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This paper aims to introduce a supply chain strategy for supply chain sustainability performance and explain why it is different to normal business/operations strategy.

A survey of supply chain managers and detailed case studies of three successful supply chain sustainability organisations identified four components of a supply chain sustainability strategy, the mechanisms behind them and how they interacted.

Sustainability leadership, supply chain member involvement in organisational sustainability initiatives, supply chain member involvement in supply chain sustainability strategy planning and technical competency were identified as the four components of a sustainable supply chain strategy. Sustainability leadership legitimises the objectives and involvement of the staff in supply chain-oriented sustainability initiatives and planning. Technical competency provides the capability and language necessary for the development of a supply chain sustainability strategy. This is different to business/operations strategy, however, parallels to other forms of strategy constructs support its ability to achieve performance improvement.

The research is based on data from developed countries; the findings may be different for emerging economies. Potential hypotheses for future research are suggested.

The supply chain sustainability strategy will enable organisations to improve the sustainability of their supply chains. Its application is described in the paper.

The paper develops a strategy framework different to the approach taken in business/operational strategy. It indicates how the sustainability performance of supply chains external to the organisation is increased through their interconnectedness with the organisation.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the pricing decisions and earning potential of the software supplier and the smart device manufacturer in different software promotion strategies.

Based on game theory, the authors formulate two promotion models, that is, the supplier implements software promotion activities individually (SP model) or outsources the promotion activity to the manufacturer under profit-sharing contract (MP model) when taking different channel power structures into consideration. Besides, in order to test the robustness of the conclusions, the authors also extend the basic model to the following situations: (1) the customers have different price elasticity toward service fee and product price; (2) the revenue sharing contract is employed by the supply chain members; and (3) the manufacturer's product promotion practice is taken into consideration.

The optimal service fee (product price) of the supplier (manufacturer) under SP model is always lower (higher) than that under MP model. Surprisingly, if the supplier is the channel leader and the profit sharing ratio exceeds certain threshold, the manufacturer's profit decreases in profit sharing ratio, which remains robust in three extension models. Moreover, the supply chain's profit in supplier-led game is always lower than that in Nash game irrespective of the promotion strategy in profit sharing context. When revenue sharing contract is adopted, the result holds only when the revenue sharing ratio is relatively low.

The authors originally explore two promotion strategies of the software supplier when taking the channel power structures into considerations, which has not been explored in the literature to the best of the authors' knowledge.

Drawing on the dynamic capability view (DCV), this research determines the suitable configurations of resilience strategies for sustainable tourism supply chain performance amidst “extreme” disruptive events affecting the entire supply chain.

This research applies a multi-study and multi-method approach. Study 1 utilizes in-depth interviews to identify a list of tourism supply chain sustainability risks and resilience strategies. Study 2, using quality function deployment (QFD) technique, determines the most important resilience strategies corresponding to highly significant risks. Study 3, on the other hand, adopts a fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to determine the best recipe of resilience strategies and risks to make the tourism supply chain performance sustainable.

The findings reveal that sustainable tourism performance during an extreme disruptive event (e.g. COVID-19 health crisis) depends on the combined effect of tourism resilience strategies and risks instead of their individual effect.

The research findings offer significant managerial implications. Managers may experiment with multiple causal conditions of risks and resilience strategies to engender the expected outcome.

This research extends current knowledge on tourism supply chain and offers insights for managers to mitigate the risks and ensures sustainable performance in the context of extreme disruptive events.

This study proposes practical digitalization strategies and well-grounded evaluation criteria for maritime container supply chains.

The authors identified the status of supply chain digitalization of the Port of Busan in South Korea and developed three digitalization strategies based on industry requirements and consultations with port experts. The authors proposed 11 evaluation criteria for examining the main digitalization strategies in the supply chain operations reference model, based on a survey among 46 experts and used multi-criteria decision-making approaches to prioritize the strategies and evaluation criteria.

The results delineate the status of the digitalization of a real-world port-focal supply chain. The model can be successfully customized to include well-grounded evaluation criteria for digitalization strategies, and presents a practical way to advance the supply chain digitalization strategies. Based on the survey and evaluation, the authors find that increasing data accessibility and improving quality are preferred to adopting a data and information sharing platform.

As the study is limited to the Port of Busan, future case studies could be undertaken to container supply chains driven by different regional ports.

Stakeholders, such as truckers, terminal operators, and shipping liners, might consider the proposed strategies and evaluation criteria when digitalizing their supply chains.

By identifying the needs and specifications of maritime container supply chain digitalization strategies, developing evaluation criteria, and conducting a case study for proof of concept, the study proposes an operational management process with practical, real-world benefits for port-focal supply chains.

Supply chain literature highlights that environmental uncertainty (EU) encourages firms to integrate their business strategies and develop strategic flexibility (SF). The authors’ use the dynamic capability view (DCV) to explain why the EU motivates firms to develop SF and integrate business strategies for better supply chain coordination (SCC) and enhanced performance. This study tests the role of SCC as a mediator between (1) business strategy integration (BSI) and operational performance, and (2) SF and operational performance. The study also measures the contingent effect of structural constructs on the relationship between EU, BSI and SF.

Data of 356 firms drawn from the continuous innovation network (CINet) are used in this paper. Structural equation modeling (SEM) is used to test the direct, indirect and moderation hypotheses.

The paper finds that EU enhances SF and BSI. Further, BSI has a significant positive impact on SCC that drives operational performance. The paper also finds that SF has no direct impact on SCC rather it affects SCC through BSI. SCC mediates the relationship between (1) SF and operational performance, and (2) BSI and operational performance. The organization's structural factors including connectedness and formalization moderate the effect of EU on BSI and SF.

The paper extends debate at the interface of supply chain risk and strategy literature and provides a specific understanding of the “external-internal-external” mechanism in the context of the turbulent business environment. This mechanism helps to understand why and under what structural conditions EU (external) leads to BSI and SF (internal). Further, BSI and SF (internal) help firms to manage SCC (external) effectively that in turn improve operational performance.

This study conceptualizes the digital transformation (DT) strategy in a supply chain context, identifies its drivers from intra- and inter-organizational perspectives and examines the effect of the DT strategy on the strategic agility and financial performance of Chinese manufacturing firms.

The authors constructed a theoretical model by synthesizing the diffusion of innovation and organizational information processing theory (OIPT) and provided a set of hypotheses. The authors empirically tested the arguments using partial least squares structural equation modeling using data from a sample of 200 manufacturing firms in China.

The findings indicate that while supply chain connectivity positively affects DT adoption and DT routinization, data analytics capability and organizational learning positively influence DT adoption but not DT routinization. The mediation analysis also shows that DT strategy has significant direct effects on financial performance and a stronger indirect influence on financial performance via improved strategic agility.

This study responds to repeated calls for a new understanding of supply chain DT strategy. In addition, the study offers important contributions to the literature by identifying the potential discord between the existing DT strategy and the supply chain context and proposes a new framework that provides essential theoretical underpinnings.

This study enriches the literature by conceptualizing and validating the dimensions, driving factors and performance implications of DT strategy in strategic supply chain management.

Managing supply chain risk is a crucial element in ensuring the long-term sustainability of any organization or industry. As such, identification of risks and deploying their mitigation strategies should be the focal point to sustain in the long run. The risks that are faced by food processing supply chains are gaining prominence, given more consumers requiring higher quality products while ensuring traceability. In essence, this research focuses on the supply chain risks and mitigation strategies in the spice industry of an emerging economy, Sri Lanka.

This paper integrates two popular multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) techniques, such as the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) to assess the supply chain risks and to derive their mitigation strategies for the spice industry.

Findings show that “inability to meet quality requirements” has been established as the most significant risk in the Sri Lankan spice industry. On the other hand, “vertical integration” (backward integration) has been discovered as the key mitigation strategy to ameliorate the effects of supply chain risks in this sector.

This study is exploratory, and more empirical data and statistical analyses are needed to further validate the outcomes of the study.

Despite being one of the largest trade exporters in Sri Lanka, the spice industry gets scant attention to the identification and mitigation of the risks. The authors explored the supply chain risks in the spice industry and then prioritized the suitable mitigation strategies using an integrated AHP-TOPSIS method.

Outsourcing of logistics services has increased rapidly during the last few years. Accordingly, third‐party logistics and supply chain management as a research phenomenon has gained increased attention from academia. However, a strategic view focusing on the relationship between supply chain management and third‐party logistics service strategies has gained little attention. This paper focuses on alternative supply chain strategies and their relationship to different types of third‐party logistics services. A normative framework for organizing these relationships is developed. The strategic view adopted in this paper fills a gap in the understanding of how third‐party logistics providers should offer their services more effectively and efficiently to different types of supply chains.

This study aims to investigate how relatively weaker manufacturers respond to the dominance of stronger suppliers and/or customers. The study also analyzes how the competitive intensity perceived by manufacturers moderates their responses to powerful chain partners.

Using hierarchical regression, data from 1,417 manufacturing companies sampled from the fifth and sixth versions of the International Manufacturing Strategy Survey were analyzed.

This study found that relatively weaker manufacturers often adopt exploration strategies to countervail the dominance of suppliers and adopt exploitation strategies to deal with more powerful customers. In dealing with both dominant suppliers and customers, relatively weaker manufacturers are prone to adopt exploration and exploitation strategies simultaneously and hence become ambidextrous. Furthermore, the link between dominance in supply chains and the exploration (exploitation) strategy is strengthened (weakened) as market competition perceived by manufacturers intensifies.

The contribution of this paper is multi-folds. First, this paper develops and test a novel theoretical model on how relatively weaker manufacturers create tailored strategies to defend their positions in the supply chain. Second, it integrates resource dependence theory and organizational learning theory to propose that relatively weaker manufacturers could use a unique configuration of exploration and exploitation strategies to counteract the dominance of their suppliers and customers. Third, it investigates supply chain power by considering the manufacturers’ upstream and downstream powerful partners together, rather than individually and fourth, it reveals that relationships linking supply chain power to manufacturers’ tailored strategies are contingent on competitive intensity.

This paper aims to investigate the characteristics of demand and supply in relation to the real-world supply chain strategies of local urban fresh food supply chains (FFSC). It generates insights into how a range of strategies is adopted by urban retailer businesses in attempting to cater for the particular requirements of food-literate urban consumers and small-scale local growers.

Using a multiple case study method, 12 urban local fresh food retailers in Sydney were studied and interview data were analyzed using thematic analysis.

Local fresh produce has characteristics of both functional and innovative products. Retailers with strong upstream and downstream collaborations adopt hybrid strategies for increased time efficiency and product variety. The dominance of strategies for time efficiency in downstream activities is aimed at maximising the product’s freshness and taste, while product range improvement strategies mean innovative retailers are working with growers to introduce new product types and offering new recipes to consumers that encourage a wider use of products. Urban retailers of local fresh produce leverage on their relationships with upstream and downstream supply chain entities in implementing hybrid strategies.

Policymakers will make use of the new knowledge generated about the real enablers of contemporary urban food systems in designing developmental policies; findings will inform urban FFSC retailers about how harmonious relationships can be leveraged for sustainability.

The study generates new knowledge on the implementation of a leagile approach by studying the adoption of innovative hybrid strategies by urban local FFSCs in relations to demand and supply characteristics and the utilization of strong vertical relationships in a short supply chain.