Logistics and supply chain management in the belt and road initiative: research opportunities and future challenges

ABSTRACT

Since the establishment of the BRI in 2013, it has attracted much attention in logistics and supply chain research. Since previous studies were mostly limited to narrow topics such as the economic impact of the BRI, this study has formulated a comprehensive research framework from multiple perspectives. From the Web of Science Core Collection database, 146 articles were selected for a structured literature review, and we perform a descriptive and in-depth content analysis. To promote comprehensive research, we develop a research framework with five categories: transportation planning, sustainable development, global value chain development, infrastructure construction, and subject governance. Then, according to the logic of ‘why–what–how’, we distinguish the advantages, obstacles, and promotional measures in the development of global logistics and supply chains based on the BRI over the past decade, and then present challenges and propose future research agenda.

KEYWORDS:

• BRI
• logistics
• supply chain management
• structural literature review
• challenges
• research agenda

Acknowledgement

The authors sincerely thank the editor and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive and important comments on the paper. This paper is supported by Major Program of the National Social Science Foundation of China (grant number 22&ZD139). We also thank Yujie Wang as Co- Corresponding author.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Major Program of the National Social Science Foundation of China [grant number: 22&ZD139].