Influence of Product and Business Environment Characteristics on Managing Supply Chain Vulnerability – A Conceptual Foundation

Increased changes of trading rules in a global economy, more frequent adverse weather events due to climate change, and other unexpected events add more uncertainty to the ever-present logistics challenges for companies to manage their supply chains. Thus, there is increased theoretical and practical interest to prevent disturbances of logistics operations, as well as to manage disturbances when they occur and avoid supply chain vulnerability. Decreased vulnerability of supply chains is desired as it leads to robust and resilient supply chains. The objective of this paper is to understand how contextual factors, i.e., product and business environment related factors affect relationship between redesign strategies and vulnerabilities in the supply chain. We consider typical redesign strategies, such as the adoption of assurance systems, the use of proactive control, use of redundancy, or enhancing flexibility in supply chains. Seen from the lens of contingency theory, the findings from our literature review suggest that contextual factors affect the link between redesign strategies and vulnerabilities in the supply chain, but further research is needed to examine how each of the contextual factors affect selection and implementation of each redesign strategies used to manage supply chain vulnerabilities.