordan-based SMEs through three-online rounds.

The study finds that continuous improvement enhances SMEs’ resilience in the short term and long term. It can translate the concept of resilience into tangible working constructs for SMEs in visualizing and making decisions about their risks, adapting, absorbing changes and prevailing over time. The role of continuous improvement in building organizational resilience is fourfold; continuous improvement is a cyclical process; it has a vital cultural aspect and can be considered a business philosophy. It also emphasizes a holistic change approach based on small but constant changes. However, SMEs’ leaders must consider several issues for effective continuous improvement, including a continuous improvement culture and a results-focused approach.

Organizational resilience has been studied across various contexts; however, there are still unanswered questions for SMEs’ resilience. This study contributes to theory and practice by examining the role of continuous improvement in SMEs’ resilience.

The field of supply chain management (SCM) needs to attract and retain workers to solve the current talent shortage. The purpose of this research is to identify and evaluate factors that influence career advancement in SCM and compare male and female supply chain experts' perceptions of the importance of those factors.

First, 32 factors perceived as affecting career advancement in SCM were identified by conducting a literature review and consulting 36 experts. Those factors were grouped into four categories: “environmental and structural”, “human capital”, “individual” and “interpersonal”. Those factors were validated via the Delphi method, and ten factors were retained for further study. Second, the voting analytical hierarchy process was used to determine the priority weights experts assigned to these factors. The weights assigned by male and female experts were compared to determine if there were differences between the women's and men's perceptions of the factors' importance.

The findings reveal that the category of human capital factors is the most important, followed by individual factors and the least important is interpersonal factors. The experts consulted for this research emphasized “skills”, “a good fit between an individual and an organization” and “self-confidence” as important factors for career advancement. There were two unexpected results. First, the experts rejected all the environmental and structural factors. Second, no significant difference was found between the male and female groups' evaluations.

Prior to this study, no integrated approach to identify and evaluate the factors perceived which affect career advancement in SCM had been developed. This research is a single empirical and integrative study in France that provides valuable insights for academics and practitioners.

This research aims to analyse the perceptions of practitioners in three regions regarding the challenges faced by their firms during the pandemic, considered a black-swan event. It examines the strategies implemented to mitigate and recover from risks, evaluates the effectiveness of these strategies and assesses the difficulties encountered in their implementation.

In the summer of 2022, an online survey was conducted among supply chain (SC) practitioners in France, Poland and the St. Louis, Missouri region of the USA. The survey aimed to understand the impact of COVID-19 on their firms and the SC strategies employed to sustain operations. These regions were selected due to their varying levels of SC development, including infrastructure, economic resources and expertise. Moreover, they exhibited different responses in safeguarding the well-being of their citizens during the pandemic.

The study reveals consistent perceptions among practitioners from the three regions regarding the impact of COVID-19 on SCs. Their actions to enhance SC resilience primarily relied on strengthening collaborative efforts within their firms and SCs, thus validating the tenets of the relational view.

COVID-19 is (hopefully) our black-swan pandemic occurrence during our lifetime. Nevertheless, the lessons learned from it can inform future SC risk management practices, particularly in dealing with rare crises. During times of crisis, leveraging existing SC structures may prove more effective and efficient than developing new ones. These findings underscore the significance of relationships in ensuring SC resilience.

This study explores practitioners' perspectives on and definitions of sustainable supply chain management (SSCM), which are then compared to academic definitions to identify new implications for researchers, educators and practitioners.

An abductive, explorative and qualitative approach was followed in the form of a review and classification of 31 academic definitions of SSCM as well as 30 interviews with supply chain (SC) practitioners.

The practitioners' answers show a lack of awareness of upstream and downstream challenges as the practitioners' focus on practices within the practitioners' firms, where the economic and environmental dimensions prevail. However, the practitioners highlighted understudied topics in SSCM: human resources policies, leadership for sustainability and ethics.

This research stimulates discussion on how to teach an SSCM course and which directions to follow to ensure that research has an impact on practices. Practitioners' focus on the practitioners' everyday practices confirms that practice-based theories, amongst others, are relevant in the field and that more interdisciplinary research is needed to highlight the contributions of human resource management (HRM) and business ethics to SSCM.

The proposed framework clearly defines the scope of the practices and research (upstream or downstream of the SC or within the firm), which will allow practitioners to contribute to SSCM more holistically.

Educators and researchers have a crucial role to play in clarifying the meaning of SSCM for students who are future practitioners and consumers. Interacting more with practitioners could help.

This research is targeted not only to researchers and practitioners but also educators.

Supply chain resilience (SCR) is a key concept for managers who wish to develop the capacity to enhance their supply chain’s (SC’s) ability to cope with unexpected turbulence. SC digital tools are often seen as a solution that provides more visibility, anticipation and collaboration (SCR capability factors). The purpose of this paper is to investigate the link between SCR and SC digitalisation

A sample was considered with 300 managers in the field of SCM, and the results were analysed using factor analysis and structural equation modelling (SEM). SEM was employed to test the impact of the degree of digital maturity and SC digital tools on SCR.

SC digitalization is characterised by the degree of digital maturity and the adoption of SC digital tools. The degree of digital maturity has a strong influence on digital tool adoption. SCR is positively impacted by both the degree of digital maturity and the adoption of digital tools.

The findings do not indicate which tools contribute the most to SCR.

Managers should reflect on the need to continue digitalizing their SCs if they want greater SCR in the current uncertain environment.

This is the first quantitative study that focuses on assessing the impact of the degree of digital maturity and the SC digital tools adopted on SCR. Validation of the hypotheses model confirms the positive impact of SC digitalisation on SCR for researchers and managers.

The purpose of this paper is 1) to investigate the effects on the crucial Industry 4.0 technological innovations that interact between the real and virtual worlds and that are applied in the sustainable supply chain process; 2) to contribute to the identification of the opportunities, the challenges and the gaps that will support the new research study developments and 3) to analyze the impact of the Industry 4.0 technologies as facilitators of the sustainable supply chain performance in the midst of the Coronavirus (COVID-19).

This research is performed through a bibliographic review in the electronic databases of the Emerald Insight, the Scopus and the Web of Science, considering the main scientific publications on the subject.

The bibliographic search results in 526 articles, followed by two sequential filters for deleting the duplicate articles (resulting in 487 articles) and for selecting the most relevant articles (resulting in 150 articles).

This article identifies the opportunities and the challenges focused on the emerging Industry 4.0 theme. The opportunities can contribute to the sustainable performance of the supply chains and their territories. The Industry 4.0 can also generate challenges like the social inequalities related to the position of the man in the labor market by replacing the human workforce with the machines. Therefore, the man-machine relationship in the Industry 4.0 era is analyzed as a gap in the literature. Therefore, as a way to fill this gap, the authors of this article suggest the exploration of the research focused on the Society 5.0. Also known as “super-smart society,” this recent theme appeared in Japan in April 2016. According to Fukuda (2020), in addition to the focus on the technological development, the Society 5.0 also aims at the quality of life and the social challenge resolutions.

This article contributes to the analysis of the Industry 4.0 technologies as facilitators in the sustainable supply chain performance. It addresses the impacts of the Industry 4.0 technologies applied to the supply chains in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it analyzes the research gaps and limitations found in the literature. The result of this study can add value and stimulate new research studies related to the application of the Industry 4.0 technologies as facilitators in the supply chain sustainable performance. It can encourage the studies related to the COVID-19 impacts on the sustainable supply chains, and it can promote the research development on the relationship among the man, the machine and the labor in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.