Mapping Research on Sustainable Supply-Chain Management

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to map the thematic landscape of the sustainable supply-chain management (SSCM) research field and contribute to exploring “relationships among specific constructs” in the field. The use of bibliometric methodology and the focus given to relationships among topics categorized into thematic clusters within the field are the features which differ the study from other reviews in the research field. The operational objectives of the study are as follows: (1) to profile the development of the SSCM research field and its scientific output, (2) to identify leading thematic areas in the field and explore their composition and relationships among them, (3) to identify ‘hot’, emerging topics in the field. The analysis of change in the number of publications and citations related to the SSCM concept supports the study of research productivity in the field. General publication profiling focuses on the identification of subject areas and leading contributors to the research field, i.e., countries, research institutions, source titles and authors. Keywords co-occurrence analysis is employed to identify and explore leading and emerging topics. The study points out that the main thematic areas in the SSCM research field are: (1) economy and management in the context of the environment, (2) supply chain in the context of sustainability, (3) sustainable supply chains—process approach, (4) decision making for SSCM, (5) the practice context of supply-chain management, and (6) competition and social responsibility (SR) issues. The most up-to-date topics of scientific inquiry in the field focus around the following issues: (1) human aspects, (2) sustainable supplier selection, (3) manufacturing, (4) circular economy, (5) efficiency, (6) sustainable practices, (7) commerce, (8) costs, (9) environmental impact, and (10) the textile industry.