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Belt and road initiative (BRI) is a transcontinental endeavor strategically connecting supply chains (SCs) and economic infrastructures to ignite business activities and achieve trade benefits. However, the rising global SC failure costs and risks associated with this initiative (owing to unique geopolitical, economic and mega-connectivity involving over 70 countries) necessitate examining BRI SC risks. Yet, research on the subject remains limited, and the purpose of this paper is to address this gap in knowledge.

A two-pronged approach was taken. First, a data sample of 554 articles was analyzed and 178 articles found relevant were used to present a systematic, structured framework of risk factors along operational, economic, financial, social and security dimensions. Then informed by the theory of risk management and supplemented by literature evidence, we have built a BRI SC risk model.

The results presented through the model show that BRI SCs face a combination of risks triggered by operational processes, informational and environmental (PIE) deficiencies. Findings show that lack of risk and liability management, unbalanced risk-sharing partnerships, lack of transparency, inadequate project evaluation, incompatible corporate governance structures and cyber security all pose threats to BRI SCs specifically and SCs in general.

Academically, the results facilitate theory development by identifying and proposing seven risk factors and modeling relationship among them and BRI SC risks outcome. The results also extend application of theory of risk management to SC context.

The findings provide a decision-making tool for managers to assess risk factors in their SCs, thus enabling improved decision making to avoid, mitigate, transfer or accept risks.

Identifies and proposes a set of seven risk factors that drive BRI SC risks. Develops a model of BRI SC risks which help build theory of SC risk management.

This study aims to evaluate cargo and eco-efficiency of global container shipping companies (CSCs) and explore the determinants of the CSCs' efficiencies. While the former is derived from the CSCs' operational perspective, the latter highlights environmental issue related to carbon emission reduction.

In the first stage, a two-stage double bootstrap approach of data envelopment analysis (DEA) is applied to derive bias-corrected cargo and eco-efficiency of the top ten global CSCs under the variable returns to scale assumption. In the second stage, ordinary least squares and truncated regression are applied to examine determinants of the CSCs' efficiencies.

The DEA results reveal that the cargo efficiency of the CSCs is higher than their eco-efficiency by about 2.6% under variable returns to scale in DEA. However, the bias-corrected results show that the difference is 2.9%. The overall average efficiencies suggest that the CSCs can improve their cargo (eco) efficiency by 6.9% (10.8%). In the second stage, the regression results show that the numbers of ship, return on assets and asset turnover ratio are significantly related to both cargo and eco-efficiencies, whereas the total fleet capacity positively affects cargo efficiency.

The results of this study can help the inefficient CSCs make strategic decisions to improve their performance. For example, their business experience and capacity may be contributing to their efficiencies. However, this study only focuses on the container market among the three main markets, namely, dry bulk, wet bulk and container.

This study highlights an environmental issue in the shipping industry. While CSCs are operating their cargo efficiently in general, they should also put green initiatives into their business operations for the long-term sustainability.

This paper presents an overview of the recent development of Eurasian rail freight in the Belt and Road era and further evaluates its service quality in terms of transit times and transport costs compared to other transport modes in containerised supply chains between Europe and China.

A trade-off model of transit time and transport costs based on quantitative data from primary and secondary sources is developed to demonstrate the market niche for Eurasian rail freight vis-a-vis the more established modes of transport of sea, air and sea/air. In a scenario analysis, further cargo attributes influencing modal choice are employed to show for which cargo type Eurasian rail freight service is favourable from a shipper's point of view.

At present, Eurasian rail freight is about 80% less expensive than air freight with only half of the transit time of conventional sea freight. Our scenario analysis further suggests that for shipping time-sensitive goods with lower cargo value ranging from $US1.23/kg to $US10.89/kg as well as goods with lower time sensitivity and higher value in a range of $US2.46/kg to $US21.78/kg, total logistics costs of Eurasian rail freight service rail is cheaper than all other modes of transport.

As an emerging competitive solution, Eurasian rail freight demonstrates to be an option beneficial in terms of transport cost, transit time, reliability and service availability, which offers a cost-efficient option enabling shippers to build up agile and more sustainable supply chains between China and Europe.

Our study firstly provides a comprehensive assessment of present Eurasian rail freight including a thorough comparison with alternative modes of transport from a shipper's point of view.

This paper's purpose is to suggest that manufacturers strategically place soft orders for assembly materials with suppliers in Silk Road Economic Belt countries who probably doubt the realization of the soft orders placed.

First, a two-stage Stackelberg competition is constructed, taking into account the supplier's trust level in formulating the decision process in the assembly supply chain. The authors then provide a buyback contract to coordinate the supply chain, in which the manufacturer obtains enough supplies by sharing some of the perceived risks of not fully trusted suppliers. Furthermore, the authors conduct a numerical study to investigate the influence of trust under a decentralized case and a buyback contract.

The authors found that all supply chain partners in Silk Road Economic Belt countries experience potential losses due to not fully trusting certain conditions. The study also shows that, in Silk Road Economic Belt countries, operating under a buyback contract is better than being without one in terms of assembly supply chain performance.

On the one hand, the authors only consider the asymmetry of demand information without considering that of cost structure information. On the other hand, a natural extension of the paper is to integrate single-period transactions into the multi-period transaction problem setting. As all these issues require substantial effort, the authors reserve them for future exploration.

Doing business with not-fully-trustworthy partners in Silk Road Economic Belt countries is risky, and this study reveals how trust works in global cooperation and with strategic reactions in situations of partial trust.