green supply chain management literature review

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Sustainable supply chain management and green technologies: a bibliometric review of literature

• Review Article
• Published: 28 June 2022
• Volume 29 , pages 58454–58470, ( 2022 )

Cite this article

• Zhang Yu 1 , 7 ,
• Muhammad Waqas 2 ,
• Muhammad Tabish 3 ,
• Muhammad Tanveer 4 ,
• Ikram Ul Haq 5 &
• Syed Abdul Rehman Khan 6  

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A Correction to this article was published on 07 July 2022

This article has been updated

To attain ecological sustainability and transition to sustainable supply chain management (SSCM), effective technological innovation (TI) and solid waste management (SWM), as likely impending resources, are essential components. From 2000 through 2021, a detailed map of SSCMs in the context of TI and systematic history will be created, highlighting the most significant research themes and trends, primary features, development, and possibly relevant areas for future study. Due to utilizing bibliometric analysis, text mining, and content analytics methodologies, the following concerns were addressed: (1) How has SSCM research progressed over time in the TI domain? (2) Which SSCM research areas and trends receive the most attention in the TI domain? Additionally, (3) what are the research directions for SSCM in the context of TI? As a result, bibliometric networks were developed and examined using 983 journal articles from the Scopus database to highlight the substantial body of literature. As a result, SSCM has been divided into five crucial study themes: (i) transition to TI, (ii) SSCM in closed-loop supply chains, (iii) municipal solid waste management (MSWM), (iv) environmental consequences and life-cycle evaluation, and (v) policymakers and practitioners in SSCM can use the SSCM research landscape and its primary highlight patterns to guide and add in the TI. Considering SSCM research as a way to reduce waste, future study directions are also suggested.

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Introduction

Manufacturing firms are gradually receiving pressure from general public and its stakeholders to be considered responsible for the environmental outcomes that result from their internal and supplier operations (Koberg and Longoni 2019 ). For the last two decades, technologies and activities of sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) have been concerned with integrating environmental, economic, and social goals throughout the manufacturing process of firm’s supply chain operations and strategies to promote sustainability (Khan et al. 2021a , 2021b ). With unique concentrations on sustainable supply chain operations, the technological innovations has significantly reduced its burden on the world ecological system, encouraging zero waste and a sustainable environment (Ranjbari et al. 2021 ). The proper management of sustainable supply chain operations plays an undeniable role in environmental sustainability and positively impacts societies (Manavalan and Jayakrishna 2019 ). They were adequately designing and managing the sustainable flow of products and services from raw material to finished goods is considered significant in the circular economy (Waqas et al. 2021 ; Khan et al. 2020 ; Ali et al. 2022 ). In recent years, literature review confirmed that plenty of research articles had been published by researchers on SSCM corresponding to the green technological innovations (Wangsa et al. 2022 ). Some researchers included it but not restricted to establishing the green technological innovations indicators for SSCM (Hussain and Malik 2020 ), examined and explored sustainable supply chain barriers and drivers and practices (Govindan and Hasanagic 2018 ), classified and filed the barriers hierarchy index to SSCM in the Chinese and Pakistani manufacturing industry (Jin et al. 2022 ; Waqas et al. 2018 ) and enabler of sustainable supply chain operations in Pakistani manufacturing industry (Hussain et al. 2021 ). The bibliometric analysis has provided directions to scholars, who are managing plenty of research publications in the field of SSCM considering technological innovation. The research teams have found lesser investigated and introduced the new trends and developments in SSCM, such as from raw material sourcing to production (Gedik and Avinc 2020 ), raw material storage (Baars et al. 2021 ), sustainable product delivery system (Soleimani et al. 2018 ; Khan et al. 2022c ), worked on sustainable supply chain networks (Abdi et al. 2020 ) and green reverse logistics. Unfortunately, some are activities still blurred regarding green technological and IT innovation in the literature in the field of SSCM, such as ambiguity in perceiving sustainable ideology, shortage of experts, and trust deficit of manufacturing firms in the adoption of SSCM (Wangsa et al. 2022 ; Seman et al. 2012 ; Khan et al. 2021a , 2021b ) that is challenging supply chain, procurement managers, and practitioners. Apparently, the roadmap of SSCM research trends linked with technological innovation perspective still has vacuums in the literature review.

The fundamental objective of this research is to introduce a clear picture of recent trends, developments, research gaps, and future research direction in the field of SSCM aligned with the technological innovations over the last two decades since 2001–2021. The selected analysis can provide guidance and a base for future research directions in this field. To accomplish the desired objective of current research, a mixed-method methodology has been employed, including content analysis, bibliometric analysis, and text mining to answer the below queries.

Q1: What has been the evolution of SSCM research in the TI domain?

Q2: What are the most pressing concerns and developments in SSCM research in TI?

Q3: Based on the findings from the completed bibliometric, text mining, and qualitative content analyses. What future directions might SSCM research pursue in light of the move to technological innovation?

According to the author’s best knowledge, current study is the first inclusive research in the literature that introduced bibliometric analysis, content analysis, and text mining in SSCM. Thus, current research is enormously predicted to contribute toward the systematic background of SSCM in a technological innovation context and identify and verify its recent trends in the last two decades. Secondly, accumulate the wide-range literature of SSCM and prominent research patterns that support supply chain managers of the different industries across the globe toward a green technological innovations. Thirdly, suggesting the future research directions in the field of SSCM that still need further investigations to reshape the technological innovation practices.

Sustainable supply chain management technological innovations: guidelines towards challenges and opportunities

Sustainable supply chain practices refer to those actions and activities that deal with the environmental, financial, and social aspects of manufacturing firms (Waqas et al. 2020 ). The optimization of SSCM activities decreased the demand for reverse logistics, predominately minimizing waste generation, promoting sustainable transportation, and recycling and reusing the waste material that is the foundation for the circular economy (Lee et al. 2014 ; Ranjbari et al. 2021 ). Pinegar and Smith ( 2019 ) reported that an appropriate waste management system promoted the actions of recalling, recycling, discarding the end-of-life (EOL) products to minimize their burden on the world ecological system. Unfortunately, the field of SSCM is still in its infancy phases due to little adoption by manufacturing industries in emerging economies (Gandhi and Vasudevan 2019 ; Khan et al. 2021a , 2021b ). Jum’a et al. ( 2022 ) suggested the adoption of green supply chain practices directed to supply chain experts and managers to decrease the consumption of natural resources. Thus, plenty of scholars and academics have emphasized on eco-friendly production and highlighted the greening concept in supply chain operations (Croom et al. 2018 ; Green et al. 2019 ; Kumar et al. 2022 ). Therefore, considering the severity of environmental conditions, many researchers have found in literature who manifested the importance of SSCM technological innovation which is the main pillar of a circular economy (Ciliberto et al. 2021 ; Haleem et al. 2021 ; Shayganmehr et al. 2021 ). Rehman Khan et al. ( 2021 ) found that reducing pollution and waste by promoting innovations green transportation is the key indicator for sustainable development.

Touboulic and Walker ( 2015 ) examined the relationships of different theories with the conceptualization of practices of SSCM. However, their recommendations positively work for the upgradation of the SSCM field. Khan et al. ( 2021a , 2021b ) published state-of-the-art review-based research article in which they filed the recently emerged themes and trends in this field. Similarly, Rajeev et al. ( 2017 ) established the review on the design of SSCM networks and incorporated the different techniques that positively works for the upgradation of the green supply chain management field. Their study results focused on the significance of strategic decisions and their impact on sustainable firm performance. Büyüközkan and Göçer ( 2018 ) discussed the advantages of greening in digital technology supply chain operations and practices. Their results confirmed that sustainability and supply chain management are treated as separate entities, but a lower percentage of literature researchers interpret them in an integrated approach. Thus, the focus of SSCM studies has shifted from traditional measurement to economic and environmental performance (Seman et al. 2019 ). Beske-Janssen et al. ( 2015 ) demonstrated the performance measurement system in SSCM operations in the manufacturing industry context.

Research methodology

Current research employed is the mixed methodology of qualitative and quantitative but mainly focused on the quantitative method that have been applied to examining the literature related to SSCM technological innovations.

Data sampling, data gathering, data investigating, and data cleaning

To confirm the collection of sufficient research publications related to this study field, Web of Science is the main source of collection; as one of comprehensive and top sources, scientific literature was chosen to collect relevant data for this study. Following keywords (green* supply chain* or sustainable* supply chain*, green* supply chain practices* or sustainable* supply chain practices* and sustainable* supply chain management* or green* supply chain management*) were used to examine in the title of a research article, abstract, and in keywords. The initial screening phase of relevant research articles of this study was started in February 2022 and was published in different well-known peer-reviewed English language journals from 2001 to 2021. As the results of this extensive search, 983 papers meet the criteria of selection of papers for further analysis. However, after screening, filtering, and selecting published papers, the final cleaning dataset technique was employed before applying the bibliometric and text mining data analysis technique as per recommendations of Ranjbari et al. ( 2021 ).

Data analysis

Investigating the structure and evolution of current study field, the combination of three analytical research techniques, including bibliometric, content analysis, and text mining, has been applied.

Bibliometric analysis

Bibliometric analysis of the literature review is the most famous and strong quantitative statistics technique used by different research teams who are dealing with high quantity of research publications and literature mapping in different field such as SSCM (Khan et al. 2021a , 2021b ), waste management (Ranjbari et al. 2021 ) and reverse logistics (He et al. 2020 ), sustainable development (Du et al. 2021 ), and technological innovations (Lee et al. 2014 ). However, bibliometric analysis is very efficient in suggesting and guiding the future research direction of any field by providing a comprehensive evaluation of identified relationships among different factors of the area in publications, journals, citations, and co-citations (Ranjbari et al. 2021 ). Thus, meeting the requirement of this research, 1.6.16 version of VOSviewer was applied as per recommendations of Waltman et al. ( 2010 ) to conduct bibliometric analysis. Following are the bibliometric parameters, trends and theme evolutions in the specific field over time, authors and citation analysis for leading publications, collaboration and co-authorship analysis for institutions and countries, coupling bibliometric networks analysis for a dataset. Lastly, co-word analysis was used for classifying and verifying the different hotspots that were shown in this research to statistically measure the bibliometric evidence of selected publications in the field of SSCM regarding green technological innovation context from 2001 to 2021.

Content analysis

In the same direction Haq ( 2021 ) and Schöggl et al. ( 2020 ) who conducted their research to analyze the qualitative content of their investigations, which is balancing qualitative technique, were also employed in this study to provide more detailed results related to quantitative results of this research. Considering the situation, the authors applied the data clustering method to selected publications that were clustered according to bibliometric coupling analysis. After that, qualitative content analysis was employed for each cluster of top 15 publications to examine and verify theoretical orientations in SSCM creating green technological innovations.

Text mining analysis

The text mining method is a useful statistical tool used to screen the required information from a wide range of available publications text by evaluating the themes and trends of a specific field (Amado et al. 2018 ). However, text mining is specially used to capture the semantic summitry phrase patterns appropriate to demonstrating text data’s massive quantity. Similarly, version 1.6.16 of VOSviewer has been utilized to calculate the co-occurrence algorithm on abstract and titles of selected research publications. Thus, the results of applying the texting mining technique to blurred trends and themes of technological innovations in SSCM literature were identified (Fig. 1 ).

Step by step study framework

Discussion of findings

To guarantee that our study’s research issues are addressed clearly, the findings are divided into sections 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3 that correlate to the study’s primary research subjects.

Extant studies’ bibliometric mapping

This part discusses the bibliometric analysis indicators in detail in order to directly address the research question posed in the first section.

RQ1. What has been the evolution of SSCM research in the technological innovation (TI) domain?

Evolution of publications: a descriptive study

From 2000 to 2021, Fig. 2 depicts the trend in SSCM-related research publications published in the TI. The majority (713 out of 983) of papers were published afterward in 2017, accounting for more than 73% of the dataset in total. 2018 to 2021 appear to be the most productive years in terms of articles published and academic engagement in SSCM leading up to a TI. The significant increase (de Sousa et al. 2018 ) in scholarly works over the last 4 years suggests that a variety of sources, including SSCM, have increased their focus on technological innovation establishment. A total of 983 papers on SSCM biotechnology innovation were published between 2000 and 2021.

Publications evolution over time from 2000 to 2021.

Analysis of citations: key articles, journals, and authors

The number of citations an article receives can indicate its importance. The table 1 below outlines our database’s fifteen most cited articles. Management Information Systems Quarterly is a highly cited research article, proving the journal’s strong influence on the technological innovation movement. According to the Scopus database, the most often cited work is Rai and Patnayakuni ( 2006 ), firm performance impact of digitally enabled supply chain integration capabilities, which has had 1187 citations as of November 2021. Optimal supply chains for sustainable cellulosic biofuels: (Saberi et al. 2019 ; Snyder et al. 2011 ), assessed the Optimal design of sustainable cellulosic biofuel supply chains: Multi-objective optimization combined with life cycle assessment input-output analysis. The most cited articles are reviews on technological innovation’s perspectives and applications (Dao and Langella 2011 ; Davis et al. 2015 ; Eltayeb and Zailani 2010 ; Olivetti et al. 2017 ; Sapsanguanboon et al. 2007 ) in this study area. This may be due to one of two reasons. Experts have emphasized the need for technical innovation to transition in recent years due to the possible benefits for economic and environmental regimes. Second, politicians struggle with putting technological innovation into practice, while operational practitioners lack clear standards.

Figure 3 summarizes the productivity (number of publications) and influence of notable authors in technological innovation who contribute to SSCM research. Sarkis, Mangla, and Cerchione had the most significant citations with 2162, 190, and 161. On the other hand, Sarkis, Mangla, and Cerchione were the research’s most prolific authors, producing 13 articles, 11 articles, and 8 articles, respectively, over the study period. Sarkis is included on both lists of the top ten most influential and effective writers, showing that he is a significant contribution to sustainable supply chain management and technical innovation (Fig. 4 ).

The most often cited publication in the SSCM research on the TI.

The most productive and prominent authors in SSCM research directed against the TI.

Analysis of institutions and countries

Figure 5 depicts the countries and institutions that contributed most to the issue out of our sample’s 88 nations and 1248 organizations. Each bar in the chart reflects the number of papers possessed by a certain country. Additionally, the more tightly coupled processes are, the higher the potential for collaboration. The USA, China, the UK, India, and Italy lead technological innovation in SSCM research, with 171, 160, 142, 105, and 86 publications.

Countries and institutions working together on SSCM research for the TI.

Because of the proliferation of universities included in this research ( n = 1248), only those with at least nine publications were included in Fig. 6 to visualize the most significant institutions. At the same time, if we consider countries’ contributions to publications, Romania and Tanzania are not among the top 15 contributors. Università Degli Studi di Padova, Wageningen University & Research, Dalian University of Technology, Università Degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, University of Plymouth, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, Plymouth Business School all with below 10 publications, while Politecnico di Milano, Tsinghua University, the University of Cambridge equally with 10 publications. The University of Hong Kong and Hong Kong Polytechnic University have 11 and Worcester Polytechnic Institute and the Parthenope University of Naples with 12 publications. In contrast, Imperial College London is the most active institute with 13 publications.

Preceding the SSCM, the top 15 universities, and articles published in TI research.

Identifying hotspots with co-word analysis

The author’s keywords should encapsulate their research’s fundamental concept and scope. Analyses of related words, constructed built on the co-occurrence of phrases, can add to discovering hot spots of research within a subject. The keyword list had been slightly cleaned up prior to running the co-occurrence analysis. Finally, 2641 keywords remained out of 2889 to be analyzed. After deleting terms with a co-occurrence frequency of fewer than seven, Fig. 6 depicts the authors’ keyword co-occurrence network. This network has 32 trending terms (in order to obtain a more precise visualization). The larger the circles on this map, the more frequently the terms appear, and the thicker the connections between them, the more frequently they occur in conjunction.

Our dataset’s ten most frequently used keywords are sustainability, digital transformation, sustainable supply chain management, innovation, sustainable supply chain, technological innovation, supply chain performance, artificial intelligence, logistics, multi-objective optimization, sustainable performance, and game theory. Furthermore, these ten keywords have the greatest number of cross-references to other phrases in the dataset. As illustrated in Fig. 7 , the average year of publication for concepts such as sustainable supply chain management, digitization, recycling, and artificial intelligence is longer. On the other hand (Herczeg and Akkerman 2017 ), experts have emphasized the significance of concepts such as sustainable supply chain management, technological innovation, and sustainable supply chain in recent years. Researchers will find the most potential research frontiers and topics of inquiry in this discipline by identifying the most recent active keywords in the SSCM study domain related to technological innovation (Dong et al. 2021 ).

The keyword co-occurrence network.

Results of text mining: identifying major study themes and trends

The answers to the second question are directly addressed in this section:

RQ2: What are the most pressing concerns and developments in SSCM research in TI?

The findings of text mining indicate that there is currently existing SSCM research in the technological innovation sector organized around eight core study themes. This field (Meherishi and Narayana 2019 ) encompasses sustainable supply chain management, technological innovation transition, e-sustainable SCM, municipal-solid-waste (MSW), ecological influences and lifecycle evaluation, plastic SSCM, and construction and demolition SCM.

As a result of technological advancement (Mensah et al. 2019 ; Saurabh 2021 ), TI has emerged as a critical area of SSCM research. Food-borne SSCM is a significant impediment to technological advancement in this field. This study theme is largely concerned with the valorization of food supply networks and their transformation into value-added resources and bioproducts, as well as their contribution to the innovation (Ahmadi et al. 2020 ; Mensah et al. 2019 ), by optimizing energy output from food SSCMs using novel anaerobic biorefinery processes in a long-term food supply chain. Biochar is created by pyrolyzing waste biomass from agriculture and livestock. It is used to determine the lifetime of bioplastic-based food packaging and the sustainability of the food supply chain.

Due to the absence of a standardized mechanism (Abdel-Basset et al. 2020 ; Kumar et al. 2021 ; Wei 2021 ), for collecting, classifying, and sharing information about sustainable supply chains, the second theme focuses on technical innovation and SSCM practices and activities. For example, Mardani, Kannan, Hooker, production, et al. (Mardani et al. 2020 ) implemented measurement and index systems that promote industrial symbiosis and synergies by substituting raw materials from sustainable supply chain sub-products or recycled materials for end-of-life mismanagement. Its catastrophic adverse environmental repercussions in the research, key SSCM constraints (Ciccullo et al. 2018 ; Herczeg and Akkerman 2017 ; Hong and Zhang 2018 ; Mensah et al. 2019 ), to adoption of a TI have been highlighted as the discursive framing of technical innovation policies and energy recovery via sustainable supply chains.

With increased worldwide demand for electronic and electrical products (Bechtsis et al. 2018 ; Meherishi and Narayana 2019 ; Silvestre 2018 ), developing and emerging countries, particularly those through technological innovation transitions, have prioritized e-Sustainable SCM. One of the most perplexing issues (Saberi et al. 2019 ) confronting policymakers in SSCM is an insufficient amount of e-sustainable supply chain treatment and recycling (Geissdoerfer and Morioka 2018 ; Hussain 2020 ; Nilsson 2021 ; Zhou and Govindan 2020 ), which can have a substantial influence on the environment and human health. The research theme of the e-sustainable supply chains is to identify significant hurdles and strategies for installing formalized supply chain management systems and novel sustainable business models to lower the e-sustainable supply chain (Gnansounou 2010 ). The critical importance of amending e-sustainable supply chain directions and guiding principles to account for all lifecycle influences, as well as the development of appropriate indicators for e-sustainable supply chains, reverse logistics solutions, and inducements to the sustainable supply chain hierarchy rather than recycling (Saberi et al. 2019 ).

As a result of the world’s growing population and rising living standards, creating a sustainable supply chain has accelerated in recent years (Mahroof et al. 2021 ). For example (Tseng and Tan 2013 ), global MSW production will reach 2.01 billion tonnes in 2016. By 2050, it is predicted to reach 3.40 billion tonnes, posing a global threat. The majority of researches on the MSW theme tune focuses on influencing citizens’ behavior through the implementation of 3Rs practices, the proposal of inducements for public engagement in MSW management, the provision of practical solutions for technological innovation (Yu et al. 2022 ; Khan et al. 2021f ), and the increase in recyclables assortment rates. It assesses the synergy between recycling and heat treatment and the factors affecting municipal recycling collection rates. The lifetime of the solid waste supply chain and supply chain-to-energy technologies that generate electricity from MSW is being evaluated (Gómez-Luciano 2018 ; Hong and Zhang 2018 ; Mensah et al. 2019 ).

Technical innovation strives (Ciccullo et al. 2018 ) to maximize resource efficiency and minimize the environmental impact of sustainable supply chain generation by implementing effective SSCM systems. Assessment of the ecological effects (Seman et al. 2016 ) of SSCM activities has historically been difficult, making it difficult for policymakers to make informed decisions to pursue a clean and sustainable environment. According to our study’s text mining research, the environmental impacts and lifetime assessment subject have been identified as a significant area of environmental review within SSCM operations. Wei ( 2021 ) highlighted that the different recycling procedures are examined for their environmental impact, including the development of lifespan assessment models for future SSCM scenario environmental assessments and the assessment of potential environmental benefits associated with reuse preparation prior to recycling. Textile recycling and MSW dumping have a detrimental effect on the environment. Environmental expenses (Tebaldi and Bigliardi 2018 ) are associated with composting as a strategy for achieving greater sustainability long-term value addition to the supply chain. There are a lot of important environmental studies in this research theme, but two of the most important are the environmental effects of reusing resources from sustainable food supply chains in technology and the environmental effects of the whole lifecycle of electrical and electronic supply chains that are environmentally friendly (Krishnan and Agarwal 2020 ; Soni et al. 2021 ).

SSCM has met a plethora of problems and environmental issues (Yadav et al. 2020 ; Zhang et al. 2019 ), due to plastic’s broad use in industry and urban life, ranging from coastal contamination to limited recycling. Among other things, our research on the plastic sustainable supply chain (Tyan et al. 2020 ; Yadav and Singh 2020 ) focuses on closed-loop polymer recycling, how stakeholders in the plastics value chain work together to implement technological innovation, how to define a new economy in agriculture (Fatorachian 2021 ), with plastics, extended producer responsibility for plastic packaging, and single-use plastic reduction challenges and opportunities, as well as how to reduce the amount of plastic waste in the world’s oceans. Identifying important barriers to plastic reprocessing in the local plastic value chain, looking into pollution in reprocessing and the quality of recycled plastic, and looking at options for a sustainable residential plastics supply chain—this is what the project is about (Zimon and Tyan 2019 ).

Finally, the study’s final SSCM research theme was determined using text mining analysis as the decisions for construction (C&D) sustainable supply chain progressed throughout the construction cycle (Mardani et al. 2020 ; Panigrahi et al. 2019 ; Shibin et al. 2020 ). C&D’s sustainable supply chain, which is regarded as one of the most major sustainable supply chain streams, has developed due to the world’s expanding urbanization. Sustainable treatment of C&D supply chains should be a critical social, environmental, and economic challenge on a global scale. The researchers concentrated (Khalid and Seuring 2019 ; Panigrahi et al. 2019 ; Saeed 2019 ) their efforts on developing strategies for managing C&D supply chains that are founded on the concepts of technological innovation and information technologies in C&D. SSCM emphasizes the importance of overcoming barriers to technological innovation in research and development. SSCM utilizes sewage sludge ash in the building industry to promote technological innovation and positive community attitudes about C&D waste recycling (Neutzling and Land 2018 ; Khan et al. 2022b ; Tseng et al. 2019 ).

By text-mining of publications in our dataset, we were able to track the evolution of SSCM subject categories across time how often they write or publish. Figure 6 shows the expansion of important study concerns and SSCM subject parts in the technological innovation environment during the last 5 years. Compared to material cycles, closed-loop systems, single-use plastics, biochar, Organic Fraction of Municipal Solid Waste (OFMSW), plastic, construction and demolition, food, and biofuels supply chains have recently attracted attention.

Clusters of qualitative content analysis: more detailed outcomes

This section looks at the fifteen most important articles in each of the groups that were identified. They include perspectives on a sustainable supply chain hierarchy based on technological innovation, how to think about and implement technological innovation, how to use SSCM in closed-loop supply chains, and how to use technology to improve plastics SSCM.

Conceptualization and implementation of TI

The bulk of publications and literature reviews (Olivetti et al. 2017 ; Rai and Patnayakuni 2006 ; Saberi et al. 2019 ; Snyder et al. 2011 ) conceptualize and clarify technological innovation. Historically and geographically, a more advanced and integrated SSCM system is desired and necessary. According to SSCM’s research (Dao and Langella 2011 ; Davis et al. 2015 ; Eltayeb and Zailani 2010 ), the most significant sub-concept of TI originated relatively recently. This section discusses the factors that contribute to and impede increased sustainability through eco-innovation. Dao and Langella ( 2011 ) has looked at managing a sustainable supply chain via technological innovation.

The second set of articles (Gnansounou 2010 ; Horvath 2001 ; de Sousa et al. 2018 ; Sapsanguanboon et al. 2007 ) examines the application of technological innovation principles in a variety of critical industries, including construction (both construction and demolition phases), manufacturing (industrial symbiosis), and the sustainable supply chain to energy supply chain for augmented technological innovation systems. Business-specific best practices (Kotsemir 2013 ; Ramsdal and Bjørkquist 2020 ), such as those found in the construction industry, are highly regarded. This business is particularly interested in managing supply chains in the construction and demolition industries during technological innovation cycles. Finally, researchers and practitioners value the insights gained through SSCM systems (Kwon 1990 ) that incorporate technological innovation concepts. Additionally, it is worth mentioning that the management of a long-term plastic supply chain, a monumental challenge, has not been addressed.

SSCM in closed-loop supply chains

While ineffective sustainable supply chain management can result in serious environmental problems (Kuhnle and Lanza 2019 ), environmental issues such as marine litter and pollution of the environment’s air, soil, and water, as well as dangerous supply chain leakage, technological innovation can assist developing economies in strengthening their existing solid sustainable supply chain management activities through compelling, long-term supply chain valuation and recycling (Kuhnle and Lanza 2019 ) It is imperative that a number of supply chain barriers be overcome in order to maximize the efficiency of materials and reduce the volume of raw materials and industrial supply chains throughout the transition to technological innovation (Brandenburg et al. 2018 ).

The advantage of an integrated SSCM system for reverse logistics is a closed-loop supply chain. Closed-loop supply networks connect (Russo et al. 2019 ), forward and change supply chains, emphasizing environmentally sustainable end-of-life product disposal. Gold ( 2010 ) emphasized how important it is for products to be designed in a way that allows for sustainable supply chain functions like modularity, repairability, and recycling in the closed-loop structure of the supply chain (Ashby 2018 ). Module reuse was found to be the best way to get things back in this situation, followed by material recycling and thermal disposal. Supply chain management is a big problem when it comes to making sure that chemical processes are long-term and efficient. Supply networks (Kalverkamp 2019 ), with a focus on energy efficiency and SSCM, minimize supply chain and energy requirements over the long run. Tseng and Tan ( 2013 ) closed-loop supply chains may also benefit the environment and improve resource efficiency by properly controlling returns at certain stages and throughout the product’s lifecycle. It is believed that using online mobile platforms to organize on-site sustainable supply chain gathering is acceptable for the overall environmental performance of SSCM systems.

In an uncertain environment, establishing successful closed-loop supply chains (Holgado and Design 2019 ) is challenging and time-consuming, owing to the interdependence of multiple variables such as product variety, short product lifecycles, and increasing outsourcing opportunities and organizational internationalization. Afum et al. ( 2021 ) created an optimization model to lower total reverse logistics costs and increase the effectiveness of product return collection stations, consequently increasing logistics efficiency and supporting proper recycling on an economic and environmental level. Furthermore, reverse activities including shredding, recycling, disassembly, and landfilling were built into closed-loop supply networks to reintegrate reverse material flows into forwarding supply chains (Tsai et al. 2021 ).

Due to the significant adverse environmental and human health implications (Lejarza 2020 ), of e-waste, SSCM systems have recently been challenged to build a sustainable supply chain as one of the critical end-of-life commodities within closed-loop supply chains. Policymakers and practitioners (Brandenburg et al. 2018 ), working on e-sustainable supply chains, should examine all disposal choices holistically inside the design of a closed loop supply chain network. Despite mounting legal pressure on legislation governing e-sustainable supply chain treatment, efficient e-sustainable supply chain management remains in its infancy due to a lack of a solid collecting mechanism, public participation, and regulatory enforcement (Kuhnle and Lanza 2019 ).

A TI approach to sustainable supply chain management

Concerns over plastic pollution in the natural environment have spurred politicians to seek sustainable solutions (Ebula De Oliveira et al. 2018 ). The European Commission has helped to control the manufacturing and consumption of the whole plastics value chain, from manufacturers to hoarders and recyclers at the end of the chain (Farooque et al. 2019 ). Also, the EU’s TI strategy emphasizes increasing plastic recycling rates for packaging and domestically generated plastic (Kumar et al. 2021 ; Yadav et al. 2020 ). An innovative economy based on technical innovation principles has received momentum to combat plastic’s negative environmental and wildlife impacts. Technological innovation aims to prevent plastic leakage into the atmosphere before it becomes a supply chain hazard (Dong et al. 2021 ). Manufacturers can cut down on their carbon footprint and use less resources by making bioplastics that are more environmentally friendly than fossil-based plastics. Regarding (Snyder et al. 2011 ) biodegradable plastics such as polylactic acid, it has been stressed that chemical recycling is preferable to mechanical recycling. Their research on plastic recycling found a direct link between the unique qualities of plastic sustainable supply networks and recycling, revealing that “High Quality” plastic sustainable supply chains were 12–35% more recyclable than “Low Quality” applications. The recent Chinese prohibition on low-quality recycling imports has hampered SSCM systems that prioritize resource quality across the materials, components, and product life cycle (late 2017). Setting recycling targets for plastic packaging that are proportional to the actual output of the recycling process and assuring the quality of the end product is crucial. Plastic recycling is a relatively new technological breakthrough. SSCM initiatives (Cancino 2018 ) should reduce material degradation during mechanical operations by improving product design and technology.

Nilsson ( 2021 ) emphasized the crucial importance of government officials and material manufacturers coordinating the standardization of classification and categorization instructions for SSCM of bio-based plastics in order to accelerate the transition to technical innovation. While technological innovation and proper recycling have been lauded as effective tools for managing the plastic sustainable supply chain (Jin et al. 2019 ), more than half of the plastic sustainable supply chain has been exported to hundreds of countries worldwide, indicating the need for new policies to address plastic sustainable supply chain importation and exportation. Additionally (Seman et al. 2016 ), the hazardous sustainable supply chain demands enhanced managerial attention to resource circulation and efficiency in order to foster technological innovation that minimizes the hazardous supply chain and converts it into a resource (Khan et al. 2021c ; Nilsson 2021 ).

Implications for research: future research directions

This section discusses the implications for future research in response to our third research question:

RQ3: These conclusions are based on the results of the conducted bibliometric investigation, text mining, and qualitative contented assessments. What future directions might SSCM research pursue in light of the move to technological innovation?

It was determined that four research topics were potential study gaps, with recommendations for future studies, in order to further integrate the SSCM research plan with perspectives on technological innovation, environmental sustainability, and human well-being, among others.

Technical innovation

Most developed countries can now employ information technology to help clean up the environment and move to more sustainable technological innovation. Using IoT devices to screen human behavior and inform SSCM hubs to take suitable action are two instances of integrating IoT-based solutions into current SSCM systems (Mastos et al. 2021 ). But this field of inquiry is fairly new, and we are still working on establishing an inclusive, sustainable, and intelligent SSCM mechanism using IT and IoT. (Nilsson 2021 ). To achieve long-term environmental, social, and economic sustainability, we are encouraging SSCM activities and practices like reprocessing to mitigate the effects of climate change (Khan et al. 2021d ; Bag et al. 2021 ). As shown in Fig. 6 , contemporary SSCM research has focused on two key areas. First, the biosphere component of technological innovation (Hong et al. 2019 ) provides significant research issues that must be solved, if a zero sustainable agri-food ecology is reached. Plastic SSCM and, more lately, the problem of single-use plastic have attracted substantial attention (Silvestre 2018 ). Researchers have ignored or failed to resolve such transactions. Reverse supply chains must be resilient to pandemic-induced interruptions and shortages in this climate. The COVID-19 situation (Ranjbari et al. 2021 ) has led to an unsustainable supply chain management system and numerous supply chain issues. However, while some authors explored the COVID-19 crises’ lessons on SSCM, more research is necessary (J Amankwah-Amoah 2020 ).

Environmental sustainability

Because healthcare is contagious and destructive, ensuring a sustainable supply chain is critical for the environment, health, and well-being. It necessitates considerably more consistent and long-term management. According to Tsai et al. ( 2021 ), it is uncertain that the existing healthcare SSCM will fully embrace the paradigm of digital innovation. It would be difficult to implement technology innovation to manage multiple brooks of healthcare supply chains, like pharmaceuticals, clinical, and medical. Increased effort and engagement on the part of multidisciplinary sectors would be required. This is primarily because the reuse, recycling, and recovery of materials in this industry involve infectious, poisonous, and hazardous materials, posing health hazards to the general public. According to the study’s findings (Khan et al. 2021a , 2021b ), there is an absence of credible and comprehensive research on implementing technological innovation strategies in the healthcare sector in the SSCM literature. The majority of current research (Choudhary 2019 ; Khan et al. 2022a ; Khan et al. 2021e ; Lahane and Kant 2020 ; Mardani, Kannan, Hooker, production, et al., Mardani et al. 2020 ), in this field, is devoted to developing safe methods for terminating a long-term healthcare supply chain and developing an inclusive technological innovation model that incorporates a range of healthcare SSCM activities and practices, including (i) conducting research on technological advancements for healthcare sustainable supply chain recycling and recovery, (ii) developing national plans for reducing sustainable supply chain generation and executing a recycle strategy for harmless healthcare sustainable supply chain, and (iii) designing closed-loop supply chains for the health sector.

Human well-being

Despite extensive research on the ecological consequences of various SSCM goings-on such as MSW landfills, textile reuse, recycling, and resource recovery from a sustainable food supply chain, human and animal health has received less attention. The OH framework is used to conduct a microscopic examination of SSCM procedures. As a result (Khan et al. 2021a , 2021b ), future research should focus on implementing the OH framework into the sustainable supply chain hierarchy and macro-and micro-level planning and policymaking for disease prevention and promotion of SSCM systems.

Conclusions

This study is designed to create an inclusive map of SSCM investigation in technological innovation during the last two decades, highlighting important research topics and trends and recommending future research directions that will better position SSCM practices toward TI. Between 2000 and 2021, a mixed-methods strategy was employed to extract 983 peer-reviewed journal articles from Scopus. Four critical SSCM research clusters emerged from the investigations: technologically innovative plastic SSCM techniques, conceptualization and implementation of technological innovation, SSCM within closed-loop supply chains, and thoughts on a sustainable supply chain hierarchy based on technological innovation. Bio-based SSCM, transition to technological innovation, MSW, environmental effects and lifecycle assessment, and plastic sustainable supply chain are all key study subjects for SSCM practices in the context of technological innovation. The focus has shifted from closed-loop material cycles to single-use plastics, C&D sustainable supply chains, food sustainable supply networks, biofuel sustainable supply chains, and OFMSW sustainable supply chains in recent years.

The study’s significant findings illuminate the SSCM research schematic and add to the future standing of SSCM happenings and practices. It can also be used as a tool to assist SSCM policymakers and practitioners with assisting SSCM policymakers and practitioners with assisting SSCM policymakers and practitioners with assisting SSCM policymakers and practitioners with assisting SS. Four forthcoming study subjects have been proposed to add technology advancement, environmental sustainability, and human well-being. A sustainable healthcare supply chain model is being developed, and interdisciplinary sectors are collaborating to promote human, animal, and environmental health.

Additionally, all research has limitations. First, we classified the study themes in our dataset according to their bibliographic association. Numerous data clustering practices, including article co-citation investigation, are given. Second, we limited our search to the Scopus database. Bibliometric studies in the future may use data from eminent scientific databases. Finally, we drew our sample exclusively from English language literature. Further research into non-English literature is suggested to add to the unification of the research findings.

Data availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available on reasonable request.

Change history

07 july 2022.

A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-21901-8

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This research is supported by the Beijing Key Laboratory of Urban Spatial Information Engineering (No. 20210218).

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Yu, Z., Waqas, M., Tabish, M. et al. Sustainable supply chain management and green technologies: a bibliometric review of literature. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29 , 58454–58470 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-21544-9

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Flexible Green Supply Chain Management in Emerging Economies: A Systematic Literature Review

M. k. dhillon.

1 University of Westminster, London, NW1 5LS UK

P. M. Rafi-Ul-Shan

2 University for the Creative Arts, Epsom, KT18 5BE UK

3 Cardiff Metropolitan University, Cardiff, CF5 2YB UK

4 Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, NG1 4FQ UK

5 University of West of Scotland, Paisley, PA1 2BE UK

6 King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia

The purpose of this research is to synthesize the fragmented extant knowledge on flexible and green supply chain management (FGSCM) in the context of emerging economies and to unearth research gaps to motivate future research. We adopted a novel structured systematic literature review by triangulating a systematic literature review, text mining, and network analysis. Institutional theory and contingency theory were employed to analyze the results of the review. The results show that, firstly, research on FGSCM in emerging economies, despite its importance, is immature compared to general FGSCM literature. Second, the specificities of strategies and practices that distinguish this topic in emerging economies are discussed and the drivers and barriers are identified with respect to sources of institutional pressure. Third, a research framework for FGSCM in emerging economies is developed and 12 gaps for future research are identified. This study has exclusively developed a research framework for FGSCM in an emerging economy which has received the least consideration in the literature and practice. The framework was developed to synthesize the existing literature and to identify the research gaps to inspire future research.

Introduction

Economic growth and consumerism have placed greater demands for energy and material consumption, resulting in increased concerns for environmental and natural resource preservation (Jia et al., 2018 ). Environmental issues are prime concerns for global economies due to global warming, increased pollution and depleting non-renewable resources (Malviya & Kant, 2015 ). Supply chain advancements since the 1990s introduced a new perspective that integrates environmental management within business operations to achieve a competitive advantage (Srivastava, 2007 ). Moreover, dissemination of flexibility from the manufacturing sector to the interorganizational and supply chain level created exciting, yet under-researched, opportunities for supply chain flexibility (Singh et al., 2020a , 2020b ; Stevenson & Spring, 2007 ; Wadhwa & Rao, 2004 ).

Globalization resulted in increased demand for various products in the mid-twentieth century forcing global organizations to enter into new contexts of production where they had never operated before (Rajeev et al., 2017 ). The geographic extension of the supply chain resulted in more than 20% of the greenhouse gas to be emitted by organizations venturing on global platforms, due to the increased complexity of the sourcing and distribution channels as well as the socio-economic conditions of different countries (Dubey et al., 2017 ). Globalization not only created concerns vis-à-vis the ecological impact of supply chains, but also affected recent supply chain disruptions due to the Covid-19 pandemic. From this, it was established that the supply chain must be built flexibly to survive in volatile environments (Butt, 2021 ; Stevenson & Spring, 2007 ).

Growing environmental concerns and stringent environmental laws in developed countries have driven global companies to outsource the most polluting segments of their businesses to developing nations (Dwivedi et al., 2021 ; Garcia-Saravia Ortiz-de-Montellano & van der Meer, 2022 ; Geng et al., 2017a , 2017b ). Among developing countries, emerging economies (e.g., Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, known as BRICS) are prime targets of multinational corporations due to a large consumer base, relatively disposable income, rapid industrialization, diversity of supply base, availability of skilled workforce, and lower operating costs (Tumpa et al., 2019 ). Emerging economies welcome foreign direct investment and benefit directly from globalization. This shift of location, however, has increased environmental concerns in emerging nations as well as the need for stricter environmental and social standards (Geng et al., 2017a , 2017b ). On the other side, focal supply chain firms understood that the shift to emerging economies, despite the lower operating costs and new markets, involves unforeseen risks, which are specific to these countries. These risks can be mitigated only if the supply chain is proactive and if flexibility is built in supply chains in advance (Settembre-Blundo et al., 2021 ; Tukamuhabwa et al., 2017 ).

Recently, supply chain flexibility is becoming an attractive area of research for researchers and academicians (Singh et al., 2020a , 2020b ). There is some research in this area, such as by Singh et al., ( 2020a , 2020b ), who focus on measuring the performance of supply chain flexibility of an Indian soap manufacturing firm. Another research by Singh et al., ( 2020a , 2020b ) focuses on mapping the causal relations among various supply chain flexibility dimensions and their impact on the Indian hygiene industry. However, there is limited research in the context of flexible green supply chain management (FGSCM). Research on FGSCM in emerging economies has been limited due to the contextual specificities of these countries such as the uncertainty inherent in their business environment and poor infrastructure to deal with sustainability issues (Silvestre, 2015 ; Singh et al., 2020a , 2020b ). For example, 90% waste in India is dumped in the environment due to the lack of waste treatment and disposal facilities (Soda et al., 2015 ). Western corporates widely source from these manufacturers and service providers due to the availability of cheap labor and material. However, they have limited understanding of the context and poor visibility over the operational practices of their supply chains in such emerging economies (Rosin et al., 2020 ; Singh et al., 2019 , 2020a , 2020b ). Consequently, they are subject to scandals such as the Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh and enduring criticisms of overlooking environmental issues in their supply chain operations carried out in emerging economies (Bin Makhashen et al., 2020 ). Moreover, supply chain environmental issues exacerbated by disruptions in the recent pandemic have shown that sustainability and flexibility should be considered jointly in supply chain management, a need that has not been addressed in the literature hitherto (Paul & Chowdhury,  2020 ; Sassanelli & Terzi, 2022 ; Shibin et al., 2016 ).

Our initial review of the literature on FGSCM identifies the following gaps:

• Limited research has been conducted on FGSCM in the context of emerging economies, despite the increasing trend of operations and procurement from these countries (Singh et al., 2019 , 2020a , 2020b )
• Despite the interconnectedness of flexibility and environmental sustainability in the supply chain management context, the literature has investigated these topics separately.
• Existing frameworks for flexible or green supply chain management fall short of utility for emerging economies due to inherently different characteristics of the business environment in these countries.
• While some systematic literature reviews in emerging economies have been conducted on flexible or green supply chain management barriers (Rahman et al., 2019 ; Shibin et al., 2016 ; Tumpa et al., 2019 ) and organizational performance (Geng et al., 2017a , 2017b ), the literature scants systematic reviews that unearth the specificities and the sources of institutional pressures in emerging economies.

This review seeks to bridge these gaps by conducting a systematic literature review on FGSCM in emerging economies and addressing the following interrelated research questions -

• i. What is the status quo of FGSCM research in emerging economies?
• ii. What are the specificities of FGSCM strategies and practices in emerging economies?
• iii. What are the sources of institutional pressure, i.e., drivers and barriers, to adopt FGSCM strategies and practices in emerging economies?
• iv. How can the extant body of knowledge inform future research on FGSCM in emerging economies?

This article responds to the calls for further work on the FGSCM in emerging economies by proposing an innovative methodology that triangulates data from eclectic methods through a systematic literature review, text mining, and network analysis supported by two organizational theories for the cross-validation of findings and to eliminate subjectivity from the selection and review process. Three contributions to the literature of supply chain management are made. First, this article brings together the interrelated, yet separate, research developments in flexibility and environmental sustainability in supply chain management in emerging economies within the past 20 years. Second, it juxtaposes the FGSCM strategies and practices in emerging economies with the ones from the general literature, and thus unearths the contextual specificities of emerging economies using a contingency theory lens. Third, it identifies the sources of pressures that motivate or hinder FGSCM in emerging economies using institution theory to help policy makers advocate for FGSCM drivers and tackle the barriers.

The rest of this article is organized as follows. Section  2 presents the research design, theoretical perspectives, and the methodology used for the systematic literature review. Section  3 presents the results of a systematic literature review and provides infographics of the important trends found in the literature. Section  4 provides a thematic analysis of the results by identifying the strategies, practices, barriers, and enablers of FGSCM in emerging economies and comparing them against general FGSCM literature using the theoretical perspectives. Section  5 unearths the research gaps for future research and develops a research framework for FGSCM in emerging economies. Finally, Sect. 6 concludes the paper and provides the limitations.

Research Design and Methodology

This section describes the research design, including the methodology, theoretical underpinning, and analysis approaches. The research gap, as discussed in Sect.  1 , is where flexible SCM, green SCM, and SCM in emerging economies overlap. Motivated by this research gap, our proposed methodology triangulates different approaches to extract, analyze, and synthesize extant literature on FGSCM in emerging economies. It combines a systematic literature review, text mining, and network analysis to identify, evaluate, and synthesize the existing research (Denyer & Tranfield, 2009 ). An eclectic theoretical underpinning of contingency theory and institutional theory is adopted throughout the review. The methodology integrates the findings to build a theoretical framework for FGSCM in emerging economies. Figure  1 shows the research gap, theoretical lens, and the steps of the proposed methodology.

The research design and methodology for the systematic literature review

Theoretical Perspective

A combined contingency theory and institutional theory lens was used to interpret the selected articles and develop a research framework. Contingency theory (Lawrence & Lorsch, 1967 ) is a major theoretical lens that expresses different organizational systems are the results of differences in their operating context. Since one of the objectives of this research is to understand the specificities of FGSCM in emerging economies, it can serve as an appropriate theoretical lens to scrutinize the differences between FGSCM strategies and practices in developed and emerging economies. Furthermore, we considered drivers and barriers as sources of positive and negative pressures, respectively, on the firms to adopt FGSCM strategies and practices. We take an institutional theory perspective (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983 ) to identify the source of drivers and barriers in emerging economies and discern whether they emerged to comply with regulations (coercive), to copy competitors or cope with cultural cognitive pressures (mimetic), or if they are in response to customer pressure (normative).

Stages of the Methodology

The methodology started with a search in electronic databases to locate, select, and evaluate extant studies. First, relevant keywords were identified based on the internal discussion of authors, all of whom are academics with a background in supply chain and operations management. A corporate practitioner from India, experienced in FGSCM, was involved in the discussions at a later stage to ensure the viability of the keywords. The initial keywords were refined into series of search strings using Boolean logic, for example, "Green AND/OR Supply Chain," and "Emerging AND/OR Economy AND/OR Flexible AND/OR Supply Chain." Nearly synonymous keywords such as "Developing Country" or "Sustainable/Ethical Supply Chain" were also used. The search strings were continuously refined, resulting in 26 of the most relevant strings that were used to search data on Web of Science , Science Direct , ABI/INFORM and Emerald Insight . The following exclusion criteria, as proposed by Newbert ( 2007 ), were used to narrow the results down to those which were more relevant.

• Articles should be published in peer-reviewed scientific journals in English.
• Only journals in the area of logistics, operations management, and supply chain management are included.
• Articles should be published in the last 20 years.
• Articles must contain at least one of the keywords in their title or abstract.

After reviewing the title, keywords, and abstract of the returned results, irrelevant articles were excluded and the rest of the articles were reviewed in their entirety, resulting in 108 articles shortlisted for the review. Table ​ Table1 1 shows the process of applying inclusion and exclusion criteria in detail and Fig.  2 summarizes Table ​ Table1. 1 . Figure  2 summarizes the total exclusion and remaining articles in each stage.

Application of inclusion and exclusion criteria

Summary of inclusion and exclusion at each stage

Next, to extract the key themes covered in the shortlisted articles, the text-mining technique was employed. The finalized articles from the previous stage were imported into NVivo12 for cross-validation. The articles were coded and categorized in terms of FGSCM conceptualization, operational impacts, strategies and practices, and drivers and barriers. All the authors were involved in coding and compiling the articles, which was later validated by an external researcher to ensure reproducibility of results and eliminating subjectivity. Text mining strengthened the validity and reliability of the selection process, including the finalized articles and the main themes. It also highlighted low values of relative frequencies as potential themes for future research.

Finally, to unearth the interconnection among the identified results, a network analysis was used. All major and minor categories and frequencies resulting from the previous stage were coded in a separate dataset and stored in NVivo12 for network analysis. Conducting a network analysis on this dataset identified the knowledge gaps of FGSCM in emerging economies and revealed the studies with higher interconnection. A combined contingency and institutional theory lens were used to synthesize the findings and develop a research framework.

Results of Systematic Literature Review

This section explains the stages of implementing the proposed research methodology and addressing the first research question on the status quo of FGSCM literature in emerging economies.

Phase I: Initial Search in Academic Databases

The concept of FGSCM gained its academic coverage in the 1990s (Fahimnia et al., 2015 ). However, most of the articles on FGSCM-related wider issues emerged after 2000 (Quarshie et al., 2016 ) followed by a sharp growth in academic publications afterward (Rafi-ul-Shan et al., 2018 ). Thus, the period used to conduct this review was determined to be from January 2000 to December 2021. Figures  3 compares the annual frequency of publications on general FGSCM and FGSCM in emerging economies indicating that, firstly, noticeably less research has been conducted on FGSCM in emerging economies and, secondly, the slope of increase is significantly lower for the latter.

Comparative annual frequency of publications on general FGSCM and FGSCM in emerging economies

Phase II: Text Mining

Conducting text mining using NVivo12 on the articles resulting from phase 1 facilitated visualization of the focus using word clouds as well as further analysis based on the industry sector, research methodology, and data analytics tools of the reviewed articles (Bin Makhashen et al., 2020 ). Figure  4 depicts the word cloud, highlighting the most frequently used words in the selected articles in bigger fonts, while other less frequent words appear in smaller fonts. A word cloud is a powerful visualization tool to identify common words in complex environments and facilitates unearthing dominant themes and keywords in a given context (Birko et al., 2015 ). The most frequently used words were “green” (word count: 5652), “supply chain” (4361), “sustainable” (4002), “environmental” (3794), “flexible” (3220), “management” (2431), and “emerging” (2187), followed by other keywords.

Word cloud of most frequently used words in the reviewed articles

The analysis of articles by industry sector suggests that the extant empirical research on FGSCM used various industrial sectors, as shown in Fig.  5 . The top three industries were the manufacturing industry 11.2% (29 articles), electronics and electrical industries 10.42% (27 articles), and textile and apparel industry 8.88% (23 articles). A figure of 12% of reviewed articles (31 articles) did not disclose the industry. The reviewed articles were sorted based on the country on which the study focused. The results, shown in Table ​ Table2, 2 , reveal that India (43 articles) and China (38 articles) were by far the two highest-researched emerging economies.

Analysis of articles by industrial sectors

The frequency of emerging economies in the reviewed articles

The articles were also analyzed based on research methodologies. As shown in Fig.  6 , quantitative and mathematical modeling prevailed, which is at odds with the general trend of FGSCM literature. Our findings are at odds with Ansari and Kant ( 2017 ) who found more case studies and empirical qualitative studies, but are supported by Rajeev et al. ( 2017 ) who found that GSCM lacks qualitative research in the context of emerging economies when compared to the developed economies. It implies the maturity of literature on FGSCM as compared to FGSCM in emerging economies. Since quantitative methods were prevailing, the articles were further analyzed based on the applied data analytical tools, as shown in Fig.  7 . Among various analytical tools applied, interpretive structural modeling (ISM) with 13 articles was the most popular data analysis technique, followed by Fuzzy TOPSIS (12 articles) and sensitivity analysis with 11 articles.

Analysis of articles based on research methodologies

Analysis of articles based on application of analytics tools. AHP: Analytic Hierarchy Process, ANOVA: Analysis of Variance, DEMATEL: Decision making trial and evaluation laboratory, FA: Frequency Analysis, MRA: Multiple Regression Analysis, RA: Regression Analysis, SEM: Structural Equation Modeling

Phase III: Network Analysis

The articles with at least one citation were selected from the final list of articles, and their objectives and key findings were scrutinized to conduct network analysis. A network analysis was conducted on these articles. The results are depicted in Fig.  8 .

Network analysis of key articles

It was found that FGSCM-related research is on the rise when compared to the FGSCM-related research in the context of emerging economies. Our network analysis demonstrated undirected empirical research on FGSCM in emerging economies, on the far edges of the network and distanced from the most cited FGSCM-related articles, enabling us to identify the most important contributions in the research domain. Based on the network analysis, key articles on FGSCM in emerging economies are highlighted. A summary of key contributions in the research domain is provided in the appendix.

Thematic Analysis of the Literature

This section provides an in-depth analysis of the selected articles from the systematic literature review. Firstly, FGSCM strategies and practices were extracted. Building upon the contingency theory, they were juxtaposed with the general literature of FGSCM to identify the contextual specificities of emerging economies (second research question). Secondly, the drivers and barriers of FGSCM in emerging economies were identified and categorized based on the source of institutional pressure using the institutional theory (third research question).

FGSCM Strategies and Practices

Many researchers attempted to identify and categorize FGSCM strategies and practices (e.g., Fang & Zhang, 2018 ; Nema et al., 2013 ; Srivastava, 2007 ; Zhu et al., 2007 ), but little research has been done on FGSCM strategies and practices in emerging economies and their specificities. Most of the terminologies, classifications, and categories of FGSCM strategies and practices were developed from the developed economies or network perspective. There are few studies that have researched the emerging economic context, such as those by Singh et al., ( 2020a , 2020b ), Singh et al. ( 2019 ), and Singh and Acharya ( 2013 ) that extensively focused on developing a framework for supply chain flexibility. However, it was noticed that FGSCM strategies and practices received the least consideration in literature and practice. Thus, we identified FGSCM strategies and practices from the selected articles and juxtaposed them with the ones from the general FGSCM literature using the contingency theory lens. The results, summarized in Table ​ Table3, 3 , reveal that there are significant disparities between FGSCM strategies and practices in emerging economies and developed countries. These specificities should be considered when devising a FGSCM strategy or implementing practice in an emerging economy.

FGSCM strategies and practices in emerging economies

FGSCM Drivers and Barriers

Organizations in emerging economies face various drivers and barriers to adopt FGSCM strategies and practices. These pressures originate from different internal (from within the organization) and external (from outside the organization) stakeholders. This review unearthed major drivers and barriers and analyzed the sources from which they originated. Drivers related to government and regulations were categorized as coercive pressure. Drivers motivated by competitors or the cultural environment were considered as mimetic pressures. When a driver pertained to customer or market, it was perceived as normative pressure. Similarly, where a barrier was related to lack of government regulations or support, it was categorized as coercive pressure, indicating that governments should increase their support or exert further pressure to address the barrier. The same holds for barriers assigned to mimetic and normative pressures. When a driver or barrier originated from the internal environment of a firm, e.g., management commitment to environmental training, it is considered as an internal driver or barrier. For the sake of simplicity, when the analysis found management support as a driver and lack of management support as a barrier, for instance, it was only mentioned once in the list of drivers. Tables ​ Tables4 4 and ​ and5 5 provide a summary of identified drivers and barriers, respectively. These tables spotlight the two major key drivers/barriers (internal and external) of FGSCM in emerging economies.

Key drivers of FGSCM in emerging economies

Key barriers of FGSCM in emerging economies

Toward a Research Framework for FGSCM in Emerging Economies

This section addresses the fourth research question about synthesizing the extant body of knowledge to inform future research on FGSCM in emerging economies. Firstly, it puts forward research gaps based on the findings of the systematic literature review. Next, it integrates the findings of the study and the research gaps to develop a research framework for FGSCM in emerging economies.

Research Gaps to Inspire Future Research

Overall, the results confirm the findings of previous research (Geng et al., 2017a , 2017b ; Silvestre, 2015 ) about the dearth of research on FGSCM in emerging economies. Despite the calls and dire need from a practice perspective, the research shows only a modest increase in this area. This section identifies the research gaps to develop a research framework and motivate future research.

Purchasing and Supply Management

The analysis of the word cloud reveals that some important themes in FGSCM such as purchasing and supply management are overlooked in emerging economies. Further analysis of institutional pressures shows that these areas are particularly important because larger multinational organizations often exert their purchasing power to increase their profit share, rather than to drive suppliers in emerging economies toward sustainability and flexibility. Moreover, no studies, apart from Adhikari and Bisi ( 2020 ), were found to investigate the effect of different types of contracts on sustainability.

Gap 1: To further investigate green/flexible purchasing and supply management in emerging economies and particularly how supplier–buyer power imbalance influences mainstreaming sustainability and flexibility in supply chains.

Gap 2: To study the impact of contract terms and contract types, e.g., profit-sharing contracts or performance-based contracts on the sustainability and flexibility of firms in emerging economies.

Industry and Country Analysis

The analysis of industries and countries show while some industries such as manufacturing, electronics, and the apparel industry received the most attention, other industries such as the service sector, SMEs, nonprofits, and development organizations are overlooked. This is an important observation as smaller firms in emerging economies are less equipped to develop FGSCM capabilities. Moreover, nonprofit and development organizations do not often account for sustainability in their strategy and operations (Zarei et al., 2019 ).

In terms of flexibility, our analysis of the literature shows that while the research has transcended beyond manufacturing flexibility in developed economies, as highlighted by Stevenson and Spring, ( 2007 ) and Yu et al. ( 2015 ), the interorganizational components of supply chain flexibility are still absent in emerging economies. In terms of countries, China and India received the greatest research attention while other emerging economies have been investigated less.

Gap 3: To investigate FGSCM in the service sector, SMEs, nonprofit and development supply chains in emerging economies

Gap 4: To transcend research beyond firm level flexibility and account for interorganizational and supply chain flexibility in emerging economies

Gap 5: To study FGSCM in less explored emerging economies such as Mexico, Russia, South Africa, and Turkey and to conduct comparative cross-country analysis with the extant studies in China and India.

Methodology and Theory

In terms of methodology, unlike the trend in general FGSCM literature where qualitative studies prevail (Ansari & Kant, 2017 ), the reviewed articles heavily used quantitative methods such as mathematical modeling (31%) and surveys (20%). Moreover, collaboration and action research aims at generating contextual knowledge (Coughlan & Coghlan, 2002 ), making it a perfect methodology to elaborate on the context of emerging economies. However, no participatory or action research methodologies were found during the review. In turn, the dearth of qualitative methods led to poor theory application and development. The review of Geng et al., ( 2017a , 2017b ) identified that the majority of articles in emerging economies had not specified any theory in the period 1996–2015. Our review supports their findings and postulates that in the period 2000–2020, insufficient theory development, testing, and elaboration still prevails.

Gap 6: To conduct case studies and participatory/action research and further theory application and development on FGSCM in emerging economies

Context Specificity

Using the contingency theory lens helped to juxtapose the studies in general FGSCM with the ones in emerging economies (Table ​ (Table3) 3 ) and revealed that the contextual specificities in emerging economies reduce the slope of FGSCM evolution trajectory (supported by Silvestre, 2015 ). From the theoretical perspective, such specificities are the contingency factors in the context of an emerging economy that drive organizations to adopt different decisions vis-a-vis their operating context. Therefore, an interesting avenue for future research is studying how organizations, especially focal business firms, operating in emerging economies align their strategies and practices (response variables) to achieve a fit with these contingency factors (as context variables) to achieve more sustainable and flexible supply chains (as performance) (see: Sousa & Voss, 2008 ).

Gap 7: To identify the specificities of emerging economies context, to explore how firms adjust their strategies and practices to cope with such specificities, and to assess the resulting flexibility and sustainability performance.

Further comparison of the two contexts shows that in emerging economies, FGSCM strategies are often adopted only when they promise financial returns and are more likely to be abandoned if they fail in doing so (Esfahbodi et al., 2016 ), making proactive green strategy adoption less prevalent in emerging economies. Moreover, flexible reverse logistics, waste management, and green/flexible design were found to be the least developed strategies in emerging economies. The literature of FGSCM in developed countries can provide valuable insights for these areas.

As for other strategies, while present in both contexts, the implementation shows disparities. Customer collaboration in emerging economies leads to a stronger impact on environmental performance, as compared to supplier collaboration. Yet, studies on customer sustainability awareness in emerging economies are scarce. This motivates future research to explore strategies that improve customer collaboration and awareness in emerging economies. Furthermore, while research in developed countries indicates the positive impact of emerging technologies such as blockchain or industry 4.0 on FGSCM (Saberi et al., 2019 ), our review found no studies on the adoption of these technologies in emerging economies.

Gap 8: To study how to customize or transfer benchmark strategies and practices of flexible reverse logistics, waste management, and green/flexible design from developed countries to emerging economies.

Gap 9: To identify the strategies that improve customer collaboration and awareness in emerging economies and evaluate their impact on the flexibility and sustainability performance of firms.

Gap 10: To investigate the impact of emerging technologies and concepts such as blockchain, industry 4.0, 3D printing, and big data on FGSCM in emerging economies

Institutional Pressures

Identifying the sources of pressures on organizations that cause drivers or barriers on the path of FGSCM help managers to harness these pressures for mainstreaming FGSCM in emerging economies. The analysis presented in Tables ​ Tables4 4 and ​ and5 5 reveals more drivers and barriers related to the internal environment of firms, indicating that the (lack of) internal organizational support is an overriding (barrier) driver. This is in accordance with the findings of Jabbour et al. ( 2020 ) who expressed that company owners and shareholders are the most salient stakeholders to drive FGSCM in emerging economies. Little research, however, exists on the organizational functions and their impact on FGSCM in emerging economies.

Gap 11: To investigate the internal organizational factors, from a functional perspective, that impact the adoption of FGSCM strategies and practices in emerging economies

By taking an institutional theory lens, this review identified coercive pressures from government and regulations as powerful sources of compliance. However, fewer drivers and barriers related to coercive pressures were found, compared to the ones related to mimetic and normative pressures. This is notwithstanding the findings of Jayaram and Avittathur ( 2015 ) but is in line with Jabbour et al. ( 2020 ) about FGSCM-related coercive pressures in emerging economies.

Our findings suggests that business firms in emerging economies increasingly earn legitimacy by copying successful FGSCM strategies and practices of other firms (mimetic isomorphism) or due to customer and market pressures (normative isomorphism). It can imply that FGSCM in emerging economies is moving from mere compliance with regulations (coercive isomorphism) as firms are under increasing pressures by competitors and customers to gain legitimacy and market sustainability through FGSCM strategies and practices.

Gap 12: To study the institutional pressures emanating from customers and competitors driving/impeding FGSCM strategies and practices in emerging economies

Developing a Research Framework of FGSCM in Emerging Economies

Developing research frameworks for flexible or sustainable SCM has been at the center of scholars’ attention as these frameworks synthesize and illustrate the status quo and future directions in a concise and visualized, yet inclusive, manner. Some examples of such research frameworks are, inter alia, Seuring and Müller ( 2008 ), Sarkis et al. ( 2011 ), Dubey et al. ( 2015 ), Rajeev et al. ( 2017 ), Liao ( 2020 ), and Carter et al. ( 2021 ). However, our survey of the literature shows the paucity of combined flexible and sustainable SCM frameworks in the context of emerging economies. Hitherto, extant research frameworks focused merely on one aspect of FGSCM in emerging economies such as barriers and enablers (see Delmonico et al., 2018 ; Rahman et al., 2019 ; Tumpa et al., 2019 ), or investigated the impact of FGSCM strategies and practices on environmental performance (e.g., Esfahbodi et al., 2016 ; Geng et al., 2017a , 2017b ; Luthra & Mangla, 2018 ). The literature scants research frameworks that firstly delve into the specificities of emerging economies vis-à-vis combined flexible and sustainable SCM, and secondly inclusively synthesize strategies and practices, as well as drivers and barriers.

Our proposed research framework addresses these shortcomings. Firstly, it not only synthesizes FGSCM strategies and practices in emerging economies, but also it discerns the specificities of emerging economies using the contingency theory lens (Table ​ (Table3). 3 ). This helps managers and decision-makers to account for the contextual differences in emerging economies when devising their organizational strategies and practices. Secondly, the literature advocates that institutional pressures in emerging economies to adopt FGSCM strategies and practices are significantly different in emerging economies from developed countries (Raj et al., 2022 ). We have classified the identified drivers and barriers found from our systematic review, based on the source of pressure they originate using the institutional theory perspective (Tables ​ (Tables4 4 and ​ and5). 5 ). This classification deepens the understanding of policymakers about the institutional pressures in emerging economies and allows them to harness these pressures appropriately to promote FGSCM. Resulting from these observations, the research framework directs scholars to future research by identifying the main research gaps in the literature. The research framework is presented in Fig.  9 .

The proposed research framework for FGSCM in emerging economies

Emerging economies are prime targets of global businesses and multinational corporations for the outsourcing of manufacturing while the in-house operations that satisfy domestic demand in these countries are also seeing sharp growth (Jayaram & Avittathur, 2015 ). This paper reviewed the literature within the past 20 years and proposed a strategic research framework of FGSCM in emerging economies to address the increasing pressures from different stakeholders and calls from scholars to study FGSCM in emerging economies.

The study set out a systematic literature review to identify the status quo of research on the topic. The methodology is novel in that it combines a systematic literature review, text mining, and network analysis to explore, analyze, and synthesize knowledge gaps in the research domain. The applied inclusion and exclusion criteria, brainstorming sessions and crosschecks applied in consecutive steps contributed toward the selection quality of shortlisted articles and their subsequent analysis by limiting subjective biasness (Denyer & Tranfield, 2009 ). Text mining and network analysis of selected articles facilitated identifying networks of research articles dealing with particular aspects of FGSCM strategies and practices and showed that the extant empirical research articles in the research domain are fragmented.

Two grand organizational theories were employed: contingency theory to distinguish the specificities of emerging economies context, and institutional theory to discern the sources of pressures on institutions that facilitate or hinder FGSCM in emerging economies. Using contingency theory revealed that contextual specificities reduce the slope of FGSCM in emerging economies and using institutional theory revealed that coercive pressures from governments and regulations are powerful sources of compliances.

Finally, a research framework was developed to synthesize the extant literature and to identify the research gaps to inspire future research. This framework will help managers and decision-makers to understand the contextual differences in emerging economies while planning their organizational strategies and practices. Furthermore, the classification of drivers and barriers deepens the understanding of policy makers about the institutional pressures in the emerging economies allowing them to promote FGSCM.

This study is not devoid of limitations; firstly, the systematic literature review did not include studies with a mere focus on social sustainability. Higher prevalence of issues such as worker exploitation, unfair wages, substandard working environment, gender discrimination, and child labor in emerging economies are imperative avenues for future research. Secondly, the systematic literature review was restricted to the period of 2000–2020, to four academic databases, and to the research published in English. Some more important articles might exist outside our search boundaries.

Key Questions

• What is the status quo of FGSCM research in emerging economies?
• What are the specificities of FGSCM strategies and practices in emerging economies?
• What are the sources of institutional pressure, i.e., drivers and barriers, to adopt FGSCM strategies and practices in emerging economies?
• How can the extant body of knowledge inform future research on FGSCM in emerging economies?

Acknowledgements

The authors are very thankful to all the associated personnel in any reference that contributed in/for the purpose of this research.

Biographies

is a Senior lecturer in Department of Marketing and Management at University of Westminster, London campus. Previously worked for Coventry University and University of Bedfordshire and has taught a lot of business management modules at UG and PG levels. Manpreet has a vast experience of working in banking sector before joining academia where she mainly functioned in Investment manager role. Manpreet’s main research interests are topics related to Sustainability, Entrepreneurship, Operations and Supply Chain Management.

is a senior Lecturer in Supply chain management and organisational behaviour at the University for Creative Arts, UK. He previously worked for the Cardiff Metropolitan University, Coventry University and Sheffield University. He has teaching and supervision experience at the UG, PG and supervising PhD students. Piyya’s main research interests are supply chain risk management, sustainable supply chain management, supply chain design and redesign for resilience, supply chain relationships and the fashion and food industry.

is a Senior Lecturer in the Westminster Business School at University of Westminster. Previously, he has worked for Nottingham Trent, Coventry, and Bedfordshire Universities and supported their Business and Management Departments. Hassan has a vast experience of working in industry before joining academia where he mainly functioned in a project manager role. Hassan’s main research interests are in the areas of business and management, particularly focused on operations, projects, and supply chain management subjects.

is Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering, School of Science and Technology at Nottingham Trent University. His undergraduate degree (BEng) was in Chemical Engineering, followed by MSc Chemical Engineering from the University of Leeds. He was awarded PhD in Chemical and Environmental Engineering from the University of Nottingham in 2017. He has extensive teaching experience across multidisciplinary engineering and sciences. His research focus is on the area of energy and environment with an emphasis on the utilisation of various renewable energy resources for clean energy using sustainable technologies.

is an Assistant Professor in Business Administration and Supply Chain Management at Business Administration Department, Dammam Community College (DCC), King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM), Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Prior joining DCC, he was programme leader for MSc Logistics and Supply Chain Management (LSCM) and Graduate Diploma in Business and Management at the University of the West of Scotland (UWS). Before, he was Assistant Professor at UWS and the deputy programme leader of the MSc LSCM. He started his job with UWS as a Lecturer in Management/Operations in March 2017. He is involved in undergraduate and postgraduate teaching and research. He obtained a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in Management, specifically Logistics and Supply Chain Management from the University of Hull, Hull, UK. Previously, he has done MSc Logistics and Supply Chain Management from Hull and also a Master in Operations and Information Management from University of the Punjab, Pakistan. Dr Shehzad has several research publications and conference participations on his account at many leading journals.

See Table ​ performance6 6

Analysis of key articles on FGSCM in emerging economies

This research was not funded by any person neither by any public or private body.

Declarations

The authors declare no competing interest.

Publisher's Note

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Contributor Information

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F. Sher, Email: [email protected] .

S. Ahmed, Email: [email protected] , Email: [email protected] .

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