Supply chain mapping: a proposed construct

Abstract

During COVID-19, supply chain (SC) mapping has appeared as one of the critical supply chain capabilities that could make a striking difference in organisations’ supply chain performance. Despite its crucial role in responding to SC disruptions, there is a void in the literature on this topic. In this context, the prime objective of the current study is to introduce a comprehensive measure of SC mapping accounting for its various dimensions. A review of the literature is conducted to identify the relevant dimensions and sub-dimensions of SC mapping. Next, two rounds of focused group discussions are conducted in order to refine the identified dimensions and to add any relevant dimensions of SC mapping. Third, we employ exploratory factor analysis to develop the construct of SC mapping. The findings reveal that SC mapping has three major dimensions, namely upstream mapping, downstream mapping, and midstream mapping, with a total 25 items. The developed construct can be used to operationalise the SC mapping and to examine its antecedents and precedents.

KEYWORDS:

• Supply chain mapping
• upstream
• downstream
• midstream
• exploratory factor analysis

Acknowledgement

The research work has been supported by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan, NRPU grant No: 20-11226, P.I: Dr. Shujaat Mubrik.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Muhammad Shujaat Mubarik

Muhammad Shujaat Mubarik is a Professor and Associate Dean at College of Business Management (CBM), Institute of Business Management (IoBM), Karachi, Pakistan. His areas of interest are supply chain resilience, mapping, and sustainability, Blockchain-driven supply chain management and intellectual capital. His research papers have been published in journals of high repute, including Technological Forecasting and Social Change journal, Journal of Cleaner Production, Journal of Intellectual Capital, Management Decision Journal, Business Strategy and Environment, International Journal of Emerging Markets, and Social Indicator Research. Dr. Mubarik has also been the host of the business talk show ‘Corporate Lounge’ at a private satellite TV channel in Pakistan.

Simonov Kusi-Sarpong

Simonov Kusi-Sarpong received the Ph.D. degree in management science and engineering from Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China, in 2016. He is currently a Lecturer (Senior) in Operations Management at Southampton Business School, University of Southampton, Southampton, U.K. His works has been published in journals, such as the International Journal of Production Economics; Resources Conservation and Recycling; International Journal of Production Research; Production Planning and Control; Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice; IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management among others. His research focuses on emerging and developing economies and investigates how green and sustainable initiatives such as lean operations, sustainable supply chains, sustainable risk analysis, circular economy, Industry 4.0, blockchain, reverse logistics etc and their synergies could be used to achieve sustainable operational excellence and supply chain performance. Dr. Kusi-Sarpong is a reviewer for many reputable journals and currently an Editorial Board Member for the journal Resources Conservation and Recycling and Associate Editor of Frontier in Sustainability.

Kannan Govindan

Kannan Govindan is a distinguished professor at China Institute of FTZ Supply Chain, head of Intelligent Supply Chain Center and professor & head of Center for Sustainable Supply Chain Engineering at the Department of Technology and Innovation, University of Southern Denmark, Odense. He has been recognised as a Highly Cited Researcher within ‘Engineering’ for the third year in a row (2018, 2019 and 2020) from Thomson-Reuters/Clarivate Analytics. He has published more than 285 international journal articles (with total 31100+ citations and H-index of 99) in leading journals such as Nature, Omega, Decision Sciences, European Journal of Operational Research, Journal of the Operational Research Society, Journal of Environmental management, Renewable & Sustainable Energy Reviews, Journal of Cleaner Production, Computers & Industrial Engineering, Ecological Indicators, Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Part A: Systems and Humans, European Management Journal, Computers and OR, International Journal of Production Economics and International Journal of Production Research. Many of his papers were selected as the ESI top 1% highly cited papers or 0.1% hot papers or identified and highlighted as the Key Scientific Article contributing to the excellence in Engineering and Environmental research. (Source: Web of Science). He serves as executive editor of the Journal of Cleaner Production, associate editor of Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, senior editor of Industrial Management & Data Systems, editor of Annals of Operations Research, an area Editor of INFOR: Information Systems and Operational Research, and has served as a guest editor in journals such as Decision Sciences, European Journal of Operations Research, Computers and OR, Annals of OR, Journal of Cleaner Production, International Journal of Production Economics. Finally, he serves as an Editorial Board Member of several international journals. His research interests include digital supply chain, industry 4.0 on supply chain, sustainable development goals, reverse logistics, closed loop supply chain, digitalised sustainable circular economy, green supply chain management, and sustainable supply chain management.

Sharfuddin Ahmed Khan

Sharfuddin Ahmed Khan is an Assistant Professor in Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management department at University of Sharjah, UAE since September, 2019. Prior to that, he was lecturer in same department from September 2009 to August 2019. He holds dual PhD in Engineering Management from University of Quebec, Ecole de Technologie Superieure (ÉTS), Montreal, Canada and University of Sharjah in 2018 and MSc in Industrial and Systems Engineering from National University of Singapore (NUS) Singapore in 2006. He has five years of industrial experience in the field of supply chain management, warehouse management and inventory management at BASF Chemicals and ExxonMobil. His research interest includes but not limited to Supply Chain Management, Sustainable Supply Chain Management, Performance Measurement & Improvement and Multi-Criteria Decision Making.

Adegboyega Oyedijo

Adegboyega Oyedijo received his PhD in Procurement and Supply Chain Management from Newcastle University. He is a ‘Chartered’ Procurement and Supply Professional (MCIPS), and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA). Ade conducts inter-disciplinary research with a focus on three key areas: [1] Human Behaviour in Inter-organisational Relationships, [2] Supply Chain Management, Relationship Management, and Humanitarian Logistics, [3] Business issues in Emerging Markets (especially in West Africa). His research has been disseminated in high-impact journals such as Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, International Journal of Production Research, and Employee Relations: The International Journal.