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The purpose of this paper is to examine empirically, an industry development paradox, using embryonic literature in the area of strategic supply chain management, together with innovation management literature. This study seeks to understand how, forming strategic supply chain relationships, and developing strategic supply chain capability, influences beneficial supply chain outcomes expected from utilizing industry-led innovation, in the form of electronic business solutions using the internet, in the Australian beef industry. Findings should add valuable insights to both academics and practitioners in the fields of supply chain innovation management and strategic supply chain management, and expand knowledge to current literature.

This is a quantitative study comparing innovative and non-innovative supply chain operatives in the Australian beef industry, through factor analysis and structural equation modeling using PAWS Statistical V18 and AMOS V18 to analyze survey data from 412 respondents from the Australian beef supply chain.

Key findings are that both innovative and non-innovative supply chain operators attribute supply chain synchronization as only a minor indicator of strategic supply chain capability, contrary to the literature; and they also indicate strategic supply chain capability has a minor influence in achieving beneficial outcomes from utilizing industry-led innovation. These results suggest a lack of coordination between supply chain operatives in the industry. They also suggest a lack of understanding of the benefits of developing a strategic supply chain management competence, particularly in relation to innovation agendas, and provides valuable insights as to why an industry paradox exists in terms of the level of investment in industry-led innovation, vs the level of corresponding benefit achieved.

Results are not generalized due to the single agribusiness industry studied and the single research method employed. However, this provides opportunity for further agribusiness studies in this area and also studies using alternate methods, such as qualitative, in-depth analysis of these factors and their relationships, which may confirm results or produce different results. Further, this study empirically extends existing theoretical contributions and insights into the roles of strategic supply chain management and innovation management in improving supply chain and ultimately industry performance while providing practical insights to supply chain practitioners in this and other similar agribusiness industries.

These findings confirm results from a 2007 research (Ketchen et al., 2007) which suggests supply chain practice and teachings need to take a strategic direction in the twenty-first century. To date, competence in supply chain management has built up from functional and process orientations rather than from a strategic perspective. This study confirms that there is a need for more generalists that can integrate with various disciplines, particularly those who can understand and implement strategic supply chain management.

Possible social implications accrue through the development of responsible government policy in terms of industry supply chains. Strategic supply chain management and supply chain innovation management have impacts to the social fabric of nations through the sustainability of their industries, especially agribusiness industries which deal with food safety and security. If supply chains are now the competitive weapon of nations then funding innovation and managing their supply chain competitiveness in global markets requires a strategic approach from everyone, not just the industry participants.

This is original empirical research, seeking to add value to embryonic and important developing literature concerned with adopting a strategic approach to supply chain management. It also seeks to add to existing literature in the area of innovation management, particularly through greater understanding of the implications of nations developing industry-wide, industry-led innovation agendas, and their ramifications to industry supply chains.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the distinction and relationships between the significant strategic capabilities for managing risks in supply chains. This intersectional review exposes a substantial conceptual contradiction between the perspectives reported by various researchers. Further, the current paper classifies the literature into four categories according to the broad objectives investigated by the research papers.

Initially, a bibliometric analysis aligned with the concepts of a systematic literature review is conducted followed by a descriptive review focusing on models and methods. The software called BibExcel is utilized to extract and analyze the bibliographic information in a textual form from the research articles associated with strategic capabilities of the logistics sector. The results are exported to the software known as Gephi to visualize keyword co-occurrence analysis as networks. A well-structured descriptive review is also conducted to identify avenues for future research.

Despite conventional supply chain capabilities like efficiency and effectiveness, eight significant strategic capabilities of supply chains for managing risks are identified from the literature. These capabilities with positive connotations include flexibility, reliability, resilience, robustness, agility, adaptability, alignment and responsiveness. Considering the vast literature on flexibility/reliability along with its numerous dimensions and scope, the authors found that resilience, robustness, agility, adaptability, alignment and effectiveness are achievable through flexibility/reliability. Accordingly, it is appropriate to state reliability and flexibility as supply chain capabilities to achieve the other six supply chain competencies. Furthermore, the entire literature in this domain can be classified into four genres according to the addressed objectives, namely, concept development/validation, capability assessment, network design and performance evaluation.

The information revealed from the keyword co-occurrence analysis along with the research implications provided in the penultimate section will assist budding researchers in framing novel and promising research objectives. Supply chain administrators and policymakers can utilize the literature classification and the notable references provided in this review for locating potential methods for assessing supply chain strategic capabilities, designing the supply chain and evaluating the performance of the supply chain.

An integrated bibliometric and descriptive literature review procedure is utilized in this paper. Furthermore, this critical review is the first work on comprehensively mapping the research relationships among various strategic capabilities required for mitigating supply chain risks.

Using the resource-based theoretical view of the firm, this paper aims to explore how firms’ efforts to integrate blockchain technology (BCT) into their supply chain systems and activities enable certain supply chain capabilities and, consequently, improve their supply chain performance.

Using an abductive research approach, a qualitative content analysis was conducted on 126 cases of firms attempting to implement a blockchain technology-enabled supply chain system (BCTeSCS). These firms spanning across multiple industries were identified using the Nexis Uni database.

Findings reveal that present BCTeSCS efforts are more-oriented toward improving operational-level capabilities (information sharing and coordination capabilities) than strategic-level capabilities (integration and collaboration capabilities). These operational and strategic-level capabilities alongside BCTeSCS deliver several supply chains performance outcomes such as quality compliance and improvement, process improvement, flexibility, reduced cost and reduced process time. However, outcomes may vary by industry type based on their uncertainties.

Given the nascent state of BCT, accessibility to primary data about ongoing BCTeSCS efforts is limited. The presented framework is based on 126 cases of secondary information. Within this constraint, the paper finds scope to future empirical research by proposing a resource-based framework of BCTeSCS and related propositions.

The results and discussion of this study serve as useful guidance for practitioners involved in BCTeSCS integrations.

The paper creates a BCTeSCS scenario for stakeholders to assume its potential socio-economic and socio-environmental pressures.

This paper is one of the initial attempts to examine BCTeSCS efforts across multiple industries, and thus, promises a broad future research scope.

The purpose of this paper is to explore drivers of alliance formation in a specialized supply chain from a manager’s perspective, focussing on firm-specific resources, resources embedded in inter-firm relationships and capabilities under the control of the focal firm.

This paper focusses on the resource-based view to obtain insights from the analysis of a manager survey conducted in Canada’s beef sector, applying a logistic regression approach to study alliance formation.

In identifying significant roles for resource richness and diversification of resource usage, the analysis highlights the importance of resource characteristics underlying factor market imperfections as drivers of alliance formation in a single primary input supply chain. The results suggest that resource heterogeneity is important for alliance formation and organizational success in specialized supply chains.

If previous alliance-related experience of managers, controlled for in the underlying cross-sectional survey, serves as an approximation for persistent unobservables impacting the alliance formation decision, we may face spurious state-dependence.

Managers interested in building compatible alliances in specialized single primary input supply chains may benefit from an improved understanding of the differential role of resource characteristics and resource heterogeneity for alliance formation, as these can function as a source of competitive advantage.

The analysis provides new insights from an individual manager’s perspective on alliance formation drivers in a specialized agri-food supply chain, thereby solidifying extant findings on alliance formation obtained in other sectors. The study contributes to the understanding of the role of resources in alliance formation with regard to prior relationship experience, resource heterogeneity and thus causal ambiguity, thereby also contributing to the debate of the role of relational capabilities vs firm-internal resources for sustained competitive advantage.

This study aims to examine the effects of trading partner trust and trading partner power, on supply chain integration, and their impact on business performance in the context of Web-enabled supply chains. In doing so, the authors extend previous studies by exploring this phenomenon by using an integrative theory-driven approach.

This study presents a theoretical model grounded on the resource-based and dynamic capabilities views and the social capital theory. Data collected from 175 firms in the USA are used to test the hypotheses using structural equation modeling.

Results highlight the importance of trust and supply chain integration on business performance, whereas power did not appear to have an effect on supply chain integration in Web-enabled supply chains. The findings are robust to concerns of endogeneity, common method bias and alternative model specification.

Companies engaged in Web-enabled supply chains need to focus on increasing their integration efforts, and these efforts must also be accompanied by partnerships built on trust. Trading partners who might be inclined to use coercive strategies to influence other members of the supply chain in Web-enabled environments may be better off using cooperative approaches based on trust to achieve their desired goals.

This study integrates the resource-based view, dynamic capabilities view and the social capital theory to explore the dynamic relationships between trading partner trust, trading partner power and supply chain integration in Web-enabled supply chains. In doing so, this paper extends prior studies by examining supply chain integration’s impact on business performance and its mediating role, as it relates to trading partner trust and power in Web-enabled supply chains.

Despite the recent wealth of supply chain agility literature, scholars have yet to thoroughly examine its impacts on the customer experience. To address this gap, we assess the effects of supply chain agility on customer value and customer satisfaction, including the moderating role of customer loyalty, from the perspectives of both business customers (B2B) and end-customers (B2C).

We used multivariate regression analysis to evaluate direct, indirect and conditional effects across survey responses from 148 senior-level supply chain managers (buyers) (Study 1) and 170 end-customers (i.e. consumers) (Study 2).

The results reveal that supply chain agility retains a direct link to both B2B and B2C’ value and satisfaction. However, a higher level of customer loyalty reduces the strength of these relationships, signifying that agility is less important with established customers. In this respect, agility is important to attract new customers, but more agility is not always beneficial once the customer relationship is established.

The current study is among the first to examine end-customer response to supply chain agility. The findings complement existing literature by providing novel insights into the impact of supply chain agility on both business customers (B2B) and end-customers (B2C).

In India, artificial intelligence (AI) application in supply chain management (SCM) is still in a stage of infancy. Therefore, this article aims to study the factors affecting artificial intelligence adoption and validate AI’s influence on supply chain risk mitigation (SCRM).

This study explores the effect of factors based on the technology, organization and environment (TOE) framework and three other factors, including supply chain integration (SCI), information sharing (IS) and process factors (PF) on AI adoption. Data for the survey were collected from 297 respondents from Indian agro-industries, and structural equation modeling (SEM) was used for testing the proposed hypotheses.

This study’s findings show that process factors, information sharing, and supply chain integration (SCI) play an essential role in influencing AI adoption, and AI positively influences SCRM. The technological, organizational and environmental factors have a nonsignificant negative relation with artificial intelligence.

This study provides an insight to researchers, academicians, policymakers, innovative project handlers, technology service providers, and managers to better understand the role of AI adoption and the importance of AI in mitigating supply chain risks caused by disruptions like the COVID-19 pandemic.

A trade-off exists between product variety and supply chain (SC) performance. To help mitigate the impact on SC of increased product variety, the purpose of this paper is to examine how variety management activities including variety management strategy (VMS), supplier partnerships and close customer relationships affect SC flexibility and agility at different levels of customisation.

A survey-research methodology is employed using data from 363 manufacturing firms from the UK and South Korea. In particular, cluster analysis and structural equation modelling were used to evaluate the proposed model according to the level of customisation.

The results suggest that internal variety management strategy and external SC integration have a positive influence on SC flexibility and agility. Customer relationships and variety management strategies influence SC flexibility more than partnerships with suppliers whereas variety management strategies and partnerships with suppliers influence SC agility more than customer relationships. In fact, for external integration in particular, customer relationships influence SC flexibility (i.e. reaction capability) rather than agility (i.e. reaction time) whereas partnerships with suppliers influence SC agility rather than flexibility. In a high-customisation context, close customer relationships are the most effective way to increase SC flexibility, whereas partnerships with suppliers are the most effective way to increase SC agility. In a low-customisation context, a VMS and customer relationships are the most effective way to increase both SC flexibility and agility.

This paper suggests key variety management activities to aid managers to better manage product variety ambitions in SC under varying customisation profiles through internal and external approaches.

This paper surveys the literature on supply chain integration (SCI) to identify the state of research in the various types of studied industries and manufacturing environments. The purpose of this paper is to identify academic discoveries that could provide offshore wind projects with means to overcome their current supply chain challenges.

A comprehensive literature review was conducted involving 162 articles published in 29 peer-reviewed journals. The papers were analyzed in terms of the dimensions of SCI, research methodology, unit of analysis, level of analysis, type of industry and manufacturing environment being studied, integrative practices, integrative barriers and the link between SCI and performance.

While SCI has been evolving to become an influential topic in the field of supply chain management, scholars have overlooked industrial contingencies by ignoring the differences between the studied industrial contexts, especially project-based manufacturing environments. The present review also reveals that no study of SCI has been conducted on the construction of renewable energy projects. Another finding is that case studies and research articles using networks as a unit of analysis are underrepresented.

This is the first work to advocate for an industrial contingency approach in the analysis of SCI. Thus, it proposes the offshore wind farm-construction industry as a potential study subject to broaden the knowledge in SCI in project manufacturing environments.

By applying a systematic literature review, this paper aims to identify the major healthcare problem domains (i.e. target areas) for lean supply chain management (LSCM) and to provide a list of the most common techniques for implementing LSCM in healthcare. Moreover, this study intends to investigate various contingency factors that may have influenced the selection of LSCM target areas or the application of LSCM techniques by healthcare organizations.

A systematic literature review was carried out following the method presented by Tranfield et al. (2003). Thereby, 280 peer-reviewed journal articles, published between 1995 and 2018, were selected, profiled and reviewed. In total, 75 papers were also selected for a qualitative analysis, known as meta-study, on the basis of high relevancy to the research objectives.

This work extracts, from previous research, a set of target areas for improving supply chain in healthcare by applying lean approaches. The work also unifies the language of lean thinking and supply chain in healthcare by defining metaphors in circumstances under which healthcare organizations pursue similar objectives from their supply chain management and lean programs (Schmitt, 2005). This paper also outlines a list of applications of lean for supply chain improvement in healthcare. Finally, a set of contingency factors in the field of lean supply chain in healthcare is found via the published literature.

This paper provides insights for decision-makers in the healthcare industry regarding the benefits of implementing LSCM, and it identifies contingency factors affecting the implementation of LSCM principles for healthcare. Implementing LSCM can help healthcare organizations improve the following domains: internal interaction between employees, supply chain cost management, medication distribution systems, patient safety and instrument utilization.

The research shows potential synthesis of LSCM with the healthcare industry’s objectives, and, thus, the outcome of this research is likely to have positive influence on the quality and cost of healthcare services. The objectives of the healthcare industry are cost reduction and providing better service quality, and LSCM implementation could be an effective solution to help healthcare to achieve these objectives.

The prime value of this paper lies in conducting a systematic literature review using a meta-study to identify the major factors of implementing LSCM in healthcare. Only a few other studies have been published in the literature about LSCM in healthcare.