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Drawing upon resource dependence theory, this study aims to examine how a firm’s information technology (IT) capabilities (i.e. IT integration and IT reconfiguration) influence its responses to disruptions – bridging with a current supplier and buffering with an alternative supplier. We further examine how such relationships are moderated by the firm–supplier relative dependence (i.e. firm dependence advantage and supplier dependence advantage).

Based on data from 141 match-paired surveys of firms in China, we test our model.

Our study finds that IT integration positively influences bridging and IT reconfiguration positively influences buffering. Furthermore, our findings indicate that the positive impact of IT integration on bridging is negatively influenced by the firm’s dependence (FD) advantage but positively moderated by the supplier’s dependence advantage. By contrast, the positive impact of IT reconfiguration on buffering is negatively influenced by the FD advantage.

Our study provides a more nuanced insight into the effects of IT capabilities on disruption responses and a better understanding of the buyer–supplier dependence boundary conditions under which these effects vary.

This study aims to examine decision factors for global sourcing, differentiated into transcontinental and continental sourcing to obtain insight into locational aspects of sourcing decisions and global trends. This study analyzed various country perceptions to reveal their influence on sourcing decisions. The country of origin (COO) theory explains why certain country perceptions and images influence purchasing experts in their selection of suppliers.

This study used a two-study approach. In Study 1, the authors conducted discrete choice card experiments with 71 purchasing experts located in Europe and the USA to examine the importance of essential decision factors for global sourcing. Given the clear evidence that location is a factor in sourcing decisions, in Study 2 the authors investigated purchasers’ perceptions and images of countries, adding country ranking experiments on various perceived characteristics such as quality, price and technology.

Study 1 provides evidence that the purchasers’ personal relationship with the supplier plays a decisive role in the supplier selection process. While product quality and location impact sourcing decisions, the attraction of the buying company and cultural barriers are less significant. Interestingly, however, these factors seem as important as price to respondents. This implies that a strong relationship with suppliers and good quality products are essential aspects of a reliable and robust supply chain in the post-COVID-19 era. Examining the locational aspect in detail, Study 2 linked the choice card experiments with country ranking experiments. In this study, the authors found that purchasing experts consider that transcontinental countries such as Japan and China offer significant advantages in terms of price and technology. China has enhanced its quality, which is recognizable in the country ranking experiments. Therefore, decisions on global sourcing are not just based on such high-impact factors as price and availability; country perceptions are also influential. Additionally, the significance of the locational aspect could be linked to certain country images of transcontinental suppliers, as the COO theory describes.

The new approach divides global sourcing into transcontinental and European sourcing to evaluate special decision factors and link these factors to the locational aspect of sourcing decisions. To deepen the clear evidence for the locational aspect and investigate the possible influence of country perceptions, the authors applied the COO theory. This approach enabled authors to show the strong influence of country perception on purchasing departments, which is represented by the locational effect. Hence, the success of transcontinental countries relies not only on factors such as their availability but also on the purchasers’ positive perceptions of these countries in terms of technology and price.

Amidst unpredictable and turbulent periods, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, service organization’s responses are required to be innovative, adaptable and resilient. The purpose of this study is to explore the utilization of both reconfiguration and transformational strategies as instruments for cultivating resilience and advancing sustainability in service organizations.

The study examines a proposed resilience model using fuzzy logic. The research also used a semantic differential scale to capture nuanced and intricate attitudes. Finally, to augment the validity of the resilience model, a measurement scale was formulated using business mathematics and expert opinions.

Although investing in resilience training can help organizations gain control and maintain their operations in times of crisis, it may not directly help service organizations understand the external turmoil, seek available resources or create adaptive remedies. Conversely, high levels of reconfiguration and transformation management vigour empower a service organization’s revolutionary, malleable vision, organizational structure and decision-making processes, welcoming talented and innovative employees to enhance capabilities during crises.

The resilience model bestows a comprehensive understanding of the pertinence of building resilience for service organizations identifying the antecedents that influence the adoption of these strategies and introduces a range of theoretical perspectives that empowers service organizations to conceptualize and plan for building resilience. The research guides service organizations to become more resilient to external shocks and adapt to changing circumstances by diversifying their offerings, optimizing their resources and adopting flexible work arrangements. The study elaborates on the enhancement of resilience, increasing innovation, improving efficiency and enhancing customer satisfaction for service organizations to remain competitive and contribute to positive social and economic outcomes through the adoption of both reconfiguration and transformational strategies.

The study also guides the service organizations to become more resilient to external shocks and adapt to changing circumstances by diversifying their offerings, optimizing their resources and adopting flexible work arrangements. Rapid innovation and business model innovation are essential components, enabling service organizations to foster a culture of innovation and remain competitive. In addition, the adoption can lead to improved financial performance, job creation and economic growth, contributing to positive social and economic impacts.

The resilience model bestows a comprehensive understanding of the pertinence of building resilience for service organizations. It identifies the antecedents that influence the adoption of these strategies and introduces a range of theoretical perspectives that empowers service organizations to conceptualize and plan for building resilience. The research also provides a foundation for further investigation into the effectiveness of these strategies and their impact on organizational performance and sustainability. By better preparing service organizations for disruptions and uncertainties, this research triggers ameliorated organizational performance and sustainability.

Within the realm of the service industry, the present investigation has undertaken the development, quantification and scrutiny of both resilience and tenacity. In addition, it has delved into the intricate dynamics surrounding the influencing factors and antecedents that bear upon resilience, elucidating their consequential impact on the operational performance and outlook of service-oriented organizations. The findings derived from this research furnish valuable insights germane to enhancing operational efficacy and surmounting impediments within the sector.

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.

Motivated by the real-world practice that the boom of the online selling induces a higher product return as well, selecting which online channel mode indicates who takes ownership over the product and thus bears the loss of the product return. This paper aims to seek the optimal online channel modes for the two members in a platform supply chain in the presence of product returns.

This study aims to develop a platform supply chain that consists of one platform company and one supplier. Along with an offline distribution channel, the supplier can choose two alternative online selling modes (i.e. the reselling and agency modes) to sell its product through the online marketplace. This paper applies Stackelberg game to derive the equilibrium with different business scenarios and selects the optimal online channel modes for two parties, respectively. Moreover, this paper extends to a different supply chain with a reverse channel leadership and a different product return policy for testing the robustness.

Several interesting and important results are derived in this paper. Firstly, it is found that the relative pricing are largely relied on the costs of two channels. Secondly, the platform supply chain may benefit from a pure channel rather than the dual-channel when this channel enjoys a relatively low cost and/or a sufficiently high consumer preference. Then, the platform and the supplier act contradictorily when selecting their optimal online channel modes. To be specific, the platform motivates to choose the online reselling mode when both the commission rate and the slotting fee are relatively low, whereas the supplier is likely to select the online agency mode under this circumstance. Finally, a win-win situation in regards to the optimal online channel mode for two parties is achievable with numerical experiments.

Based on the analytical studies, the results derived in the authors’ work can provide managerial insights to assist the supplier and the platform company in determining the operational decision and selecting the optimal online channel mode to deal with consumer returns. In addition, appropriate commission rate along with slotting fee will make both parties achieve a win-win situation in determining their optimal online channel mode.

To the authors’ best knowledge, this paper makes the first move to determine the optimal online channel mode in the content of consumer returns and study how it is affected by different product return policies.

Digital transformation misalignment refers to disparities in digital transformation levels between suppliers and buyers across the production and operation process. It has negatively affected supply chain stability. However, the existing research concerning the economic consequences has not been adequately addressed. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate whether such digital transformation misalignment increases supplier financial risk and to identify the factors influencing this relationship.

This paper examines binary combinations of suppliers and buyers listed on China’s A-share market between 2011 and 2021. This group constitutes a sample to empirically test the influence of digital transformation misalignment on the supplier’s financial risk, as well as the moderating effect of the geographical and organizational distances.

The paper’s findings demonstrate that digital transformation misalignment has indeed a significant increase in the supplier’s financial risk. Moreover, the impact is more intense when the geographical or organizational distance between the supplier and the buyer is relatively large.

The existing literature rarely explores the potential risks arising from digital transformation misalignment between supply chain partners. Therefore, this paper fills a notable gap as it is the first to study the impact of digital transformation misalignment on the supplier’s financial risk and the specific applied mechanisms. The contribution significantly improves the field of corporate digital transformation, particularly, within the context of supply chain management.

The purpose of this article is to discuss how the mastery of resilience in operations and supply chains plays a significant role in the transition to a more sustainable future. Furthermore, it is supposed to propose avenues for future research on operational and supply chain resilience, interacting with the sustainability literature in our field.

A conceptual review of resilience and sustainability themes within operations and supply chain management research is conducted. Reflections on the topic are informed by relevant literature published over the last decade.

The major conceptual contributions are threefold: (1) This article elaborates on the understanding of operational resilience and supply chain resilience concepts and reviews their respective primary research streams. (2) It proposes resilience as the missing element in the pursuit of excellence in organizations that want to contribute to a more sustainable future. (3) The article offers a research framework that provides a future research agenda at the intersection of resilience and sustainability in operations and supply chain management research.

The article highlights gaps in current research and illustrates further areas of research that need to be addressed to maximize the contribution of operations and supply chain management research in supporting practitioners to achieve a more sustainable future.

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 paper aims to investigate the relationship between information technology (IT) capabilities, information integration and supply chain resilience within the context of a developing country.

Employing a structured questionnaire survey, the study collected cross-sectional data from 205 agro-food processing firms in Uganda, drawn from a sample of 248. The data were subsequently analyzed using SPSS version 27 to validate the hypothesized relationships.

The study findings revealed that IT capabilities and information integration are positively and significantly associated with supply chain resilience. Moreover, it established a positive and significant link between IT capabilities and information integration. The results further revealed both IT capabilities and information integration account for 62.2% of the variance in supply chain resilience (SCRES) in agro-food processing firms in Uganda. Notably, the findings revealed the partial mediating role of information integration, addressing the need to understanding the mechanisms through which IT capabilities influence SCRES.

First, the study used a cross-sectional design which makes it difficult to test causality. Some of the study variables need to be studied over time due to their inherent behavioral elements such as collaboration and information sharing. Hence, future research that could, where possible, collect longitudinal data on the study variables would add value to the findings. Second, the study was limited to agro-food processing firms in Uganda in selected districts of Kampala, Wakiso, Mukono and Jinja. Further research needs to be done in other sectors such as service industry and other geographical locations in Uganda and other developing economies to provide more generality of the findings. Third, the study was based on IT capabilities, information integration and supply chain resilience. There are other variables that affect supply chain resilience such as business continuity planning strategy, interactions between teams within an organization in building resilience, supply chain velocity, system orientation and flexibility among others which can be interesting for further research.

Managers are advised to motivate their IT-related personnel. Efficient use of IT systems by staff, especially who are skillful at self-study, enhances their ability to respond to disruptions accordingly. This enhances SCRES. Additionally, to get feedback from supply chain stakeholders, agro-food processing firms should assess the quality of their supply chain services through using IT capabilities as well as integrating their information.

This study contributes to existing literature by adopting information processing perspective to provide an empirical understanding of IT capabilities and information integration as key resources and capabilities essential for information processing in building SCRES. Furthermore, the study introduces the novel insight of the mediating role of information integration as a pathway in which IT capabilities enhance SCRES in agro-food processing firms in Uganda.

President Trump's tenure was accompanied by a series of protectionist measures that intended to reinvigorate US-based production and make manufacturing supply chains more “local”. Amidst these increasing institutional pressures to localise, and the business uncertainty that ensued, this study investigates the extent to which manufacturers reconfigured their supply bases.

Bloomberg's Supply Chain Function (SPLC) is used to manually extract data about the direct suppliers of 30 of the largest American manufacturers in terms of market capitalisation. Overall, the raw data comprise 20,100 quantified buyer–supplier relationships that span seven years (2014–2020). The supply base dimensions of spatial complexity, spend concentration and buyer dependence are operationalised by applying appropriate aggregation functions on the raw data. The final dataset is a firm-year panel that is analysed using a random effect (RE) modelling approach and the conditional means of the three dimensions are plotted over time.

Over the studied timeframe, American manufacturers progressively reduced the spatial complexity of their supply bases and concentrated their purchase spend to fewer suppliers. Contrary to the aims of governmental policies, American manufacturers increased their dependence on foreign suppliers and reduced their dependence on local ones.

The research provides insights into the dynamics of manufacturing supply chains as they adapt to shifting institutional demands.