Dear Colleagues,

Since the conception of supply chain management (SCM) in the early 1980s, this concept has evolved from a business consultancy product to an area of research and education at business schools worldwide. Initially, business practitioners sought to enhance supply efficiency in predominately physical distribution through creating and managing integrated chains of suppliers. Early on, this field of industrial development met quite a few practical obstacles. Although business practitioners bought the idea of integrating inter-organizationally to enhance operations performance through enhanced coordination of logistics flows, the willingness to develop business relationships on long-term trust was rather lacking. Research pointed out that the overall endeavor to integrate was somewhat simplistic and needed conceptual elaboration facilitating adaptation to different business realities. Furthermore, criticism of the chain metaphor emerged. The chain is actually a network. Additionally, the vision that a supply chain as a total entity could be managed was never documented. SCM was rendered a conceptual ideal lacking proof of its original endeavor. Research within SCM has therefore focused on more microlevel problems associated with inter-organizational collaboration. Gradually, studies on integration of services provision and supplies in NGOs have also increased, taking on a SCM perspective. Given, however, the steadily increasing societal challenges to secure sustainable production and supply, the relevance of a complete “chain” perspective is increasing. This became clear when food suppliers needed in the mid-2000s to integrate to secure traceability systems, evoking how sustainable production cannot be limited to the management and workings of the single firm. When firms collaborate, uncertainty and business risk tend to increase. Business solutions are then found through interorganizational interaction in more or less well-developed relationships. Every firm manages sets of business relationships, and these need to be coordinated. This Special Issue seeks to enhance how sustainable supply operations are achieved in the context of networked organizations. Network operations encompass here both managerial and the production of services and goods in all sectors of society. We invite papers that are based on conceptual, systematic literature reviews, and empirical research in the form of case studies and surveys. We will accept submissions that use other methodologies for the review process. We are interested in submissions that contribute to developing conceptual frameworks, insightful reviews, and empirical findings on any theme/topic in relation to sustainable supply as a networked and therefore complex phenomenon, an ecosystem.

Prof. Dr. Per Engelseth
Dr. Richard Glavee-Geo
Dr. Godfrey Mugurusi
Dr. Umar Burki
Prof. Dr. Robert Dahlstrom
Dr. Fahad Awaleh
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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• sustainable supply
• networks and ecosystems
• green logistics operations
• green innovations managing supply chains and sustainability
• green networked operations
• circular economy
• complexity and emerging risks in networks (for example, COVID-19 pandemic situation)