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To examine the interplay between sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) and circular economy, this research conceptualises and empirically tests an integrative framework of environmental information exchange with suppliers (ES), environmental product design (EPD) and cost performance (CP) with the contingency effect of digital orientation (DO). The associations proposed in the integrative framework provide a configuration of SSCM practices that support circular economy's restorative processes in the digital age.

The resource orchestration theory and contingency theory are used to investigate the mediation and moderating effects, which were tested by a moderated mediation analysis of survey data of 100 firms in Australia.

The results show that EPD fully mediates the relationship between ES and CP. Further, DO was found to moderate the relationship between EPD and CP, but not the relationship between ES and EPD.

The empirical findings of this study offer an effective SSCM practice configuration for firms seeking to target advanced circular business models and economic benefits. Managers should be aware that ES may not be enough to improve CP; EPD is a required mechanism to translate the ES benefits into cost superiority. Managers should also stimulate a DO culture to develop effective EPD capabilities, which leads to improved CP and a foundation for companies seeking to target circularity.

This study advances prior theoretical and practical knowledge. The authors propose and empirically test an integrated SSCM and circular economy model that incorporates mediation and moderation effects to clarify inconsistent findings in prior work, which provides a more holistic and practical understanding of SSCM practices in the digital context. Furthermore, the SSCM literature recommends the adoption of circular economy principles. The integrated model in this study provides a bridge between SSCM and circular economy.

This study systematically reviews the current state of research on the application of high technology in supply chain management (SCM). It identifies key topics, trends and influential scholars in this field, providing a knowledge structure for future research. This study contributes to advancing the understanding of how high technology can be leveraged to enhance SCM, guiding and informing future research endeavors.

A comprehensive bibliometric analysis was conducted on 1,523 published articles retrieved from Web of Science. Through co-occurrence analysis of the titles, abstracts and keywords, the authors investigated popular research trends and topics. Through co-citation and co-authorship analyses, the authors identified leading research clusters, productive researchers and countries of the research.

There is a significant increase in publications by scholars from the USA, China and India on the impact of high technology on supply chains, particularly on food supply chains. Most articles examine the barriers and challenges of applying blockchain technology to different aspects of supply chains. Active contributions predominantly originate from scholars in the USA and China. The top five largest clusters are “supply chain management,” “scoping review,” “blockchain technology”, “food supply chains” and “management perception.”

This study represents the first systematic review establishing a comprehensive framework of knowledge on high technology and supply chains. Highlighting key research areas, tracing the evolution of research and explaining the knowledge structures pertaining to the role of high technology in supply chains, this study contributes to the existing literature and its findings hold practical implications for scholars and practitioners.

Using the resource-based view (RBV), our study aims to provide theoretical and empirical insights into blockchain capabilities’ (BCs) compounded and sequential effects on supply chain competitive advantages (CA).

We combined a systematic literature review and an expert interview. Interpretive Structural Modelling and a Matrix of Cross-Impact Multiplications Applied to Classification were used to determine the relationship between the capabilities. Simple Additive Weighting assessed each capability’s relative importance and impact.

We reveal a sequential development path for BCs. Foundational capabilities, such as cybersecurity, provide immediate performance benefits, establishing a unique, valuable and inimitable resource. As firms progress to advanced capabilities, the compounded value of these capabilities generates a stronger, dynamic resource for sustained CA. Moreover, the study underscores the strategic importance of timing in adopting and developing BCs, as early adoption can secure a competitive edge difficult for later entrants to replicate.

Our proposed framework guides managers in incorporating blockchain technology into supply chain management (SCM) processes once it demonstrates that firms can enhance their CA by prioritizing the technical basics BC, leveraging the informational capabilities in level two and enabling effective problem-solving through level three. Our framework also shows that a learning process occurs as BCs are used and their results are explored.

Our study extends the RBV by demonstrating BCs’ cumulative and interdependent nature in SCM. It emphasizes the synergistic interactions between these capabilities, which collectively enhance CA.

Blockchain technology has fascinated researchers and industry professionals. Since its birth, the attention for blockchain has been exponentially increasing, however, most of the industries are still skeptical in adoption for value creation. The purpose of this study is to analyze the actual level of implementation and diffusion of blockchain technology within the logistics and transportation industry by comparing and using the collective intelligence of academic literature and industry practices of implementation of blockchain in this domain.

This study uses the methodology of systematic literature review along with inductive reasoning. The systematic literature review of academic and industry frontiers together has brought a bigger and real picture into consideration.

The results highlight that, within the transportation sector, currently there is a very low diffusion of blockchain, although applications show immense promises for the future. The various application where blockchain technology can make a significant impact are also identified.

Due to the early stage of experimentation with blockchain technology, high-quality data which is relevant to the optimized usage of this technology in the logistics and transportation industry is not available.

The study will help the practitioners in identifying additional avenues in which they could implement blockchain for the effectiveness, efficiency and growth of the logistics and transportation industry.

The analysis of mixed sources of information for undertaking systematic literature review by assessing academic and trade publications is a novelty of this study.

Blockchain technology (BCT) has emerged as a powerful tool for enhancing transparency and trust. However, the relationship between the benefits of BCT and agri-food supply chain performance (AFSCperf) remains underexplored. Therefore, the current study investigates the influence of BCT on AFSCperf and sustainability issues.

Through a comprehensive literature review, various benefits of BCT are identified. Subsequently, a research framework is proposed based on data collected from questionnaire surveys and personal visits to professionals in the agri-food industry. The proposed framework is validated using partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM).

The findings reveal that BCT positively impacts AFSCperf by improving traceability, transparency, food safety and quality, immutability and trust. Additionally, BCT adoption enhances stakeholder collaboration, provides a decentralised network, improves data accessibility and yields a better return on investment, resulting in the overall improvement in AFSCperf and socio-economic sustainability.

This study offers valuable practical insights for practitioners and academicians, establishing empirical links between the benefits of BCT and AFSCperf and providing a deeper understanding of BCT adoption.

Stakeholders, managers, policymakers and technology providers can leverage these findings to optimise the benefits of BCT in enhancing AFSCperf. Moreover, it utilises rigorous theoretical and empirical approaches, drawing on a multidisciplinary perspective encompassing food operations and supply chain literature, public policy, information technology, strategy, organisational theory and sustainability.

This study analyzes the performance implications of adopting blockchain to support supply chain business processes. The technology holds as many promises as implementation challenges, so interest in its impact on operational performance has grown steadily over the last few years.

Drawing on transaction cost economics and the contingency theory, we built a set of hypotheses. These were tested through a long-term event study and an ordinary least squares regression involving 130 adopters listed in North America.

Compared with the control sample, adopters displayed significant abnormal performance in terms of labor productivity, operating cycle and profitability, whereas sales appeared unaffected. Firms in regulated settings and closer to the end customer showed more positive effects. Neither industry-level competition nor the early involvement of a project partner emerged as relevant contextual factors.

This research presents the first extensive analysis of operational performance based on objective measures. In contrast to previous studies and theoretical predictions, the results indicate that blockchain adoption is not associated with sales improvement. This can be explained considering that secure data storage and sharing do not guarantee the factual credibility of recorded data, which needs to be proved to customers in alternative ways. Conversely, improvements in other operational performance dimensions confirm that blockchain can support inter-organizational transactions more efficiently. The results are relevant in times when, following hype, there are signs of disengagement with the technology.

This research tries to find the blockchain-based resilience strategies that can help the supply chains of micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) to recover from the disruptions and work effectively in a resource-based view perspective.

Eight broad strategies and 32 sub-strategies are identified from the literature review. Delphi study was carried out, and detailed discussion with 16 experts helped in finalizing these strategies. Further, the best-worst method (BWM) prioritized these strategies.

The findings suggests that “building social capital,” improving “coordination capabilities,” “sensitivity towards market,” “flexibility in process and production,” “reduction in process and lead time,”and “having a resource efficiency and redundancy” are the top strategies on which the top management should focus to overcome the situations of disruptions and enhance performance of MSMEs.

The blockchain-based strategies will enable the companies in tracing the products from the company to customers. Further, the customers will be able to identify their manufacturers, the raw materials used in manufacturing, and the life and quality of raw used materials. Altogether the textile industry will become more sensitive toward environmental practices.

The previous research has not identified and evaluated the blockchain-based resilience strategies, and therefore this study tries to fill this gap. This study used a smaller sample from the experts, so the results may vary if the larger data set is used and hypothesis testing can be done.

Block chain technology (BCT) has emerged as a promising solution for the co-ordination and aid mechanism issues in the context of humanitarian supply chain (HSC). However, implementation of BCT in HSC discerns several barriers. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify and model the block chain implementation barriers in the context of HSC.

In the present study, 14 potential barriers to BCT adoption in HSC have been identified through literature survey. The survey comprises white papers, pilot studies, conference proceedings and journal articles. Further, the identified barriers were finalised in consultation with a team of experts. The team comprised experienced stakeholders working in the humanitarian domain and BCT development. The barriers were categorised into four (technological, organisational, exogenous and economic) perspectives adopting the kappa statistics. Further, the barriers were prioritised using fuzzy best worst method (FBWM) approach. Later, sensitivity analysis was performed to check the robustness and viability of the model.

The findings from the study indicate that the barriers, such as “data privacy, ownership, and security issues” (B1), “funding issues and cost complexity” (B3) and “technological complexities” (B8), are relatively more influential. The HSC stakeholders and BCT developers are required to identify the safety mechanism against the misuse of victim’s data. The funding issues and technological complexities are interrelated and need synergetic cooperation between blockchain developers, donors, humanitarian organisations (HOs) and other HSC stakeholders. Further, “lack of awareness and understanding among stakeholders” (B6) and “interoperability, collaboration and cross-pollination among HOs” (B5) were identified as least influential barriers to BCT adoption in HSC.

In literature, limited study has been observed on determining barriers to BCT implementation. A more systematic method and statistical confirmation is necessary to establish further new confronting barriers. This study is limited to Indian context.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is first of its kind to use an FBWM approach for prioritising the barriers to BCT adoption in the context of HSC. The study provides potential barriers to BCT and categorises them into four different perspectives, along with their degree of influence.

Adoption of blockchain technology (BT) leads to shrinking supply chains, produces a better quality product, saves product development time and increases the customized offering to the customer. Since it is a new and growing area of research, researchers and practitioners are not entirely aware of challenges in the adoption of BT in supply chain (SC). Therefore, the objective of this research is to provide an overview of BT in SC and modeling of challenges in the adoption of BT in SC.

Interpretive structural modeling (ISM) is used to model the challenges of adoption of BT in SC. Challenges are identified by the literature review and verified by expert's opinions.

This study presents some key challenges, i.e. to develop trust within SC management system, obey the governance rules and regulations of institution while implementation of BT in SC, provide transparency of data, obtain tamperproof data to avoid fraud, improve coordination and information sharing among the SC partners, choose a profit-earning product SC for adoption of BT, adopt societal changes and train the participants to strengthen behavioral intention towards adoption of BT in SC. Additionally, interrelationships among the challenges have been identified. This work discusses potential implications based on challenges and provides a platform for the adoption of BT in SC.

The interrelations of the challenges will provide valuable understandings for developing BT solutions in SC to the practitioners.

In this paper, the authors emphasize that COVID-19 pandemic is a serious pandemic as it continues to cause deaths and long-term health effects, followed by the most prolonged crisis in the 21st century and has disrupted supply chains globally. This study questions “can technological inputs such as big data analytics help to restore strength and resilience to supply chains post COVID-19 pandemic?”; toward which authors identified risks associated with purchasing and supply chain management by using a hypothetical model to achieve supply chain resilience through big data analytics.

The hypothetical model is tested by using the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) technique on the primary data collected from the manufacturing industries.

It is found that big data analytics tools can be used to help to restore and to increase resilience to supply chains. Internal risk management capabilities were developed during the COVID-19 pandemic that increased the company's external risk management capabilities.

The findings provide valuable insights in ways to achieve improved competitive advantage and to build internal and external capabilities and competencies for developing more resilient and viable supply chains.

To the best of authors' knowledge, the model is unique and this work advances literature on supply chain resilience.