Supply chain emerging aspects and future directions in the age of COVID-19: A systematic review

Abstract

Not only has the COVID-19 outbreak brought about public safety challenges, but there has also been a major disruption in the business world that impacts one and all from small to large businesses. During This pandemic, supply chains (SCs) have witnessed disruptions, and this has inspired the interest of this paper. Therefore, the objective of the paper is to address two research questions pertaining to exploring the emerging SC aspects in the age of COVID-19 and future directions of SCs. To achieve this objective, a methodology is developed entailing three steps as follows. First, data is collected and included documents are identified through PRISMA strategy. Second, document analytics is performed using the web-interface of bibliometrix package in R software,the shiny app. Third, the research questions are addressed accordingly. The results showed that the most prominent terms related to SCs include supply chain disruptions, supply chain management,supply chain resilience, viability, and flexibility. Consequently, the first research question is approached in which the aspects of SC disruptions, resilient SC, viable SC,Sustainable SC, and SC management, are addressed. With more focus on building resilient SC in the short-term to recover from disruptions, viable SC can be created in the long-term perspective, which eventually build sustainable SC accordingly. Subsequently, considering these aspects enable successful SC management. Additionally, the future directions are explored including the transformation from globalization to regionalization perspective, focus on digitalization, need for holding more inventory, managing SCs for high resilience, more dependence on operations research and business analytics, and reconsideration of food SCs. This paper contributes to the body of knowledge by providing insightful research agenda to scholars and practitioners concerned in exploring more of the influences of the current pandemic on SCs.