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This study has two major objectives. First, comprehensively review the literature on transparency in supply chain management. Second, based on a critical analysis of literature, identify the attributes and sub-attributes of supply chain transparency and develop a numerical measure to quantify transparency in supply chains.

A systematic literature review (SLR) was conducted using the PRISMA approach. Utilizing SCOPUS database past eighteen-year papers search resulted in 249 papers to understand major developments in the domain of supply chain transparency. Subsequently, graph theoretic approach is applied to quantify transparency in supply chain and the proposed index is evaluated for case supply chains from pharma and dairy sectors.

It can be concluded from SLR that supply chain transparency research has evolved from merely tracking and tracing of the product towards sustainable development of the whole value chain. The research identifies four major attributes and their sub-attributes that influence transparency in supply chains, which are used to develop transparency index. The proposed index for two sectors helps to understand areas that need immediate attention to improve transparency in the case supply chains.

This paper attempts to understand the development of transparency research in supply chain using the PRISMA approach for SLR. In addition, development of mathematical model to quantify supply chain transparency is a novel attempt that would help benchmark best practices in the industry. Further, transparency index would help to understand specific areas that need attention to improve transparency in supply chains.

Rice is an important grain in Indian scenarios, and the purpose of the research work is to identify the attributes which can be the possible barriers in the traditional rice supply chain network.

A multilevel conceptual model is developed based on the literature review, and a field study is conducted by administering a questionnaire from the experts. Fuzzy logic methodology and a ranking score method is applied to identify the rice supply chain performance and the barriers of the traditional rice supply chain network.

The rice supply chain performance index for the traditional rice supply chain network is obtained, and the performance of the existing rice supply chain is found to be “fair”. The “information flow” is the attribute that can be a critical weak attribute in the traditional rice supply chain network. A proposed model of the blockchain technology-enabled rice supply chain network is developed as a solution for the “information flow” barrier.

The present research work is focussed on the generalized rice supply chain model of the Indian scenario, and more detailed studies can be carried out based on the regional issues.

The rice supply chain plays an important role in Indian economic development, and hence the current research paper focusses on identifying the barriers and the performance of the existing rice supply chain network.

This paper aims to report on research that examined the recent scholarly literature to identify the information quality attributes associated with radio frequency identification (RFID)‐based benefits across sectors of the retail supply chain.

Reflecting the recent interest in RFID technology, the literature review was limited to scholarly articles published since the late 1990s when there appears to have been a surge in research and publishing activity. Moreover, the paper uncouples RFID‐focused technology findings that are a feature of many previous publications and reports on the decision‐making attributes associated with the perceived benefits of adopting the technology.

Many RFID‐based benefits were found to be associated with the distribution and transportation sectors of the supply chain, however, an emerging number are also apparent in the retail and post retail domains. The improved information value associated with RFID‐derived benefits was embodied in quality attributes that included timeliness, currency, accuracy and completeness. The paper proposes an RFID information value chain that maps benefits and information attributes across the supply chain. The paper is also one of the first that attempts to relate RFID‐derived information with aspects of organisational decision making.

This study identified information attributes associated with RFID adoption within the retail supply chain that have led to enhanced organisational responsiveness through improved decision‐making capabilities. As exploratory research in a nascent and emerging area, this research should be viewed as a starting point in the examination and identification of RFID‐derived benefits and information, rather than a prescriptive and/or definitive type of classification system for RFID.

Practical examples of RFID‐derived benefits distilled from the literature tend to provide important retail supply chain lessons for organisations that are currently piloting or expecting to trial RFID. The study highlights operational and strategic implications of adopting RFID technology discussing them from an information value perspective.

The paper is one of the first that examines the information value of RFID‐derived benefits across the organisational supply chain. Moreover, both benefits and information attributes are mapped to specific sectors of the retail and distribution supply chain.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine how different supply chain attributes as determinants of the openness of supply chain affect organizational performance (OP).

Data were collected from 259 supply chain executives in Pakistan. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses.

The findings indicate that organizations may take the selective view of their supply chains resulting in a varying focus on different SC attributes. The results show that though all identified supply chain attributes positively relate to OP, some attributes such as combined agility and cooperation among supply chain partners have a weak correlation coefficient. This indicates that overall the relative openness of supply chain among selected sample of Pakistani organizations is low.

Supply chain executives may not have a selective focus on some attributes; rather, they may consider to have a broader perspective drawing upon a wider range of supply chain attributes as identified in the current study. In order to remain competitive, Pakistani manufacturing organizations need to learn more about opening up their boundaries and enhance the openness of their supply chain.

The contribution of the current study is two folds. First, drawing upon the current literature, it proposes the instrument to measure the relative openness of supply chain. Second, it empirically tests the selected conceptual model which highlights the relevance of supply chain attributes and their role in the resulting relative degree of supply chain openness. The empirical examination of the selected conceptual model of supply chain openness tends to make contribution to the wider literature on supply chain management.

This study aims to investigate how the employees' attributes, capabilities, behavioral control and behavioral intentions affect their intention to become a supply chain manager (SCM). The study also investigates how employees' capabilities mediate the relationship between attributes and intention to become SCM.

The purposive sampling frame is employed to collect the data, and multiple statistical tools and techniques are used for analyzing the data.

The findings reveal that attributes are the most crucial factor for the capabilities of employees to become successful SCM. Employees' behavioral intention and capabilities have a significant impact on intention, whereas perceived behavioral control has a significant negative impact on it. Also, the result finds that capabilities partially mediate the relationship between attributes and intention to become an SCM.

The study extends the application of employees' intention to become a supply chain manager. The idea collected is based on Malaysia; thus, further study should be extended to assess the impact of employees' attributes, capabilities and behavioral control to become SCM as well as economic performance in other countries.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first empirical analysis on the relationship between employees' attributes, capabilities, behavioral control and intention to become SCM in the context of Malaysia. The findings will help the top management to select the right people as SCM and improve their attributes, capabilities and behavior so that they become an effective SCM.

This paper aims to explore the divergences and commitments between the lean, agile, resilient and green paradigms while investigating the effect of paradigms' practices within supply chain attributes.

A conceptual model with lean, agile, resilient and green practices and supply chain management attributes is proposed. Causal diagrams were used to represent the relationships between paradigm practices and supply chain attributes. The four diagrams were aggregated to build the conceptual model.

The conceptual model allows for the identification of synergies and divergences resulting from the paradigms practices implementation. The synergies between paradigms are related to “information frequency” and “integration level” increasing as well as reduction of “production lead time” and “transportation lead time”. However, other supply chain attributes such as “capacity surplus”, “inventory level” and “replenishment frequency” are affected in opposite directions by some paradigms creating divergences.

The model relationships were established using an anecdotal approach derived from the literature review, reflecting only a partial view of supply chain dynamics. More research related to other supply chain attributes and/or paradigm practices, and validation of the proposed relationships is suggested.

The proposed model can be the basis for further research in lean, agile, resilient and green paradigms, contributing to a more sustainable and competitive lean supply chain with the necessary agility toward a quick response, resiliency to disruptions, and harmonization with the ecologic and environmental aspects.

To the authors' knowledge this paper is the first to provide an understanding about the tradeoffs among lean, agile, resilient and green supply chain paradigms.

The purpose of this paper is to report a case study carried out to assess the agility and identify obstacles to agility in a supply chain. A human perception-based framework is used for the calculation of agility. The case study was carried out in a North India-based manufacturing organization.

In this study, the concept of a multi-grade fuzzy logic approach is used. Using this concept, the overall agility index has been determined. The fuzzy logic approach has been used to overcome the disadvantages such as impreciseness and vagueness using a scoring method.

From the analysis, it is observed that the organization on which the study was performed is “very agile.” After evaluating the agility level, the fuzzy performance importance index is calculated, which helps to identify the barriers of agility in the supply chain. These barriers help decision makers to implement appropriate improvement measures for improving agility level. Overall, 11 barriers were identified in the study.

Managers of the contemporary manufacturing organization have to measure the agility level of the organization and identify barriers to agility in order to survive in a competitive environment. The obstacles identified in this study are used to improve the performance of the organization. The enterprise should improve on the weak areas in order to achieve the highest agility level.

The agile supply chain (ASC) enablers proposed by previous researchers are not sufficient for the evaluation of agility of a supply chain. There are a few more ASC enablers such as customer satisfaction, flexibility and adaptability that also play a vital role in making a supply chain agile. Adding these three ASC enablers, a total of seven ASC enablers along with their attributes are being considered for the development of a conceptual model.

In this paper, a conceptual and methodological framework based on empirical evidence derived from the case of the Colombian Cape gooseberry (CG) supply chain is presented. Using this case study, this paper aims to contribute to the extant literature on the internationalization of food supply chains by explicitly considering the alignment of quality attributes and supply chain complexity as key elements to understand the process.

This research has been designed to be qualitative, inductive and exploratory, thus involving multiple data gathering methods and tools. More specifically, during the first stage of the empirical analysis, this study has mapped and analysed preferences and perceptions of product quality at both the consumer and supply chain levels. Then, this paper has analysed the degree of alignment and complexity in the supply chain and finally, this study has derived scenarios for the internationalization of the supply chain.

The results indicate tensions between supply chain actors related to quality attribute alignment and complexity, which have the potentials to impact the internationalization scenarios of the CG supply chain. Particularly the findings highlight how alignment and complexity of sourcing and product quality attributes can affect supply chain design strategies in different internationalization pathways of a niche food commodity.

The findings have implications in terms of supply chain design perspectives. In fact, while an approach, which would consider only a transactional or governance perspective would have tackled the problems of misalignment – for example, between farmers and wholesalers or wholesalers and international traders/retailers – it would have ignored the problem of alignment caused at the retailing and consumption stage. In the attempt to internationalize the CG supply chain, farmers, processors and traders are misaligned in relation to the preferences of the targeted final consumers, Dutch/Western European consumers in the case.

Given the misalignment issues, this paper identifies a step by step approach as the most suitable pathway to design an internationalized supply chain because it allows the CG commodity supply chain to develop the potential market of credence quality-attribute by supporting the health-promoting compounds of the fruit. In this way, the CG supply chain could also progressively scale up and work on solving its misalignment issues by building a coordination structure of the chain, with quality control and logistics likely led by large retailers.

The study indicates that a process of internalization related to a scenario of a “globalized commodity” can only emerge through processes of coordination and integration at the production level, likely led by forms of producers (farmers) associations or a network of producers and traders, leading to strong marketing activities and scale up in terms of volumes. This has profound social implications and calls for rethinking how this study designs the internationalization of niche commodity supply chains.

Through the application of a mixed methodology approach, in which conceptual, qualitative and quantitative methods have been combined, this paper has been able to identify alternative scenarios to the internationalization and the scale-up of a niche food commodity supply chain, with implications for its design and governance. More specifically in the conceptual model, the different scenarios have been related to the risk of misalignment. The model also identifies alternative pathways of internationalization which may or may not arise according to the way complexity unfolds. In the approach, this study has unpacked complexity by looking into two key dimensions: transactional complexity and quality-attribute complexity.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework conceptualizing the relative openness of a supply chain and its impact on organizational performance.

The literature on system theory and the attributes of supply chain management are used to develop a framework describing the relative openness of a supply chain.

Different supply chain terminologies – such as adaptive supply chain network, best value supply chain, and open inter-organizational system – partially draw upon the basic premises of an open system. The relative openness of a supply chain and, consequently, the dynamics of different supply chain attributes remain understudied. This supports the idea that an open system perspective of the supply chain is imperative to improve the understanding of the influence of supply chain openness on organizational performance.

The conceptual framework posits that different supply chain attributes affect the openness of supply chain to a varying degree which ultimately influences the organizational performance. The proposed framework and research propositions will serve as a springboard for conducting future empirical studies.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the effects of the attributes of supply chain openness on sustainable supply chain performance (SSCP).

Data were collected by questionnaire survey from 259 supply chain executives in Pakistan. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the hypotheses.

The results indicate that the relative openness of supply chain organizations in Pakistan is very low. Further, all the attributes of supply chain openness have positive but weak association with SSCP. This indicates that there is some awareness of sustainable supply chain but there remains a significant room for improvement with regard to the relationships among different attributes of supply chain openness and SSCP. Pakistani organizations do not fully embrace the concept of supply chain openness in order to achieve SSCP.

The current paper makes three important contributions to the existing literature. First, it empirically examines the attributes of supply chain openness. Second, it contributes to the broader sustainable supply chain management literature by exploring the effects of the attributes of supply chain openness on SSCP. Third, given the limited studies that address sustainable supply chain issues in the context of developing countries, this is one of the few studies that add value to the body of literature in the context of developing countries, such as Pakistan.