Supply chain risk management: A new methodology for a systematic literature review

Abstract

Purpose
Supply chain risk management (SCRM) has recently gained increasing attention in the supply chain context, both from the practitioners' perspective and as a research area. Given the relevance of the topic, the aim of the present paper is to present a focused literature review, investigating the process of knowledge creation, transfer and development from a dynamic perspective within the context of SCRM.

Design/methodology/approach
A review of the literature on SCRM was undertaken. The new proposed methodology combines the systematic literature review approach to identify the most relevant articles to be included in the study with the citation network analysis in order to unfold the dynamics of the field under study. The authors define this new methodology as systematic literature network analysis.

Findings
The paper demonstrates that there are a number of key themes in the field of SCRM. The contributions that influenced the field were identified and, by analysing the evolution over time of key concepts, a number of research directions were identified and discussed.

Research limitations/implications
The dynamic nature of current literature review allows the identification of the directions in which research is moving and thus the recognition of streams of research that appear most promising. However, the application of the research methodology, and in particular of the citation network analysis, requires the support of specific computer programs. Moreover, the underlying assumption of the citation network analysis is that, by analysing the network of citations made to and from articles, it is possible to explain the flows of knowledge used to generate new results. This is only partially true since the spread of measures based on impact assessment led many researchers to an excessive use of citations, even if their content is not always decisive for the outcome of their work.

Practical implications
The present paper outlines a research agenda that may facilitate the development of models for managing supply chain risk. Furthermore from the evidence of the performed literature review some managerial insights can be derived on how to manage supply chain risk: by considering uncertainty in the design of supply chains, by understanding the impact of risks arising from network collaboration and interactions between supply chain partners, by developing proactive mitigation capabilities to hedge the increasing level of risk.

Originality/value
The novelty of this research lies in the combination of two existing methodologies for reviewing the literature and in the adoption of a dynamic perspective in order to analyse theory development.

Full text

Supply Chain Management: An International Journal
Emerald Article: Supply chain risk management: a new methodology for a
systematic literature review
Claudia Colicchia, Fernanda Strozzi
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Claudia Colicchia, Fernanda Strozzi, (2012),"Supply chain risk management: a new methodology for a systematic literature review",
Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, Vol. 17 Iss: 4 pp. 403 - 418
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Supply chain risk management: a new
methodology for a systematic literature review
Claudia Colicchia and Fernanda Strozzi
LIUC, Logistics Research Centre, Carlo Cattaneo University, Castellanza, Italy
Abstract
Purpose – Supply chain risk management (SCRM) has recently gained increasing attention in the supply chain context, both from the practitioners’
perspective and as a research area. Given the relevance of the topic, the aim of the present paper is to present a focused literature review, investigating
the process of knowledge creation, transfer and development from a dynamic perspective within the context of SCRM.
Design/methodology/approach – A review of the literature on SCRM was undertaken. The new proposed methodology combines the systematic
literature review approach to identify the most relevant articles to be included in the study with the citation network analysis in order to unfold the
dynamics of the field under study. The authors define this new methodology as systematic literature network analysis.
Findings – The paper demonstrates that there are a number of key themes in the field of SCRM. The contributions that influenced the field were
identified and, by analysing the evolution over time of key concepts, a number of research directions were identified and discussed.
Research limitations/implications – The dynamic nature of current literature review allows the identification of the directions in which research is
moving and thus the recognition of streams of research that appear most promising. However, the application of the research methodology, and in
particular of the citation network analysis, requires the support of specific computer programs. Moreover, the underlying assumption of the citation
network analysis is that, by analysing the network of citations made to and from articles, it is possible to explain the flows of knowledge used to
generate new results. This is only partially true since the spread of measures based on impact assessment led many researchers to an excessive use of
citations, even if their content is not always decisive for the outcome of their work.
Practical implications – The present paper outlines a research agenda that may facilitate the development of models for managing supply chain risk.
Furthermore from the evidence of the performed literature review some managerial insights can be derived on how to manage supply chain risk: by
considering uncertainty in the design of supply chains, by understanding the impact of risks arising from network collaboration and interactions
between supply chain partners, by developing proactive mitigation capabilities to hedge the increasing level of risk.
Originality/value – The novelty of this research lies in the combination of two existing methodologies for reviewing the literature and in the adoption
of a dynamic perspective in order to analyse theory development.
Keywords Supply chain risk management, Systematic literature review, Citation network analysis, Supply chain management, Risk management
Paper type Literature review
1. Introduction
Few areas of management interest have risen to prominence
in recent years as rapidly as supply chain risk management
(SCRM), both from the practitioners’ perspective and as a
research area. The unpredictability of the business
environment, variable consumer demands, actions by
competitors, along with market dynamics and continuous
improvement initiatives within organisations imply that the
supply chain never actually reaches a stable steady state
(Braithwaite and Wilding, 2005; Christopher, 1998;
Haywood and Peck, 2004). These parameters of uncertainty
can propagate through a supply chain network (Christopher,
1998; Van der Vorst and Beulens, 2002).
There is wide consensus, both in the literature and in
practice, that managing risk in the supply chain is a critical
capability in order to compete in the current, increasingly
turbulent and unpredictable, business environment. Even
though it is recognised that significant contributions can be
made by an effective review of the extant literature, only few
reviews of the field have been presented. To the best of the
authors’ knowledge only Manuj and Mentzer (2008), Khan
and Burnes (2007) and Tang (2006) attempt to review the
contributions pertaining to SCRM. The emphasis of their
studies is on the identification of research gaps and
development of a research agenda; but, whereas they
provide useful insights based on an extensive literature
review, the adopted perspective is static.
Hence, this paper seeks to advance our understanding of
SCRM by conducting a focused literature review aiming to
investigate the process of knowledge creation, transfer and
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/1359-8546.htm
Supply Chain Management: An International Journal
17/4 (2012) 403– 418
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited [ISSN 1359-8546]
[DOI 10.1108/13598541211246558]
Received: 29 September 2010
Revised: 11 March 2011
28 June 2011
12 October 2011
2 December 2011
10 February 2012
Accepted: 12 February 2012
The authors would like to express their gratitude to the reviewers for their
valuable contribution in enhancing the quality of the present paper and to
their native-English-speaking proof reader for supporting them in refining
the writing style of the paper.
403

development from a dynamic perspective. To reach this goal
we combine the Systematic Literature Review (SLR) and the
Citation Network Analysis (CNA) in a new methodology. We
define this new methodology Systematic Literature Network
Analysis (SLNA). The SLR provides a useful approach to
identifying themes and selecting keywords to perform a first
choice of the most relevant contributions in the field, while
the CNA recognises a backbone in a citation network that
helps us to understand how the body of knowledge has
evolved over time. This paper will then discuss the main
themes and the emerging topics, identify which streams of the
SCRM appear as most promising and outline an agenda that
may facilitate theory-building.
The remainder of the paper is organised as follows. The
research methodology is described in Section 2 while the
application of the methodology to the context under study is
provided in Section 3. The dynamics of SCRM is presented in
Section 4. The changing and evolving paradigm in SCRM will
be outlined and the promising research directions identified
and discussed (Section 5). Some conclusions close the paper.
1.1 Basic terminology
In preparation for the subsequent literature review, we define
some key terms to provide the reader with the basic concepts
regarding SCRM.
Different definitions of risk in a supply chain context are
provided in a vast body of literature (Ju
¨ttner et al., 2003;
Zsidisin et al., 2004). Supply chain risk is defined as “the
variation in the distribution of possible supply chain
outcomes, their likelihoods, and their subjective values”
(Ju
¨ttner et al., 2003). This definition highlights the two
dimensions characterising risk: impact and likelihood of
occurrence (Faisal et al. 2006).
The terms risk and uncertainty are often used
interchangeably even if they are not the same. Knight
(1921) made a distinction between risk and uncertainty,
asserting that risk is something measurable while uncertainty
is not quantifiable and the probabilities of the possible
outcomes are not known. It relates to the situation in which
there is a total absence of information or awareness of a
potential event occurrence, irrespective of whether the
outcome is positive or negative (Ritchie and Brindley, 2007).
Closely interconnected to the concept of risk is the notion
of supply chain vulnerability, defined as the “existence of
random disturbances that lead to deviations in the supply
chain from normal, expected or planned activities, all of
which cause negative effects or consequences” (Svensson,
2000). The strong correlation between the two concepts is
confirmed by Christopher and Peck (2004).
Robustness and resilience taken together can be treated as a
complement to vulnerability. Robustness represents the ability
of the system to maintain its function unchanged, or nearly
unchanged, when exposed to perturbations. Within supply
chain management, robustness can be defined as the extent to
which the supply chain is able to carry its functions for a
variety of possible future scenarios. Resilience implies that the
system can adapt to regain a new stable position (recover, or
return close to, its original state) after perturbations.
Ponomarov and Holcomb (2009) borrowed several key
elements from other disciplines and – using
multidisciplinary perspectives – developed the following
definition of supply chain resilience: “The adaptive
capability of the supply chain to prepare for unexpected
events, respond to disruptions, and recover from them by
maintaining continuity of operations at the desired level of
connectedness and control over structure and function”. In
this sense, resilience must be intended not just as the ability to
recover from mishaps, but should be considered a proactive,
structured and integrated exploration of capabilities within
the supply chain to cope with unforeseen events.
Just as there is an abundance of supply chain risk
definitions, numerous techniques have been put forth to
supply chain risk management. Supply chain risk
management is defined as, “the identification of potential
sources of risk and implementation of appropriate strategies
through a coordinated approach among supply chain
members, to reduce supply chain vulnerability”
(Christopher et al., 2003). The main aim of supply chain
risk management is to protect the business from adverse
events.
2. Research methodology
Literature review is a major contribution to research progress,
and it is intended “to provide a historical perspective of the
respective research area and an in-depth account of
independent research endeavours” (Mentzer and Kahn,
1995).
A two-pronged methodology was undertaken: the SLR
approach (Rousseau et al., 2008; Tranfield et al., 2003) to
perform a first selection of the most relevant articles to be
included in the analysis, and CNA (Hummon and Doreian,
1989) in order to perform a second selection based on
citations to investigate the process of knowledge creation,
transfer and development. From the combination of these two
methodologies a new one is derived, called SLNA.
The SLR approach allows for an evidence-based approach
to identifying, selecting and analysing secondary data. SLR
differs from other review methods because of its principles,
i.e. transparency, inclusivity, explanatory and heuristic nature,
that allow for a more objective overview on the search results
as well as to eliminate any bias and error issues (Denyer and
Tranfield, 2009). The underpinning assumption of the CNA
is that fields of research are not just formless sets of articles in
terms of citations. It considers a citation network as a system
of channels which transform scientific knowledge or
information, assuming that researchers in the same field
tend to cite each other in order to position their work in the
field based on previous knowledge (Hummon and Doreian,
1989). An article that uses information from many other
articles and really adds new knowledge, will cause an increase
of the citations of the previous articles and will receive many
citations itself. Consequently it will be an important junction
between channels of knowledge (De Nooy et al., 2005). The
most important citations constitute the backbones of a
research tradition and can be organized in different paths.
The method proposed by Hummon and Doreian (1989) for
studying the connectivity of the citation network, i.e. Main
Path Analysis, explicitly focus on the identification of
specialties, the evolution of research traditions, and
changing paradigms.
These two methodologies, i.e. SLR and CNA, are
integrated in a research process as represented in Figure 1.
The adoption of these two existing methodologies combined
together is aimed at maximizing the advantages related to
each of them: SLR offers a solid and reliable technique that
SCRM: a new methodology for a systematic literature review
Claudia Colicchia and Fernanda Strozzi
Supply Chain Management: An International Journal
Volume 17 · Number 4 · 2012 · 403 –418
404

can be easily applied to broad fields of research to select the
most relevant contributions; CNA allows for a dynamic
analysis in order to identify the papers that most contributed
to theory-building in the field. Even if quantitative and
qualitative aspects are mixed to assess existing theory, such a
robust research methodology offers the potential to ensure
high-quality results, trying to maximise the objectivity of the
analysis and the repeatability of the results.
3. Applying the SLNA to the context under study
In this section the application of the research methodology to
the context under study is described. The steps represented in
Figure 1 are performed and an in-depth description of the
process of source selection and analysis is provided.
3.1 Systematic literature review
3.1.1 Question formulation
The first phase is represented by the definition of the scope of
the study in compliance with the objectives and the
underlying research hypotheses. Denyer and Tranfield
(2009) proposed to use the acronym CIMO (Context,
Intervention, Mechanisms, and Outcome) to specify the four
critical parts to be investigated in order to conduct the
following phases of a well-built systematic literature review.
According to the CIMO-logic, a well-built literature review is
framed with the following elements:
1Context:
.Which individuals, relationships, institutional settings
or wider systems are being studied?
2Intervention:
.The effects of what event, action or activity are being
studied?
3Mechanisms:
.What are the mechanisms that explain the
relationship between interventions and outcomes?
.Under what circumstances are these mechanisms
activated or not activated?
4Outcomes:
.What are the effects of the intervention?
.How will the outcomes be measured?
.What are the intended and unintended effects?
Applying this logic to the context under study, i.e. answering
the above-mentioned questions, it emerges that risk and risk
management have gained increasing attention in the supply
chain context, both from the practitioners’ perspective and as
a research area due to the degree of uncertainty and
complexity that characterises modern supply chains. In this
context, characterised by an increased level of uncertainty and
complexity, the interventions of interest are represented by
effective practices and tools for SCRM, developed according
to a defined strategy aligned with the corporate one. This
means that the mechanism of interest is the organization of
the risk management process and the expected outcomes are
an enhanced robustness and resilience of the supply chain.
Hence the main themes of interest are complexity and
uncertainty (C), practices and tools for SCRM (I),
Figure 1 Research methodology
SCRM: a new methodology for a systematic literature review
Claudia Colicchia and Fernanda Strozzi
Supply Chain Management: An International Journal
Volume 17 · Number 4 · 2012 · 403 –418
405

organization of SCRM process (M) and increased SC
robustness and resilience (O).
3.1.2 Locating studies
The identification of the keywords connected to the subjects
and the objectives of the study are as follows. A total of 20
keywords were identified by the authors by means of a
brainstorming process (supply chain management, supply
chain configurations, supply chain strategy, supply chain
structure, supply chain design, global supply chain,
alignment, flexibility, complexity, agility, risk, vulnerability,
resilience, robustness, risk management process, sources of
risk, uncertainty, risk analysis, risk assessment, disruptions).
To refine the keywords, a team composed of three academics
and two supply chain managers was constituted in order to
give the search a sound validity. The keywords were combined
in order to constitute a series of strings, to be applied in the
search on the databases. Since the focus of our research is
SCRM, the strings were specifically designed in order to
select relevant papers for the overlap between risk
management and supply chain management in general. By
combining keywords through simple operators and Boolean
logic, complex searches can be constructed in order to avoid
too generic and wide results (e.g. the string “supply chain
risk” AND (vulnerability OR complex *)searchesfor
documents which contain the exact phrase “supply chain
risk” and the word “vulnerability” or the terms “complex” or
complexity). These search strings were brainstormed and
refined until a reasonable list of terms was deemed sufficient
(resulting in approximately 30 relevant research strings).
3.1.3 Study selection and evaluation
We collected citation data from the Science Citation Index
(SCI) compiled by the Institute for Scientific Information
(ISI) at the beginning of 2010. We used the Web of Science,
which is a web-based user interface of the ISI’s citation
databases. The rationale for this choice is that the ISI Citation
Databases “collectively index more than 8,000 high quality,
peer-reviewed journals cover-to-cover, providing users with
complete bibliographic data, full-length author abstracts, and
cited references from the world’s most influential research”
(http://resources.library.yale.edu/online/dbsbysubjecthfxml_
info.asp?searchfor ¼science&lookfor ¼YUL03923), assuring
high quality and comprehensive search results. As argued by
other authors (Newbert, 2007), it was deemed that by
restricting the search to peer-reviewed journals, the quality
control of search results can be enhanced due to the rigorous
process to which articles published in such journals are
subject prior to publication. Furthermore, the results
retrieved from the ISI Databases can be easily organized
and analysed through specific software packages, such as
HistCite.
In order to obtain and include relevant and important
documents to concentrate on, a series of inclusion and
exclusion criteria should be defined. The following criteria,
based on the ones proposed by Newbert (2007), have been
considered to include/exclude papers:
.Search for papers published in peer-reviewed scientific
journals in English.
.Search for papers published in the last 15 years.
.Ensure substantive relevance by requiring that selected
articles contain at least one keyword in their title or
abstract.
.Eliminate substantively irrelevant articles by excluding
papers related to very narrow aspects or contexts.
.Ensure substantive and empirical relevance by reading all
remaining abstracts.
.Further ensure substantive and empirical relevance by
reading all remaining articles in their entirety.
The rationale for considering articles published in the last 15
years is that SCRM as a field of study has only relatively
recently been addressed and the interest in this topic is
growing increasingly in the last years, as mentioned in the
introduction. Thus, a 15-year literature review allows for a
sufficiently exhaustive analysis of the scientific research on
this area.
The collected citation data were organized through the
HistCite software package. From the review of the reference
and the bibliography list of the selected articles, a series of
“milestone” papers were added in order to improve the degree
of comprehensiveness of the literature review. This further
search allows us to identify interesting and relevant papers,
i.e. cited several times from the already selected articles,
“missed” by the keyword search but worthy to be included in
the results.
By performing the above-described steps, 55 papers were
selected. The 55 selected papers represent the nodes of the
citation network, whereas citation data represents the links
between nodes.
3.2 Citation Network Analysis
A network consisting of 55 nodes was then constructed
(Figure 2). It comprises one large connected component and
some isolated nodes.
The primary software used in conducting the analysis of the
network was Pajek (http://vlado.fmf.uni-lj.si/pub/networks/pa
jek/), which is one of the best-known and most frequently
used package developed to conduct comprehensive analysis
on network data (De Nooy et al., 2005). The citation network
enabled us to study the data from two different perspectives: a
static one through the analysis of the citation network and a
dynamic one by means of the Main Path Analysis.
3.2.1 Citation Network
From a static perspective – considering the printing year – it
is interesting to note that the number of articles is clearly
increasing during the period (1994-2010), so the area is under
expansion (Figure 3).
The CNA of the selected papers allows us to compute a
ranking of articles. The ranking can be estimated in terms of
the frequency of articles being cited (locally and globally) or
in terms of the closeness centrality (Sabidussi, 1966) within
the network.
The former measure, i.e. the frequency of articles being
cited, ranks the articles by number of received citations,
identifying the most cited papers. The software package
HistCite allows us to create a list of experts in the field taking
into account also citations received by articles included in the
ISI Citation Databases but not selected by the keyword
search. Through the second measure, i.e. the closeness
centrality, it is possible to identify papers that are cited by very
cited papers and thus that contributed to the theory-building.
Indeed this index seeks to quantify a contribution’s relevance
within the citation network by summarizing the structural
relations among all nodes. Closeness centrality, in fact,
reflects how central a node is in the network, i.e. the extent to
SCRM: a new methodology for a systematic literature review
Claudia Colicchia and Fernanda Strozzi
Supply Chain Management: An International Journal
Volume 17 · Number 4 · 2012 · 403 –418
406

which an article can be connected with others or through
minimal intermediaries (Knoke and Yang, 2008). In this sense
it identifies the articles that represent the basis of the field and
that were used by many authors for the development of their
contributions.
Tables I-II show the rankings of articles in terms of
frequency of articles being cited (Table I) and of the closeness
centrality for all articles within the network (Table II). A
positive relationship between these two parameters is
suggested by the fact that five articles are ranked on the top
ten in both charts simultaneously. The difference in rankings
can be due to the fact that the closeness centrality assesses the
impact that an article has on the development of theory
considering all the citation links within the network, whereas
the citation score counts only the direct citations that an
article receives.
Finally in Table III the number of citation network articles
published in each journal is presented.
3.2.2 Main Path Analysis
The Main Path Analysis was performed in order to gain a
dynamic perspective. Techniques of network analysis, like
Main Path Analysis, are specifically designed for identifying
the most relevant papers at different moments that constitute
the backbone of a research tradition. By analysing the
chronological network of citations among the selected papers
it is possible to show the dynamic behaviour of the field under
study, making its development over time visible (De Nooy
et al., 2005; Lucio-Arias and Leydesdorff, 2008). In fact the
Main Path highlights the articles that build on prior articles
but continue to act as an authority in reference to later works
(Lucio-Arias and Leydesdorff, 2008). The steps to perform
Main Path Analysis are the following:
1 Quantifying the traversal weight of the citation, i.e. the
extent to which a particular citation is necessary to link
articles.ThreemethodsincludedinPajekcanbe
distinguished: Search Path Count – Which considers all
paths from each source (i.e. an article that is not citing any
Figure 2 Citation network
Figure 3 Distribution of scientific articles within SCRM published
during the years 1994-2010
SCRM: a new methodology for a systematic literature review
Claudia Colicchia and Fernanda Strozzi
Supply Chain Management: An International Journal
Volume 17 · Number 4 · 2012 · 403 –418
407

others) to each sink (i.e. an article that is not cited by
others), the weight of the citation is given by the ratio
between the number of paths including the citation and
the total number of paths between the sources and sinks;
Search Path Link Count – Which traces all paths from all
vertices to the sink. Using this method the citation of an
early article receives a lower weight; Search Path Node
Pair – Where each vertex is considered as a source and a
sink and thus vertices and edges in the middle of the paths
will have higher weights.
2 Extracting main paths. Using the traversal weights of
citations and articles it is possible to extract the main
paths that will identify the main streams of the considered
literature.
3 Extracting the main path component. A cut-off value
between 0 and 1 is used to remove all arcs in the original
citation network with a lower value, in order to extract the
most important connected component. We used the
default value, i.e. 0.5.
Main Path Analysis was performed using the Pajek graph
analysis software package. We refer the interested reader to
De Nooy et al. (2005) for a thorough description of the
commands to be used.
Figure 4 shows the Main Path component deriving from the
application of the described process to the citation network
under investigation through the Pajek software. It identifies
the most relevant articles in the field of SCRM at different
moments of time, i.e. the ones facilitating the flow of
information and the progress of knowledge.
4. The evolution of supply chain risk management
literature starting from the Main Path Analysis
The main path depicted in Figure 4 shows some important
milestones in the development of the SCRM theory in the last
15 years. The first two articles (Kogut and Kulatilaka, 1994;
Huchzermeier and Cohen, 1996) have explored the field of
risk in supply chain context from the perspective of flexibility.
The issue addressed is how operational flexibility embedded
in supply chain network design can be used in reducing
supply chain risk (considered especially in terms of exchange
rate risk due to the increasing level of globalisation of supply
chains). Within a global manufacturing strategy, both articles
propose a model to evaluate the potential benefits arising from
alternative production options. Risk or, more specifically,
uncertainty is determined by an exogenous stochastic process
that affects production decision of a company.
In these contributions future uncertain events represent a
necessary condition to increase the value of operating
flexibility – utilised as a hedge against the firm’s exchange
risk exposure. At this stage of SCRM theory, uncertainty is
considered as an opportunity available to a company in order
to gain significant benefits. “Despite the popular notion of
riskiness of international markets, it is this uncertainty that
drives the opportunity available to the firm that is
Table I Most frequently cited ten articles
Rank Title Author Journal/Year LCS GCS
1Managing risk to avoid supply-chain
breakdown
Chopra, S. and Sodhi, M.S.
MIT Sloan Management Review
(2004)
14 45
2Managing disruption risks in supply
chains
Kleindorfer, P.R. and Saad, G.H.
Production and Operations Management
(2005) 12 54
3On the value of mitigation and
contingency strategies for managing
supply chain disruption risks
Tomlin, B.
Management Science
(2006)
942
4Risk management processes in suppliers
networks
Hallikas, J., Kervonen, I.,
Pulkkinen, U., Virolainen, V.M.,
Tuominen, M.
International Journal of Production
Economics
(2004)
833
5An empirical analysis of the effect of
supply chain disruptions on long-run stock
price performance
and equity risk of the firm
Hendricks, K.B. and Singhal, V.R.
Production and Operations Management
(2005)
838
6Valuing operational flexibility under
exchange rate risk
Huchzermeier, A. and Cohen, M.A.
Operations Research
(1996)
785
7Learning from toys: lessons in managing
supply chain risk from the toy industry
Johnson, M.E.
California Management Review
734
8Perspectives in supply chain risk
management
Tang, C.S.
International Journal of Production
Economics
(2006) 7 53
9Operating flexibility, global
manufacturing, and the option value of a
multinational network
Kogut, B. and Kulatilaka, N.
Management Science
(1994)
5 195
10 Risk analysis and assessment in networks
environments: a dyadic case study
Hallikas, J., Virolainen, V.M.,
Tuominen, M.
International Journal of Production
Economics
(2002) 5 11
Notes: LCS ¼local citation score shows the count of citations to a paper within the collection; GCS ¼global citation score shows the total number of citations
to a paper in the Web of Science
SCRM: a new methodology for a systematic literature review
Claudia Colicchia and Fernanda Strozzi
Supply Chain Management: An International Journal
Volume 17 · Number 4 · 2012 · 403 –418
408

multinational in terms of its investments and operations”
(Kogut and Kulatilaka, 1994).
Operational flexibility is tied up with the concept of
efficiency: it is necessary to value it in terms of expected gains
arising from the possibility to switch to alternative
manufacturing strategy options (Huchzermeier and Cohen,
1996).
These early articles on the main path reflect a reactive
approach to risk management: the investments are put in
place in order to enhance the capability to respond to
uncertain future events after they have occurred. Furthermore
the focus is on the single company: the supply chain network
design is addressed from the perspective of the single
company.
The development of theory-building in SCRM has been
influenced by the evolution characterizing the business
environment. The trend towards globalisation has become
in the later years only one of the drivers of supply chain
vulnerability and the flexibility the only way to improve supply
chain resilience. Shorter lead times and recent series of crises
and catastrophes (e.g. the Taiwan earthquake of September
1999, the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on
September 11, 2001, the August 14, 2003 blackout in the
Northeastern US) are but a few recent reminders that the
business environment is unpredictable and increasingly
unstable. Disruption risks, lying in different processes of the
supply chain as well as in the external environment, began to
receive increased attention. In fact, the work of Kleindorfer
and Saad (2005) shows how traditional operational risks are
joined with disruption risks arising from natural hazard,
terrorism, and political instability. The authors formulated a
set of ten principles for managing disruption risks in supply
chains, considering both internal processes and the
interconnections between supply chain partners.
The provided principles reflect the effective integration of
the joint activities of risk assessment and risk mitigation, while
Table II Ten highest closeness centrality articles
Rank Title Author Journal/Year Centrality
1Managing disruption risks in supply chains Kleindorfer, P.R. and
Saad, G.H.
Production and Operations Management
(2005) 0.2969
2An empirical analysis of the effect of
supply chain disruptions on long-run stock
price performance
and equity risk of the firm
Hendricks, K.B. and Singhal, V.R.
Production and Operations Management
(2005)
0.2917
3Operating flexibility, global manufacturing,
and the option value of a multinational
network
Kogut, B. and Kulatilaka, N.
Management Science
(1994)
0.2604
4Perspectives in supply chain risk
management
Tang, C.S.
International Journal of Production
Economics
(2006) 0.2187
5Supply chain risk in turbulent
environments – a conceptual model for
managing supply chain network risk
Trkman, P. and McCormack, K.
International Journal of Production
Economics
(2009)
0.2135
6What is the right supply chain for your
product?
Fisher, M.L.
Harvard Business Review
0.2083
7Valuing operational flexibility under
exchange rate risk
Huchzermeier, A. and Cohen, M.A.
Operations Research
(1996)
0.2083
8The severity of supply chain disruptions:
design characteristics and mitigation
capabilities
Craighead, C.W., Blackhurst, J.,
Rungtusanatham, M.J., Handfield, R.B.
Decision Sciences
(2007)
0.1875
9The effect of supply chain glitches on
shareholders wealth
Hendricks, K.B. and Singhal, V.R.
Journal of Operations Management
(2003)
0.1771
10 An empirical examination of supply chain
performance along several dimensions of
risk
Wagner, S.M. and Bode, C.
Journal of Business Logistics
0.1510
Table III Journals with the highest number of citation network articles
Journal Number of articles
International Journal of Production Economics
8
Journal of Operations Management
5
European Journal of Operational Research
4
Supply Chain Management: An International Journal
3
Production and Operations Management
3
Journal of the Operational Research Society
3
Management Science
2
SCRM: a new methodology for a systematic literature review
Claudia Colicchia and Fernanda Strozzi
Supply Chain Management: An International Journal
Volume 17 · Number 4 · 2012 · 403 –418
409

offering strategic directions, actions, and necessary conditions
that help advance cost-effective mitigation practices for supply
chain disruptions. The approach of risk management process
becomes proactive: “Risk avoidance should precede risk
reduction” (Kleindorfer and Saad, 2005). Furthermore, the
focus goes beyond the boundaries of the single company, as it
involves collaborative sharing of information and best
practices among supply chain partners. Also in this
contribution, the importance of valuing the efficiency of risk
management is emphasised.
In so far as SCRM has, lately, gained more and more
attention by the scientific literature, in 2006 Tang proposed
an extensive literature review. The author developed a unified
framework for classifying SCRM articles and, by highlighting
the gap between theory and practice, identified directions for
future research. The author proposes four basic approaches
(supply management, demand management, product
management, and information management) that a firm
could deploy for managing supply chain risks, in a context
where traditional initiatives are no longer effective. According
to these approaches the extant literature is analysed. The
insights arising from this contribution are the following:
.an approach intended to improve supply chain operations
via coordination or collaboration with both upstream and
downstream partners is needed;
.companies tend to underestimate the relevance of a
proactive approach to RM and only few of them take
actions to mitigate risks in a proactive manner; and
.a lack of effective tools that explicitly consider the
economic dimension of risk strategies precludes
companies to widely adopt them.
Following Tang (2006), a series of research articles
contributing to theory-building in SCRM have emerged on
the main path. Later articles, which characterised the
evolution of SCRM have commonly explored the dimension
of complexity in the supply chain from different perspectives.
Faisal et al. (2007) and Wagner and Bode (2008) explored
practices and tools for risk identification, assessment, and
mitigation. Tang and Tomlin (2008) and Sodhi and Tang
(2009) developed quantitative models to manage the risks of
modern supply chains. Finally, with the contributions by
Neiger et al. (2009), Trkman and McCormack (2009) and
Oehmen et al. (2009), the consideration of supply chains as
complex systems starts to emerge and consequently the need
to reduce the increased level of supply chain vulnerability
Figure 4 SPC, SPLC, SPNP Main Path Component in the SCRM field
SCRM: a new methodology for a systematic literature review
Claudia Colicchia and Fernanda Strozzi
Supply Chain Management: An International Journal
Volume 17 · Number 4 · 2012 · 403 –418
410

becomes more relevant. The focus is not on the focal
company anymore, rather, a system-wide perspective
involving networks of supply chains is adopted in order to
increase value to all supply chain members and effectively
handle the complexity of supply networks.
In the next section the insights arising from the main path
analysis are combined with the evidence gathered from the 55
papers that represent the basis of the present literature review
for each of the main themes of SCRM literature defined
through the application of the CIMO logic, as described in
Section 3 (i.e. Complexity and uncertainty, practices and
tools for SCRM, organization of SCRM process, and
increased SC resilience and robustness). Then, the
evolution of key concepts is presented, highlighting the
adopted perspectives, the directions in which research is
moving and the shortcomings of the existing contributions.
The Main Path Analysis, by highlighting the 11 papers
constituting the main path, gave us an additional valuable
support in interpreting the evolution, the gaps and the
research directions of the field under study.
4.1 Complexity and uncertainty
As an initial step, the evolution of the context in which supply
chains nowadays operate is outlined. Two dimensions
characterising the context have been put forward through
the CIMO-logic: uncertainty and complexity. Even if these
two concepts have always been related to SCRM their nature
has evolved over time.
As mentioned above, in the early articles of the main path
(Kogut and Kulatilaka, 1994; Huchzermeier and Cohen,
1996) uncertainty is considered as an opportunity that a firm
that is multinational in terms of its investments and
operations needs to exploit. In more recent papers not
included in the main path, the downside potential of
uncertainty is stressed (Chopra and Sodhi, 2004; Chopra
et al., 2007; Ritchie and Brindley, 2007). As far as complexity
is concerned, the main path suggests that the concept has
evolved from an abstract construct to a challenge that can be
effectively understood and managed by means of specific
theories. Indeed, this evolution can be better identified and
explained considering the other contributions present in the
citations network. Though complexity has always been related
to supply chains, and SCRM in particular, the study of this
concept through a formalized approach has only relatively
recently been addressed and researchers have suggested new
definitions of complexity. In fact, in the early contributions
complexity is often related to the topology of the supply chain.
The static dimension of complexity is addressed and the
complex nature of supply chains is considered related to its
complicated structure, arising both from the number of
partners operating in the same supply chain and from the
geographical dimension of the supply chain, i.e. the extended
reach of globe-spanning supply chains (Agrawal and Seshadri,
2000; Kogut and Kulatilaka, 1994; Hallikas et al., 2002;
Huchzermeier and Cohen, 1996). In more recent papers
complexity includes also the dynamics of supply chains: the
interconnectivity between different supply chains and the
dynamic behaviour of the system. Craighead et al. (2007)
define complexity as the sum of the total number of nodes and
the total number of forward, backward and within-tier
material flows within a given supply chain. According to
Manuj and Mentzer (2008) “supply chain complexity is an
aggregate measure of the structure, type, and volume of
interdependent activities, transactions, and processes in the
supply chain”. Also Adhitya et al. (2009) argue that supply
chain complexity “arises from the interconnections among
supply chain entities”.
Building on these definitions, a number of writers have
sought to develop appropriate approaches to appraise
complexity’s effect on the supply chains. Craighead et al.
(2007) relate the design characteristics of the supply chain,
including the complexity, to supply chain disruptions. By
conducting an empirical research, the authors prove the
hypothesis that supply chain disruption is a result of
complexity. The results of their work aim at offering simple
and useful directions to supply chain managers in evaluating
specific supply chain decisions. The authors recommend
future research should seek to quantitatively assess the
investigated relationships. As a matter of fact, the main path
suggests that a research stream within the area of SCRM is
advocated for quantifying relationship between risk and
complexity. Oehmen et al. (2009) propose a system-oriented
approach in order to deeply investigate the behaviour of the
supply chain and thus identify concrete decisions that are
more likely to be effective in reducing risk. Their approach
comprises a SCR Structure Model enabling a static analysis of
causal factors and the effects of risks, and a SCR Dynamics
Model to represent the dynamic development of supply chain
risks as its members interact with one another.
Indeed, some earlier contributions have tried to locate
SCRM within the broader study of complexity. Choi et al.
(2001) assert that even if managers have always acknowledged
the complex nature of the supply chain, recognizing it as a
complex system can more accurately reflect the complexity
dimension and dynamism of a real-life supply chain. The
complexity of the supply chain can be analysed through the
complex adaptive system (CAS) theory. The term CAS refers
to a system that spontaneously evolves over time. Modern
theories of CAS are specifically designed to address the
interrelationships between a system and its environment and
the co-evolution of both of them. By thinking of a supply
chain as a CAS, “managers must appropriately decide how
much to control and how much to let emerge” (Choi et al.,
2001). Venkatasubramanian et al. (2004) study complex
networks, investigating how their structure and organization
affect other dimensions such as the performance of the
system. Using a graph theoretic formalism, a number of
critical measures of the network (i.e. efficiency, robustness
and cost) are defined and a framework for integrating
performance objectives and topological features of the
network is provided. The authors suggest that complex
networks theory can be effectively applied in supply chains
context.
Even if these contributions provide novel approaches to
model, design and analyse complex supply chains, research in
complexity analysis and graph theory appears to be
underdeveloped in the area of SCRM. Linking concepts and
measures coming from these disciplines is certainly of great
potential to advance our understanding in the field of SCRM.
4.2 Practices and tools for SCRM
To mitigate supply chain risk many researchers have
developed different models or strategies. We refer the
interested reader to Tang (2006) for a thorough review of
quantitative models for SCRM.
SCRM: a new methodology for a systematic literature review
Claudia Colicchia and Fernanda Strozzi
Supply Chain Management: An International Journal
Volume 17 · Number 4 · 2012 · 403 –418
411

However, the author highlights an overriding drawback to
the many reviewed approaches: they primarily deal with
supply chain operational risks, and not disruption risks. As
suggested by the main path articles (Kleindorfer and Saad,
2005), the uncertainty of the business environment and the
very complexity of supply chain networks appear to be
increasing the probability of experiencing supply chain
disruptions, as confirmed also by the other papers included
in our review (Bakshi and Kleindorfer, 2009; Chopra et al.,
2007; Craighead et al., 2007; Hendricks et al., 2009). This
implies that the traditional Operational Risk Management
needs some re-thinking in the era of disruptions. Academics
and practitioners have begun to address “disruption
management”, with the aim to reduce the risk of
disruptions, mitigate their negative impact on performance
and restore the supply chain to normal operation as soon as
possible (Adhitya et al., 2009; Hendricks et al., 2009; Lodree
and Taskin, 2008).
From our literature review it emerges that the key
challenges for an effective disruption management are:
developing supply chain design models able to take into
account the uncertainty and complexity in which supply
chains operate; and developing structured and systematic
tools for risk identification and assessment that explicitly
consider the dynamic interactions among supply chain
partners and among risk sources. In fact, these interactions
are considered, among others, as a source of disruptions
(Adhitya et al., 2009).
For many authors the starting point for an effective
disruption management is the redesign of the supply chain.
The underpinning assumption suggested by the literature is
that many companies are not prepared for the challenges they
have to confront nowadays. If this assumption is correct, an
alignment of supply chain strategy and design to the new
operating context is unavoidable (Wagner and Bode, 2008).
Likewise Blackhurst et al. (2005) state that supply chain
redesign is a critical area for managing disruptions. As
mentioned above Craighead et al. (2007) investigate the
relationship between the severity of supply chain disruptions
and the design characteristics of the supply chain, i.e. density,
complexity and node criticality. Venkatasubramanian et al.
(2004) propose a general framework to design an efficient and
robust supply chain.
However, literature on how supply chain structure and
design affect supply chain risk exposure is quite limited (Tang
and Tomlin, 2008; Trkman and McCormack, 2009). Despite
an extensive literature on supply chain design, most published
models have the following disadvantages: they produce static
optimal solutions that may not be robust in dynamic
environments as key parameters evolve (Blackhurst et al.,
2005; Klibi et al., 2010); they deal with deterministic
parameters without considering the uncertainty that affects
input data (Azaron et al., 2008; Klibi et al., 2010); they do not
take resilience and robustness into consideration in their
objective function (Klibi et al., 2010) and they focus on
minimising cost or maximising profit as a single objective
(Azaron et al., 2008).
In order to cope with the uncertainty of future events the
use of stochastic optimization approach for supply chain
design is showing increasing promise (Sodhi and Tang, 2009).
Goh et al. (2007) presented a stochastic model of a global
supply chain problem operating under a scenario of a variety
of risks. Azaron et al. (2008) developed a multi-objective
stochastic programming approach for supply chain design
under uncertainty. Sodhi and Tang (2009) presented a
stochastic programming formulation for a supply chain
problem that takes into account demand uncertainty and
cash flows.
Stochastic optimization, modelling for robustness and
resilience, value-based supply chain design models, multi-
period future scenario development and modelling multi-
hazard arrival processes are the main research directions
proposed in literature in order to develop a comprehensive
methodology for supply chain design in a complex and
uncertain environment (Gaonkar and Viswanadharn, 2007;
Klibi et al., 2010).
Following the supply chain redesign, disruption
management deals with disruption discovery, i.e. risk
identification and assessment (Blackhurst et al., 2005). As
mentioned above, over the years a number of well-used tools
for identifying, quantifying and managing risks have been
developed (Tang, 2006). There is some work also on defining
frameworks for SCRM. Ritchie and Brindley (2007)
identified five main components of SCRM:
1 risk drivers;
2 risk management influencers;
3 decision maker characteristics;
4 risk management responses; and
5 performance outcomes.
Faisal et al. (2006) proposed to consider two dimensions,
i.e. customer sensitivity and risk alleviation competency, to
select suitable supply chain strategy.
Though numerous risk classifications have been put
forward (e.g. Chopra and Sodhi, 2004) and numerous tools
for risk management have been proposed (Agrawal and
Seshadri, 2000; Kull and Talluri, 2008; Sinha et al., 2004; Wu
et al., 2006), the validity and usefulness of the practices and
tools proposed is not strongly supported by empirical
evidence and widely acknowledged in the current literature
(Hendricks et al., 2009). Adhitya et al. (2009) state that “the
existing literature does not provide a way to systematically
identify risks”. In order to fill this void the authors propose
the HAZard and Operability (HAZOP) analysis for risk
identification and evaluation. The aim is to consider both
deviations that can occur in a component of a system and new
sources of risk related to the interaction between the
components of the same system.
The need to consider risks arising from network
collaboration and interactions between supply chain
partners is stressed by several authors (Bakshi and
Kleindorfer, 2009; Blos et al., 2009; Finch, 2004; Hallikas
et al., 2002; Hallikas et al., 2004; Kull and Talluri, 2008;
Ritchie and Brindley, 2007). Research should investigate how
the effects of a disruption experienced by one firm spread to
its supply chain partners (Hendricks et al.,2009).As
mentioned above, nowadays companies are involved in a
network of different supply chains. This entails the emergence
of network-related sources of risks, i.e. supply chain dynamics
and relationships as highlighted by the main path articles
(Trkman and McCormack, 2009; Oehmen et al., 2009);
furthermore, new effective tools able to address the dynamic
aspect of the network of events causing risks are needed
(Klimov and Merkuryev, 2008; Oehmen et al., 2009).
SCRM: a new methodology for a systematic literature review
Claudia Colicchia and Fernanda Strozzi
Supply Chain Management: An International Journal
Volume 17 · Number 4 · 2012 · 403 –418
412

4.3 Organization of SCRM process
Effective practices and tools for SCRM need to be supported
by an appropriate organization of the SCRM process,
i.e. definition of the scope of the considered process and
resource/capabilities allocated to the process under
consideration. As highlighted by the foregoing examination
of the literature on practices and tools for SCRM, there is a
high level of awareness of the potential risk arising from
interaction and relationships between supply chain partners.
This implies that, in recent years, over time a number of
writers have sought to broaden the scope of disruption risk
management process from the level of the single company to
the level of the entire supply chain (Bakshi and Kleindorfer,
2009; Faisal et al., 2007). Even the study of dyadic
relationships is not sufficient anymore, whereas a wide
analysis on a larger network has to be conducted (Trkman and
McCormack, 2009). The supply chain is as strong as its
weakest node and a disruption at a company can cause a
disruption in the entire supply chain (Bakshi and Kleindorfer,
2009). Hence, SCRM should go beyond the boundaries of
the single company. This means that the process aims at
discovering and quantifying hazards in the extended supply
chain (Kleindorfer and Saad, 2005; Yu et al., 2007) and,
starting from a comprehensive picture of potential risk
exposures, at mitigating the overall supply chain risk
environment (Faisal et al., 2007; Oehmen et al., 2009).
The organization of the SCRM process includes also the
definition of mitigation capabilities (Blackhurst et al., 2005).
According to the definition provided by Craighead et al. 2007,
the mitigation capabilities can be considered as the
organizational routines that “enhance the abilities of the
supply chain to recover expediently from a manifested
disruption and to create awareness of a pending or realized
disruption”. The severity of a disruption appears to be
negatively related to the presence of mitigation capability, that
can be proactive, reactive or both (Craighead et al., 2007).
Especially in the current business environment, from the
analysis of the literature, it emerges that a proactive approach
is to be preferred than a reactive one, which was efficient in a
more stable competitive landscape as the one of the past years.
Resilience (which is the ultimate goal of an effective risk
management process) should be considered as a proactive
exploration of capabilities to cope with unforeseen events.
(Gaonkar and Viswanadharn, 2007; Kleindorfer and Saad,
2005). Indeed, a proactive approach to risk management is
intended to understand and avoid risks, while enhancing the
level of preparedness to respond to risks after they have
occurred (Kleindorfer and Saad, 2005). A proactive
approach, that enables a dynamic analysis of risks in supply
chains, is also included in the methodology proposed by
Neiger et al. (2009) for risk identification. Even if it is a
critical first step of the process to determine the main
vulnerabilities, as well as worst case scenarios arising from
such vulnerabilities, companies tend to underestimate its
relevance (Tang, 2006). The idea that “nobody gets credit for
fixing problems that never happened” needs to be overcome
to promote best mitigation practices for identifying and
managing risk in advance.
In order to translate these recommendations in practice
there is a need for empirical research into how companies
manage supply chain risk (Hendricks et al., 2009). In
particular it is necessary to investigate what processes and
techniques they use to assess their extended supply chain risk
exposure and how they develop mitigation capabilities, both
proactive and reactive, at a supply network level (Bakshi and
Kleindorfer, 2009; Blackhurst et al., 2005; Neiger et al.,
2009).
4.4 Increased SC resilience and robustness
The ultimate goal of an effective SCRM process is to create
robust and resilient supply chains. However, a general or
high-level view of SCRM process has guided the theory-
building so far. Both internally and externally induced supply
chain disruptions can significantly and negatively influence
the financial bottom line of a firm, determining its
profitability and survival (Hendricks and Singhal, 2005;
Tang, 2006). Furthermore the failure of any one node in the
supply chain could imply a failure of the complete supply
network (Bakshi and Kleindorfer, 2009). A better
understanding on the relationships between a set of
strategies for managing risk and the impact on the
performances would provide interesting insights in the field
of SCRM (Hendricks et al., 2009). In particular SCRM
strategies are justified only if supply chain risks interfere with
companies’ performances (Wagner and Bode, 2008). To the
best of the authors’ knowledge only few contributions in the
literature investigated the relationships between supply chain
risk and performance (Hendricks and Singhal, 2003, 2005,
2008; Hendricks et al., 2009; Tomlin, 2006; Wagner and
Bode, 2008). Notwithstanding their relevance in defining and
proving correlations between these two concepts, only general
managerial implications can be derived. Indeed, these
relationships have neither been supported by empirical
evidence nor underpinned with theory (Kleindorfer and
Saad, 2005; Wagner and Bode, 2008; Trkman and
McCormack, 2009). The need to investigate the
relationships between risks and performance at a company
level and not only from a general perspective means that an
assessment of the value of the increased robustness and
resilience of the supply chain is required. As mentioned
above, for SCRM to be implemented comes at a cost, and the
risk mitigating strategies must be tied up with the obtained
payoff, measuring the financial impact on the firm’s bottom
line (Sodhi and Lee, 2007; Tang and Tomlin, 2008; Tomlin,
2006). A lack of effective tools that explicitly consider the
economic dimension of risk strategies precludes companies to
widely adopt them (Tang, 2006). In particular the value of an
increased supply chain robustness and resilience in terms of
trade-off between the investment required for mitigation
actions and the disruption loss, weighted by the probability of
a disruption over a significant planning horizon, needs to be
further explored (Kogut and Kulatilaka, 1994; Huchzermeier
and Cohen, 1996; Kleindorfer and Saad, 2005). A thorough
analysis based on empirical research or on the development of
models for effectiveness and efficiency evaluation of risk
reduction strategies would support supply chain managers in
decision making (Kleindorfer and Saad, 2005).
5. Identifying research directions in the field of
SCRM
The analysis of the dynamic evolving paradigm characterising
the theory development in the field of SCRM allows us to
better understand how the key concepts evolved over time
and thus what are the directions for further research suggested
by their evolution. In Table IV the evolution of key concepts
SCRM: a new methodology for a systematic literature review
Claudia Colicchia and Fernanda Strozzi
Supply Chain Management: An International Journal
Volume 17 · Number 4 · 2012 · 403 –418
413

of SCRM is summarised. Despite a rich literature on SCRM,
and on disruption management in particular, most published
contributions consider only a subset of the foregoing issues.
The following research directions are identified:
.Locating research into SCRM within the more structured
study of the SC complexity. It is clear from the above
review of the literature that there is a lack of
understanding of the nature of complexity among many
supply chain researchers and this could affect the
effectiveness of risk management. Future research
should seek to investigate how other disciplines of
research, i.e. complexity theory and graph theory, can
advance our understanding of SCR. To this end, it is
necessary to analyse how key concepts and performance
measures from other disciplines can be incorporated into
SCRM. Furthermore, the implications of a consideration
of supply chains as complex system for SCRM need to be
further examined.
.Modelling supply chains considering robustness and
resilience. To confront the challenges of a complex and
unstable competitive environment and to gain long-term
benefits, it is necessary to include resilience and
robustness considerations into supply chain design.
Besides optimising the efficiency of the supply chain, it
is important to maximise its capability to ensure
continuity of supply thanks to its structure and design
able to quickly adapt to changes or disruptions.
.Assessing and managing disruption risks. Considering the
raised level of complexity and unpredictability of future
events, as it would appear that traditional practices and
tools are no longer effective. Dynamic supply chain
models under uncertainty are needed, as well as tools able
to consider the maze of interactions characterizing supply
chains and risk sources, considered as a source of supply
chain disruptions.
.Investigating mitigation practices, adopting a Supply
network perspective, i.e. considering the SC as an open
system interconnected with the environment. Empirical
research into how risk is managed in supply chains is
needed. The literature suggests that proactive approaches
at supply chain level should be implemented in order to
effectively manage disruptions. In order to translate this
recommendation in practice there is a need to investigate
– through empirically based research – how companies
assess their supply chain risk exposure and how they
develop mitigation capabilities in collaboration with their
supply chain partners.
.Evaluating the value of an increased supply chain
resilience and robustness. There is a need for research
into the role of SCRM for mitigating the negative impact
of disruptions on performance. The value of an increased
supply chain robustness and resilience in terms of trade-
off between the investment required for mitigation actions
and the disruption loss, weighted by the probability of a
disruption over a significant planning horizon, needs to be
further explored in order to effectively support decision-
making.
6. Pro and cons of the adopted methodology
In this section we will highlight the main advantages and
disadvantages of SLNA. It combines the advantages of SLR
and CNA. Using SLR the objectives and questions of the
review are clearly stated, the definition of literature review
process is structured and clear, the search of published and
unpublished information is rigorous and comprehensive, the
inclusion and exclusion criteria are pre-determined (Denyer
and Tranfield, 2009). SLR identifies the issues and strings
better suited for making a first selection of articles (55 articles
in the case of SCRM considered in this article). CNA, based
only on citations, is able to identify a smaller set of relevant
articles (the Main Path of SCRM field is composed by
11 articles). Using this analysis it is possible to place the
articles in a historical context and connect them by directed
paths that identify how the flow of scientific discovery has
changed over time. It is important to underline that the Main
Path is automatically calculated according only to the
citations and thus provides an objective result.
CNA is a blind methodology based only on citations and
has the limitation that it is difficult to find relevant
information if applied to a wide field without a pre-selection
of the articles. SLR is not able to automatically identify the
dynamics in the evolution of knowledge.
By combining these two methodologies in the new SLNA it
is possible to overcome these limitations, but unfortunately,
others are still present. The application of SLNA, and in
particular of CNA, requires the support of specific computer
programs (e.g. HistCite, Pajek) and information about the
cited references, which has to be structured in a precise way.
The first selection of articles made with the SLR is not
completely objective: a different level of knowledge in a field
may lead to different sets of items upon which the CNA will
be applied. The cut-off values used in CNA to find the main
path is a parameter that, depending on its value, will include
and consider as relevant a different number of items. In this
Table IV Identifying research directions in SCRM
Main themes From To Research directions
1. Complexity and
uncertainty (C)
Uncertainty as an
opportunity
Complexity of the supply
chain structure
Uncertainty as a threat
Supply chain as a complex
evolving system
Locating research into SCRM within the more structured study of
the supply chain complexity
Modelling supply chains considering robustness and resilience
2. Practices and tools for
SCRM (I)
Operational risk
management
Disruption risk
management
Assessing and managing disruption risks
3. Organization of SCRM
process (M)
Reactive approach
Focus on supply chain
Proactive approach
Focus on supply network
Investigating mitigation capabilities, adopting a supply network
perspective, i.e. considering the supply chain as an open system
interconnected with the environment
4. Increased SC resilience
and robustness (O)
Theoretical point of view
Focus on effectiveness
Practical point of view
Focus on efficiency
Evaluating the value of an increased supply chain resilience and
robustness
SCRM: a new methodology for a systematic literature review
Claudia Colicchia and Fernanda Strozzi
Supply Chain Management: An International Journal
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work we have considered the default value 0.5. The change of
the default value becomes necessary when, for example, the
resulting main path is composed by many disconnected
components.
It should be noted that the contributions identified with the
Main Path Analysis are not necessarily those that contain the
best or most important results, but those which were more
used/cited by the others. The main path highlights papers that
can be considered as the most important in terms of
dissemination rather than quality. Contributions that contain
important results but not yet used by others will not be
identified with this approach.
In addition, the underlying assumption of CNA is that the
citation of a work implies that the results obtained are in some
way based on the cited work. This assumption is only partially
true because the spread of measures based on impact
assessment has led many researchers to an excessive use of
citations, even if the content is not always decisive for the
outcome of their work. Furthermore, the interpretation of the
main path is itself subjective. Its interpretation and
identification of the evolution of concepts, albeit assisted by
the small number of articles to read, always depends on the
experience of the reader. Although we were able to compute
indices and obtain the most relevant papers at different
moments of time with the support of computer programs,
interpreting the outputs is the researchers’ responsibility. The
quality of a citation is unknown without further contextual
examination of the content. Finally SLNA, at least in the
present form, does not allow for a classification of the existing
research in terms of methodology being used or theoretical
perspectives, but it supports a dynamic analysis of the process
of knowledge development.
7. Conclusions
The present literature review has taken a close look at SCRM
and the issues emerging in this field. Two existing
methodologies, i.e. SLR and CNA, were combined in a new
one, the Systematic Literature Network Analysis (SLNA).
Through the SLR approach it was possible to select the most
relevant papers that have contributed to theory-building in
the field of SCRM. Then, with CNA, a dynamic analysis of
the selected contributions has been performed. From the
identification of evolutionary patterns and emerging trends in
key concepts, important directions for new research paths
have been identified and discussed and some managerial
insights provided.
Different aspects underpinning the concepts of risk and
uncertainty emerge as new distinctive features of supply chain
management. Considering the raised level of complexity and
unpredictability of future events (Christopher and Holweg,
2011), it would appear that the key elements for a robust and
resilient supply chain are a strategy and a structure aligned
with the actual business context, a dynamic and
comprehensive approach to risk management, and, finally,
collaboration among all companies operating within the same
supply network. Indeed building robustness and resilience in
the supply chain is a tough task since it involves a number of
trade-offs: specific supply chain decisions can enhance the
resilience of the supply chain, but at the same time they can
result in a more complex network, thus entailing a higher
exposure to disturbances and disruptions; furthermore, the
cost-efficiency of risk-reduction strategies must be assessed,
determining if greater network resilience and robustness are
worth the extra cost. In examining tools and practices for
managing supply chain risk, the literature review revealed that
different approaches are presented. However, most of them
address the topic from a general perspective, underestimating
the relevance of a deep analysis on the relationships between
SCRM strategies and performances. Although most
researchers would agree that supply chains are inherently
risky, one issue remains relatively unexplored; that is: a
practical perspective to improve supply chain robustness and
resilience in order to deal with unexpected events. From a
practical point of view the “silver bullet” to managing supply
chain risk that emerge from the evidence of the performed
literature review is: considering uncertainty in the design of
supply chains, understanding the impact of risks arising from
network collaboration and interactions between supply chain
partners, developing proactive mitigation capabilities to hedge
the increasing level of risk.
The identified research directions can be the way to move
towards the development of models for managing supply
chain risk from both a research and practical perspective,
intertwined to assist with supply chain complexity. Despite
the meaningful achievements discussed above and in sections
4 and 5, the adopted methodology has some limitations, as
described in detail in section 6. Notwithstanding these
limitations, we believe that the present study takes a step
towards theory-building and offers meaningful directions for a
well-grounded and promising programme of research.
We think that this study, as well as helping to identify
promising research directions in the specific field of SCRM,
also stimulates the attention to the need of a more objective
literature review so as to exploit the richness of existing
software packages and databases.
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SCRM: a new methodology for a systematic literature review
Claudia Colicchia and Fernanda Strozzi
Supply Chain Management: An International Journal
Volume 17 · Number 4 · 2012 · 403 –418
417

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Appendix. Glossary
.CIMO: acronym for Context, Intervention, Mechanisms,
Outcome. According to the CIMO-logic developed by
Denyer and Tranfield (2009) a well-formulated review
question is framed with the knowledge on combinations of
problematic contexts, possible interventions, possible
intended outcomes and generative mechanisms
producing the outcomes.
.CNA: acronym for Citation Network Analysis. The
citation network is one form of social network in which
authors and papers can be represented as nodes, and their
mutual interactions (i.e. citations) can be modelled as
edges. By analysing the citation network, it is possible to
identify research traditions and changing paradigms, so
that a historical account of development of scientific
thought can be constructed.
.SCRM: acronym for Supply Chain Risk Management.
According to Christopher et al., 2003, SCRM is defined as
“The identification of potential sources of risk and
implementation of appropriate strategies through a
coordinated approach among supply chain members, to
reduce supply chain vulnerability”.
.SLNA: acronym for Systematic Literature Network
Analysis. It is the proposed methodology for a dynamic
literature review, which combines two existing
approaches, the SLR and the CNA.
.SLR: acronym for Systematic Literature Review. Denyer
and Tranfield (2009) state that SLR is “a review of the
evidence on a clearly formulated question that uses
systematic and explicit methods to identify, select and
critically appraise relevant primary research, and to extract
and analyse data from the studies that are included in the
rear-view”.
Corresponding author
Claudia Colicchia can be contacted at: ccolicchia@liuc.it
SCRM: a new methodology for a systematic literature review
Claudia Colicchia and Fernanda Strozzi
Supply Chain Management: An International Journal
Volume 17 · Number 4 · 2012 · 403 –418
418
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