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Although the integration of sustainability into business strategies and operations has received considerable scholarly attention, little is known about how sustainability initiatives across the extended value chain affect this integration. This study aims to analyze the impact of multinational corporations’ supply chain sustainability initiatives on their environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) performance and the moderating role of the key country-level factors of the multinational’s headquarters.

This study analyzes data published by the top 201 multinationals among Fortune Global 500 companies over the period 2011–2021 on their attempts to integrate sustainability measures in extended supply chains and the resultant impact on their ESG scores. A fixed-effect model is used in the primary empirical study.

Results indicate that managerial interventions through a more robust supply chain policy framework, monitoring mechanisms, corrective actions and training initiatives lead to better ESG-environment pillar performance for multinationals. Additionally, the ESG-environment pillar performance is influenced by the socioeconomic model and country-level ESG risks of the nation where the multinational is headquartered.

The implications of this study are vital for understanding the criticality of sustainability initiatives in the supply chain for a firm’s overall ESG performance. To attain better levels of sustainable performance, multinationals must assume a stewardship position and deploy sustainability initiatives in their extended supply chain.

Climate change requires the reduction of direct and indirect greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, a task that seems to clash with increasing supply chain complexity. This study aims to analyse the upstream supply chain complexity dimensions suggesting the importance of understanding the information processing that these may entail. Reducing equivocality can be an issue in some dimensions, requiring the introduction of written guidelines to moderate the effects of supply chain complexity dimensions on GHG emissions at the firm and supply chain level.

A three-year panel data was built with information obtained from Bloomberg, Trucost and Compustat. Hypotheses were tested using random effect regressions with robust standard errors on a sample of 394 SP500 companies, addressing endogeneity through the control function approach.

Horizontal complexity reduces GHG emissions at the firm level, whereas vertical and spatial complexity dimensions increase GHG emissions at the firm and supply chain level. Although the introduction of written guidelines neutralises the negative effects of vertical complexity on firm and supply chain GHG emissions, it is not sufficient in the presence of spatial complexity.

This paper offers novel insights by suggesting that managers need to reconcile the potential trade-off effects on GHG emissions that horizontally complex supply chain structures can present. Their priority in vertically and spatially complex supply chain structures should be to reduce equivocality.

This chapter of the book seeks to use famous mathematical functions (statistical distribution functions) in evaluating and analyzing supply chain network data related to supply chain management (SCM) elements in organizations. In other words, the main purpose of this chapter is to find the best-fitted statistical distribution functions for SCM data. Explaining how to best fit the statistical distribution function along with the explanation of all possible aspects of a function for selected components of SCM from this chapter will make a significant attraction for production and services experts who will lead their organization to the path of competitive excellence. The main core of the chapter is the reliability values related to the reliability function calculated by the relevant chart and extracting other information based on other aspects of statistical distribution functions such as probability density, cumulative distribution, and failure function. This chapter of the book will turn readers into professional users of statistical distribution functions in mathematics for analyzing supply chain element data.

Cross-laminated timber (CLT) is an innovative construction material that provides a balanced mix of structural stiffness, fabrication flexibility and sustainability. CLT development and innovation diffusion require close collaborations between its supply chain architectural, engineering, construction and manufacturing (AECM) stakeholders. As such, the purpose of this study is to provide a preliminary understanding of the knowledge diffusion and innovation process of CLT construction.

The study implemented a longitudinal social network analysis of the AECM companies involved in 100 CLT projects in the UK. The project data were acquired from an industry publication and decoded in the form of a multimode project-company network, which was projected into a single-mode company collaborative network. This complete network was filtered into a four-phase network to allow the longitudinal analysis of the CLT collaborations over time. A set of network and node social network analysis metrics was used to characterize the topology patters of the network and the centrality of the companies.

The study highlighted the scale-free structure of the CLT collaborative network that depends on the influential hubs of timber manufacturers, engineers and contractors to accelerate the innovation diffusion. However, such CLT supply collaborative network structure is more vulnerable to disruptions due to its dependence on these few prominent hubs. Also, the industry collaborative network’s decreased modularity confirms the maturity of the CLT technology and the formation of cohesive clusters of innovation partners. The macro analysis approach of the study highlighted the critical role of supply chain upstream stakeholders due to their higher centralities in the collaborative network. Stronger collaborations were found between the supply chain upstream stakeholders (timber manufacturers) and downstream stakeholders (architects and main contractors).

The study contributes to the field of industrialized and CLT construction by characterizing the collaborative networks between CLT supply chain stakeholders that are critical to propose governmental policies and industry initiatives to advance this sustainable construction material.

The purpose of this study is to address the relevance of archaeological heritage in the context of supply chains for the tourism industry. It does so by providing converging ideas on the usefulness of individual sites, not in their strict scientific or latent value but as an enhancer for optimizing cultural production in a wider scenario of aggregate demand.

While examples from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) illustrate this reasoning, the underlying principles have a widespread application and point to a need for defragmenting and realigning tangible heritage as a key production factor. Methods used consist of an inductive approach, based on secondary sources and semi-structured interviews.

Results indicate that, while archaeological resources remain central to the promotion of cultural tourism in the UAE, suppliers face challenges when incorporating particular sites into consumer-friendly packages.

The study contributes to the identification of common risks and opportunities for archaeological resource management in the development of UAE tourism products.

This represents an original angle, given the focus on the specific regional, cooperative added value of archaeological resources and the need for optimizing them in a functional supply chain.

The aim of this study is to undertake a systematic analysis of the supply chain literature to uncover the changes and patterns of international cooperation in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this study, the information on supply chain-related publications in the Web of Science (WOS) database is analyzed using statistical techniques and visual approaches. The focus is on the five countries with the highest number of supply chain publications, accounting for approximately 70% of global publications. This in-depth analysis aims to provide a clearer understanding of the cooperation patterns and their impact on the supply chain during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The results of the study reveal that the growth rate of international cooperation in supply chain research during the COVID-19 pandemic is higher compared to the 5-year and 10-year periods before the pandemic. This suggests that the pandemic has not hindered international cooperation in the field, but instead has increased collaboration. In terms of international cooperation patterns, the findings indicate that China and the USA have a strong partnership, with China being the largest partner for the USA and vice versa. The UK's largest partner is China, India's largest partner is the UK and Italy's largest partner is also the UK. This implies that trade, rather than the pandemic, is a determining factor in supply chain research.

This study examines the patterns of international cooperation in supply chain research during the COVID-19 pandemic, providing insights into the changes and mechanisms of international cooperation in this field. Moreover, the results of this study may offer practical benefits for supply chain operators and managers. By providing a deeper understanding of the international cooperation patterns in the field, this research could contribute to the recovery and growth of the global supply chain.

This study's analysis of the impact of crisis events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, on international cooperation in supply chain research contributes to the theoretical development of the field. Additionally, by examining how academia responds to emergencies, it provides valuable insights for operations and supply chain managers in their pursuit of more effective supply chain management.

This study provides a preliminary examination of the international cooperation patterns of supply chain research in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, representing a novel and early contribution to the existing literature, helping to expand upon current understanding in the field and provide a more comprehensive perspective. Furthermore, this study offers a practical analysis strategy for future supply chain research, fostering progress and growth in the field.

As digital procurement continues to transform heavily as a value center and create new business models by linking businesses with a web of external partners, the full path to achieving such an all-encompassing thing is unknown. Thus, the study aims to explore the research gap through an exhaustive bibliometric and systematic literature review on the Digital procurement theme in the supply chain domain.

This study is a qualitative and quantitative analysis of this field, using performance analysis and science mapping to examine 583 articles published from 2002 to 2021.

A systematic literature review indicated core topics on “sustainable or green procurement” and “emerging landscape of technology” in the field of study.

Though the Scopus database used for the analysis is the largest, it may not have complete coverage of all published articles in the field of study; thus, this study is a representation of only a sample rather than its entire population.

Outcome is based on the review of the past 20 years’ contribution on the topic starting from 2002 to 2021.

During the supply chain disruptions caused by COVID-19, logistics service providers (LSPs) have invested heavily in innovations to enhance their supply chain resilience capabilities. However, only little attention has been given so far to the nature of these innovative capabilities, in particular to what extent LSPs were able to repurpose capabilities to build supply chain resilience. In response, using the concept of exaptation, this study identifies to what extent LSPs have discovered and utilized latent functions to build supply chain resilience capabilities during a disruptive event of high impact and low probability.

This conceptual paper uses a theory building approach to advance the literature on supply chain resilience by delineating the relationship between exaptation and supply chain resilience capabilities in the context of COVID-19. To do so, we propose two frameworks: (1) to clarify the role of exaptation for supply chain resilience capabilities and (2) to depict four different exaptation dimensions for the supply chain resilience capabilities of LSPs.

We illustrate how LSPs have repurposed original functions into new products or services to build their supply chain resilience capabilities and combine the two critical concepts of exploitation and exploration capabilities to identify four exaptation dimensions in the context of LSPs, namely impeded exaptation, configurative exaptation, transformative exaptation and ambidextrous exaptation.

As one of the first studies linking exaptation and supply chain resilience, the framework and subsequent categorization advance the understanding of how LSPs can build exapt-driven supply chain resilience capabilities and synthesize the current literature to offer conceptual clarity regarding the varied implications and outcomes linked to the repurposing of capabilities.

An emerging body of literature has pinpointed the role of supply chain structure in influencing the extent to which supply chain members disclose information about their internal practices and performance. Nevertheless, empirical research investigating the effects of firm-level relational embeddedness on network-level transparency still lags. Drawing on social network analysis, this research examines the effect of relational embeddedness on supply chain transparency and the contingent role of digitalization in the context of environmental, social and governance (ESG) information disclosure.

In their empirical analysis, the authors collected secondary data from the Bloomberg database about 2,229 firms and 14,007 ties organized in 107 extended supply chains. The authors employed supplier and customer concentration metrics to measure relational embeddedness and performed multiple econometric models to test the hypothesis.

The authors found a positive effect of supplier concentration on supply chain transparency, but the effect of customer concentration was not significant. Additionally, the digitalization of focal firms reinforced the impact of supplier concentration on supply chain transparency.

The study findings contribute by underscoring the critical effect of relational embeddedness on supply chain transparency, extending prior literature on social network analysis, providing compelling evidence for the intersection of digitalization and supply chain management, and drawing important implications for practices.

Logistics sector is recognized as one of the core enablers of the economic development of a nation. However, inefficiency in logistics operations impedes the achievement of intended targets by increasing the cost of doing business. Also, it is difficult to improve the efficiency of a country’s logistics operations without a metric for evaluating and understanding logistics capabilities and efficiency. Therefore, the present study has developed In-country Logistics Performance Index (ILP Index) to propose a benchmarking tool to measure the in-country logistics competitiveness, particularly in the setting of emerging economies, i.e. India.

This study has developed a unified index using principal component analysis and quintile approach. In addition, the proposed index relies on several dimensions that are developed and illustrated using quantitative secondary panel data.

The findings of this study reveal that the quality of infrastructure, economy, and telecommunications are the three most important dimensions that may significantly support the growth of the transportation and logistics sector. The results reveal that Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, and Maharashtra are the top performers whereas, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Jammu and Kashmir scores the least due to the insufficient logistics infrastructure as compared to other Indian states.

Given the extensive focus on international-level logistics index (like World Bank’s LPI) in the existing literature, this study intends to develop in-country logistics index to evaluate the logistics capabilities at the regional and state level. In addition, unlike prior studies, this study utilizes quantitative secondary data to eliminate cognitive and opinion bias. Moreover, this benchmarking tool would assist decision-makers in idealizing standard practices toward sustainable logistics operations. Additionally, the ILP index could serve the international investors in crucial decision-making, as it provides valuable insights into a country’s logistics readiness, influencing their investment choices and trade preferences. Finally, the proposed approach is adaptable to measuring the overall performance of any other industry/economy.