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The purpose of this paper is to disentangle the role of the source and recipient of knowledge in supply chain collaboration by providing evidence that the distributive capabilities of a source, working in conjunction with the absorptive capacity (AC) of a recipient, have direct and significant effects on levels of collaborative engagement between supply chain partners and indirect and significant effects on collaborative operational outcomes.

This study utilises 310 surveys and structural equations modelling to provide empirical evidence to support the significance of the source of knowledge in collaborative activities.

The study provides evidence for source-based knowledge transfer constructs (distributive capabilities) in supply chain collaboration. Further, this research supports these capabilities working in conjunction with recipient AC both as necessary but insufficient requirements for successful knowledge transfer.

Firm interdependence within supply chains continues to grow. In today’s environment of outsourcing and increasing levels of inter-firm activities, this research provides a parsimonious model of collaboration that allows firms to understand knowledge transfer better and how to more aptly manage these types of activities and complex relationships.

Earlier research in this domain has focussed on the abilities of a recipient firm to absorb knowledge in order to understand successful collaborative knowledge transfer. By solely focussing on the recipient firm, the role of the source of knowledge has been largely overlooked in this stream of research.

The purpose of this paper is to examine (1) how the recovery speed using promotional investment and (2) distributed production using additive manufacturing (AM) improve the resilience of the supply chain to manage any disruptions in the diffusion of green products.

The environmental performance, service level performance and economic performance are the measures of interest. These measures are studied through the integration of inventory and production planning (I&PP) of the reverse logistics system and consumer behavior using Bass (1969) model of diffusion of innovation under the paradigm of Industry 4.0 architecture. The Taguchi experimental design framework was used for the simulation analysis.

The adoption patterns based on the Bass model in conjunction with recovery speed and production on AM during the disruption period suggest that there exist tradeoff decisions between various combinations of information-sharing and I&PP policies.

The extensive sensitivity analyses provide real-time support for managerial decisions. Besides the potentials of Industry 4.0 capabilities, the present research suggests paying close attention to the recovery speed in conjunction with the inventory management system.

The integration of consumers' behavior (Bass model) to digital technologies is an additional contribution of the present research toward sustainability issues from the social perspective.

Previous research studies have discussed resilience to manage the ripple effect. However, none of them have addressed the changing scope of resilience to manage the ripple effect caused by the disruption in the diffusion of green products in a reverse logistics setup.

Drawing on the relational view and contingency theories, this study explores supply chain relationship conditions' roles in interrelationships between environmental, social and supply chain performance (SCP), i.e. triple bottom line (TBL).

The data from industries and structural equation modeling (SEM) were used to validate the proposed model. Interviews with industry experts were conducted to further understand the findings.

The authors find that relationship conditions, such as inventory information sharing, dependency, opportunistic behavior and conflicts, moderate TBL linkages. Interestingly, power asymmetry does not moderate the linkages. Social performance mediates between environmental and SCP. This indirect effect is stronger than the effect of environmental performance on SCP.

This research is perhaps the first to bring a much-needed nuanced view on the importance of relationship conditions for TBL performance linkages. The research further underlines the importance of social performance in an emerging economy.

The physical internet (PI) is an emerging logistics and supply chain management (SCM) concept that draws on different technologies and areas of research, such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and key performance indicators, with the purpose of revolutionizing existing logistics and SCM practices. The growing literature on the PI and its noteworthy potential to be a disruptive innovation in the logistics industry call for a systematic literature review (SLR), which we conducted that defines the current state of the literature and outlines future research directions and approaches.

The SLR that was undertaken included journal publications, conference papers and proceedings, book excerpts, industry reports and white papers. We conducted descriptive, citation, thematic and methodological analyses to understand the evolution of PI literature.

Based on the literature review and analyses, we proposed a comprehensive framework that structures the PI domain and outlines future directions for logistics and SCM researchers.

Our research findings are limited by the relatively low number of journal publications, as the PI is a new field of inquiry that is composed primarily of conference papers and proceedings.

The proposed PI-based framework identifies seven PI themes, including the respective facilitators and barriers, which can inform researchers and practitioners on future potentially disruptive SC strategies.

Supply chains are embedded in a larger network of enterprises where firms exchange offerings, often compete for the same customers, and constantly innovate to improve their performance. In these dynamic environments, firms are increasingly dependent on the knowledge and expertise in external organizations to innovate, problem-solve, and improve performance. Firms are increasingly collaborating to exchange and pool skills and knowledge and deploy resources and capabilities not found in their own firm. This research using both structured interviews and survey data seeks to determine what are the direct benefits and the ancillary benefits of collaboration. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

A mixed methodology approach was utilized, using qualitative structured interviews leading to developing a research model and then an empirical survey of 473 participants who are involved in their respective organization's collaboration projects. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling to examine relationships between collaborative engagement, knowledge gained, operational outcomes and relational outcomes.

The results of the study indicate that collaborative engagement has a direct effect on knowledge gained, operational outcomes and relational outcomes in collaboration. The ancillary benefit of collaboration is the learning that takes place leads to improved operational outcomes and relational outcomes.

In this research study all the constructs are only examined from a single perspective. This can be a limitation as it would be of greater value to collect data from all the members involved in the collaboration.

Collaboration has been well studied in many fields but this research suggests an important ancillary benefit that needs to be considered when deciding to collaborate is the knowledge and learning that happens during a collaboration.

This study seeks to: empirically measure relationship orientation along a continuum from operation to strategic; evaluate the impact of relationship orientation on the actual activities implemented within the relationship; and determine the impact of these relational activities on relationship effectiveness and business performance.

A survey research design following the total design method was used to collect the data. Multi‐item measures were developed to measure relationship orientation and relational activities while existing scales were used to measure competitive intensity and relationship outcomes. The study sampled purchasing managers and the unit of analysis in this research was the business relationship between a buying firm and supplier firm.

This study provides evidence that relationship orientation has a direct and positive influence on the manner in which buying firms execute relationships with supplier organizations. Additionally, the findings suggest firms with a strategic orientation would have a greater likelihood to implement the relationship in terms of utilization of interorganizational guidelines and resource commitment. Similarly, firms that have a more operational orientation would likely not expend as much effort in relationship implementation. Finally, the study demonstrates a positive relationship between the activities used in buyer‐supplier interaction and both relationship effectiveness and business performance.

This paper contributes to the understanding of relationship orientation and in particular on how variation in relationship orientation impacts the nature of relational activities deployed in buyer‐supplier interaction.

This study aims to examine publications of supply chain management (SCM) researchers from across the world and maps the leadership role of authors and institutions based on how prolific they are in publishing and on network measures of centrality while accounting for the quality of the outlets that they publish in. It aims to inform stakeholders on who the leading SCM scholars are, their primary areas of SCM research, their publication profiles and the nature of their networks. It also identifies and informs on the leading SCM research institutions of the world and where leadership in specific areas of SCM research is emerging from.

Based on SCM papers appearing in a set of seven leading journals over the 15-year period of 2001-2015, publication scores and social network analysis measures of total degree centrality and Bonacich power centrality are used to identify the highest ranked agents in SCM research overall, as well as in some specific areas of SCM research. Social network analysis is also used to examine the nature and scope of the networks of the ranked agents and where leadership in SCM research is emerging from.

Authors and institutions from the USA and UK are found to dominate much of the rankings in SCM research both by publication score and social network analysis measures of centrality. In examining the networks of the very top authors and institutions of the world, their networks are found to be more inward-looking (country-centric) than outward-looking (globally dispersed). Further, researchers in Europe and Asia alike are found to exhibit significant continental inclinations in their network formations with researchers in Europe displaying greater propensity to collaborate with their European-based counterparts and researchers in Asia with their Asian-based counterparts. Also, from among the journals, Supply Chain Management: An International Journal is found to exhibit a far more expansive global reach than any of the other journals.

The journal set used in this study, though representative of high-quality SCM research outlets, is not exhaustive of all potential outlets that publish SCM research. Further, the measure of quality that this study assigns to the various publications is based solely on a publication score that accounts for the quality of the journals, as rated by Association of Business Schools that the papers appear in and nothing else.

By informing the community of stakeholders of SCM research about the top-ranked SCM authors, institutions and countries of the world, the nature of their networks, as well as what the primary areas of SCM research of the leading authors in the world are, this research provides stakeholders, including managers, researchers and students, information that is helpful to them not only because of the insights it provides but also for the gauging of potential for embedding themselves in specific networks, engaging in collaborative research with the leading agents or pursuing educational opportunities with them.

This research is the first of its kind to identify and rank the top SCM authors and institutions from across the world using a representative set of seven leading SCM and primary OM journals based on publication scores and social network measures of centrality. The research is also the first of its kind to identify and rank the top authors and institutions within specific areas of SCM research and to identify future research opportunities relating to aspects of collaboration and networking in research endeavors.

The majority of studies on supply chain management (SCM) emphasize the importance of cooperative relationships for improving the integration of business processes into a supply chain. It seems accepted that SCM will be a source of competitive advantage if, and only if, firms that participate in it formalize a strategic partnership between each other beforehand. This article questions whether this really is the case, given that the corporate cultures currently in place are largely founded on a tradition of adversarial relationships, the creation of large groups and the development of vertical concentrations. SCM could, in contrast, in such a case be the catalyst for powerful future strategic partnerships that could gently break arm’s‐length competition.

Despite the large literature base associated with dyadic collaboration, its knowledge-based antecedents are still not well understood. The purpose of this paper is to better understand those antecedents and to explore why the supply chain (SC) literature has found mixed results regarding knowledge transfer and absorptive capacity in dyadic collaboration research.

The critical incident technique (CIT) was utilized, using qualitative semi-structured interviews to refine a proposed research model. In total, 43 executives were interviewed each providing a description of both a successful and an unsuccessful SC dyadic collaboration. The interviews were analyzed to better understand the knowledge-based antecedents of buyer–supplier collaboration.

This study suggests that dyadic collaboration and subsequent outcomes are improved by successful knowledge transfer. Additionally, knowledge transfer requires both distributive and absorptive capacities in each participant. The research also uncovered new evidence to support the need for a collaborative orientation to support successful knowledge transfer.

The interviews conducted using the CIT provided a wealth of information and executive experiences in SC collaboration. However, the interviews only provide a single perspective of collaborative engagements. Multiple perspectives of each collaboration would add value to this research.

SC collaboration and knowledge transfer have been well studied across disciplines. This research introduces new knowledge-related variables that can contribute to successful collaboration: distributive capability and SC collaborative orientation.

Increasing environmental uncertainty, more demanding customers, rapid technological growth and rising capital costs have all forced firms to evolve from collaborating with buyers and suppliers to collaborating with their competitors and that is called coopetition. The purpose of this paper is to better understand the antecedents and outcomes associated with coopetition.

Building from the existing literature and three theoretical foundations, resource-based theory, resource dependence theory and game theory, the authors develop a model showing the antecedents and outcomes of coopetition and associated propositions of coopetition. Using a semi-structured interview process of 21 industry executives, the authors offer empirical support for the proposed coopetition model and propositions.

Firms are increasingly dependent on the knowledge and expertise in external organizations to innovate, solve problems and improve supply chain performance. This research suggests that there is a value for firms to consider coopetition as a part of their inter-firm strategies.

The semi-structured interview process used in this research provided a wealth of information and executive experiences in coopetition. The interviews, however, only provide a single perspective of collaborative engagements with competitors. Multiple perspectives of each project would add value to this research.

Collaboration among buyers and suppliers have been well researched; however, there has not been as much research on coopetition. This research provides a new area for future research for academics and offers suggestions for managers to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their coopetition projects.