Risk management and coordination in service supply chains: information, logistics and outsourcing

Abstract

A service supply chain, which is a system formed by a network of suppliers, service designers, service providers and other service partners, aims to transfer available scarce resources into services and deliver them to satisfy customer needs. It is a known fact that service supply chain management is playing a more and more important role in modern economies. However, the unique features of service supply chains also create new challenges that call for proper management of the respective operations. In particular, how to coordinate a service supply chain with risk considerations is a critical issue. In this paper, we concisely examine coordination and risk management challenges in service supply chain systems. We also introduce the technical papers featured in the special issue.

Keywords:

• service supply chain management
• risk management
• coordination
• logistics services
• service outsourcing
• information management

Acknowledgements

We would like to sincerely thank the Co-Editors-in-Chief, Professor Jonathan Crook and Professor Thomas Archibald, and the journal editorial administrator Ms Sarah Parry, for providing excellent support for this special issue. We would like to express our hearty thanks to all referees for their timely and critical review comments on the manuscripts. We are also indebted to all authors for their hard work and high quality submissions. Tsan-Ming Choi’s research is supported by The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (Grant Number: G-UA1Q). Yulan Wang’s research is supported by the Hong Kong Research Grant Council (Grant Number: GRF PolyU 598813).