Supply network resilience: a systematic literature review and future research

• Published date: 13 November 2017
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJLM-03-2016-0064
• Pages: 1387-1424
• Date: 13 November 2017
• Author: P. Datta
• Subject Matter: Management science & operations,Logistics

Supply network resilience:

a systematic literature review

and future research

P. Datta

Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, Kolkata, India

Abstract

Purpose –The purposeof this paper is to investigatethe knowledge existing in theliterature on supply chain

resilience for identifying the supplychain practices adopted for securingresilience in given uncertain event.

Design/methodology/approach –A systematic literature review is conducted to identify 84 conceptual

and empirical studies. The research findings are synthesized in categories of uncertain events, supply chain

practices and outcomes.

Findings –A set of propositions linking the uncertain events, mechanisms and supply chain resilience

improvement is developed. It was found that the sufficient conditions for resilience under unexpected

disasters are substantially different from those required for resilience against disruptions caused by internal

practices or complexity.

Originality/value –Practitioners can benefit from the knowledge of interventions and mechanisms to

improve their supply chain resilience in the face of different unpredictable situations. The contribution of this

paper is twofold: first, it develops an actionable theory of supply chain resilience by developing testable

propositions in the context of supply chains exposed to uncertainties resulting from unexpected disruptions,

complexity of supply chains and adoption of certain internal practice; second, the paper highlights the key

shortcomings of existing literature and provides opportunities for further research and improvement.

Keywords Supply chain resilience, Risk management, Supply chain management,

Systematic literature review, Supply chain uncertainty

Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction

A report by Accenture in collaboration with World Economic Forum indicates that supply

chain disruptions destroy about 7 percent of a firm’ss hareholder value (Bhatia et al.,2013). The

Business Continuity Institute in its recent supply chain resilience report identified loss of

productivity, customer complaints, increased cost of working, loss of revenue and impaired

service outcomes as the top five consequences of supply chain disruption (Alcantara and

Riglietti, 2015). The very complexity and the global reach of today’s globe-spanning supply

chain networks (Craighead et al., 2007; Wagner and Bode, 2006), the low inventory levels and

lack of redundancies required to achieve efficient operations (Kamalahmadi and Parast, 2016;

Saenz and Revilla, 2014) expose businesses to a huge range of unexpected disruptions.

In addition, supply chain managers must deal with the conventional disruptions of supply

variability, capacity constraints, manufacturing yields and quality problems (Saenz and

Revilla, 2014). On top of that, there are unwarranted disruptions such as natural disasters,

strikes, accidents and terrorism (Mitroff and Alpasan, 2003). Sheffi and Rice (2005) point out

that the primary source of supply chain risks faced by managers is the uncertainty in the

demand for products, uncertainty that has grown product variety with shorter product life

cycles. Adapting to these challenges of demand uncertainty increased supply chain complexity

and resulted in more instability and unpredictability (Kamalahmadi and Parast, 2016).

Businesses around the world have reported many instances of increased significance of

supply chain resilience. In 2000, when a fire at a Philips plant disrupted the supply of a key

component for Nokia and Ericsson, Nokia’s ability to adapt quickly by using alternative

suppliers showeda symbolic case of supply chain resilience.In contrast, the lack of resilience

in Ericsson’s production resulted in an estimateloss in revenue of $400 million (Latour, 2001).

The International Journal of

Logistics Management

Vol. 28 No. 4, 2017

pp. 1387-1424

© Emerald PublishingLimited

0957-4093

DOI 10.1108/IJLM-03-2016-0064

Received 10 March 2016

Revised 3 September 2016

2 November 2016

13 March 2017

Accepted 15 March 2017

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

www.emeraldinsight.com/0957-4093.htm

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The risk of supply chain disruptions and corresponding development of resiliency capability

is receiving increased attention in the academic journals (Petit et al., 2010; Ponis and

Koronis, 2012; Kunzet al., 2014; Lee and Rha, 2016). Many articles( Lee andWolfe, 2003; Rice

and Caniato, 2003; Christopher and Lee, 2001; Kleindorfer and Saad, 2005; Sheffi and Rice,

2005; Tang, 2006) have presented recommendations for designing resilient supply networks.

In spite of the huge importance of the issue of supply chain resilience, the literature is yet

to link the disruptions from different sources with the resilience enhancing practices and the

outcomes. This paper aims to synthesize the fragmented knowledge of supply chain

resilience by addressing the key research question:

RQ1. What are the different supply chain practices reported in literature that secure

resilience in given supply chain contexts?

This is addressed by systematically reviewing the articles published in academic and

practitioner journals during past 20 years. The contribution of this paper is twofold: first, it

develops an actionable theory of supply chain resilience by developing testable propositions

in the context of supply chains exposed to different unpredictable events; second, the paper

highlights the shortcomings of existing literature and builds agenda for future research.

To attain this, an analytic framework drawing on the design science paradigm is developed

(Van Aken, 2004). Research in the design sciences offers design propositions so that “if you want

to achieve outcome O in context C, then use intervention type I”(Denyer et al., 2008, p. 395).

In this paper, it is suggested that the interventions (I) to improve supply network resilience

may produce different supply network outcomes (O) based on different underlying

mechanisms (M) and specific supply network contexts (C). The CIMO logic provides the

basis for synthesizing and reporting the findings from the systematic literature review.

This paper begins by describing the method adopted in this literature review. Overall

findings describe the state of development of the field and reveal what is known concerning

the context,interventions, resilienceperformance of supply networksand the interrelationship

between contextand interventions and betweeninterventions and outcomes.An investigation

is made of the mechanisms that provide insight to the design of interventions for a specific

context deliveringspecific desired outcomes.Based on the relationships between thedifferent

elements of the framework, a set of propositions is developed that will provide a basis for

comprehensively operationalizing supply chain resilience and building a testable model

grounded in the literature.

2. Systematic literature review methodology

A systematic literature review methodology (Tranfieldet al., 2003) is used, in which there is a

comprehensive search for relevant studies on a specific topic, which are then appraised and

synthesizedaccording to a pre-determinedexplicit method. The reviewstrategy has a number

of stages designedto provide a systematic and explicitmethod for comprehensive coverageof

the research area investigated in this paper. The following steps were taken in this study:

(1) Searching.

(2) Screening.

(3) Extraction and Synthesis.

(4) Reporting.

2.1 Searching

The literature search aims at identifying all possible sources of information that are relevant

to the research question addressed by the review (defined in the previous section). This is

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done through identification of the main keywords used in the different streams of literature

(management, science, engineering, etc.). These keywords were later used to build search

strings, which were applied to electronic academic databases. Relevant book sections and

other publications that were not covered by the databases were identified. Further

knowledge sources were included by searching the references used in previous related

literature reviews (Kamalahmadi and Parast, 2016; Tukamuhabwa et al., 2015; Petit et al.,

2010; Ponis and Koronis, 2012). The review of the work of influential authors in the field of

supply chain resilience was also carried out. The identification of key articles and book

sections providing background information on supply chain resilience were made from

various sources, including colleagues working in the same field.

Table I lists the keywords that were used for searching the databases. Keywords on the

subject were identified based on prior study of books and papers, discussions with practitioners

and academics in the relevant field and using a form of brainstorming. The keyword

“organi?ation*”is used to limit the search to manageable numbers (less than 3,000).

A list of terms that would be captured unintentionally by the proposed search but were

considered not relevant for this research is also shown in Table I. These were excluded in the

review. The selected keywords were then used to construct search strings with Boolean

connectors (AND, OR, AND NOT). The strings were then used to search for titles and abstracts

containing these terms among scholarly (peer reviewed) journals in the Web of Knowledge and

Ebsco databases, which resulted in 2,864 titles being identified.

2.2 Screening

A first screen based on the relevance of the title and abstract to the object of study and the

subsequent elimination of duplicates resulted in the retention of 176 documents for a more

in-depth review of the full text article. Relevant papers were then selected using explicit

inclusion and exclusion criteria (Table II) and quality criteria covering alignment between

the research objective, chosen methods and execution of research, methodological rigor

and contribution to knowledge (Miles and Huberman, 1994). A total of 125 papers were

rejected based on full papers, leaving 51, which were then coded and analyzed.

Four papers are included in the present review from past supply chain resilience studies

done at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Cranfield University

(Massachusetts Institute of Technology Research Project, 2003; Christopher and Lee,

2001; Christopher et al., 2002; Christopher and Peck, 2004). One paper (Barlow, 2012) is

included in the review process through cross referencing. Considering the multifilament

phenomenon of supply chain resilience, based on feedback from experts in the field, 28

more papers on supply chain uncertainty, vulnerability and risk were included in the

review using the inclusion criteria (Table II).

2.3 Extraction and synthesis

Since this paper seeks to identify the different supply chain practices reported in literature to

secure supply chain resilience in different contexts (Denyer et al., 2008), the paper attempts at

addressing real world problems. It adopted an explanatory method of synthesis (Rousseau

et al., 2008) as the end result of this study is a framework that explains “[…]underwhat

circumstances, in what respect and why, certain causes or interventions produce preferred

outcomes”(Rousseau et al., 2008, p. 499). This review examines the construct validity of

resilience interventions, contexts, mechanisms and outcomes derived from the published papers

included in the review and addresses those studies’strengths and weaknesses with respect to

internal validity through stringent inclusion and exclusion criteria (Table II). This research

goes through each paper to discover different contexts (C) where supply chain resilience has

been enhanced or theoretically proposed to be improved through application of appropriate

interventions and mechanisms. These are then used to build theory in this paper.

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