The Outlook of Supply Chain Management Amid Covid 19 Pandemic : An Explorative Analysis of Recent Research

Abstract

The outbreak of Corona virus pandemic started in China near the end of 2019. Since then, the virus has spread over all corners of the world and has been taking huge toll of people’s life. The nature of contamination and spread of the virus has disrupted all sorts of business and social activities let alone the supply chains. Supply chain professionals and their stakeholders are working hand in hand to tackle the challenges and exploring ways to covert the challenges into opportunities to tap on. Scholars with interest in supply chain management are not only scrutinizing the situation but also taking up research to analyse the situation and provide data driven, knowledge-based recommendations. This research takes an explorative approach to identify the major themes, approaches, findings, recommendations generated by the body of literature focusing on supply chain management issues during and after the COVID 19 pandemic. Recent research articles on the topic are identified and downloaded using key word search from Google Scholar, Taylor & Francis, Harvard Business Publishing, Elsevier, Wiley, Emerald and Springer sites. 20 articles were selected for in-depth analysis based on the following criteria-written in English, relevance to the topic, publication in peer reviewed journals listed in Scopus data base, and accessibility of full paper. The systematic analysis of literature done in this study helps in identification and categorization of the key research in the field in terms of their context, focus, current and potential impacts, prescribed responses, and future outlooks. The study also detects the research gaps and offers direction to advance future research on the topic. Practitioners can use the findings of the study as a reference to devise their supply chain strategies and plan of actions amid COVID 19. Social Science Review, Vol. 37(2), Dec 2020 Page 161-181