Reconciling supply chain vulnerability, risk and supply chain management

Supply chain vulnerability has become a fashionable area of management research. The purpose of this paper is to provide a critique of the extant canon and a review of the positioning of research in the field, together with literature drawn from several relevant and overlapping fields of research and practice. The aim is to foster a more explicit understanding of the relationships between supply chain vulnerability, risk and supply chain management, and in turn their relevance to related fields such as corporate governance, business continuity management, security and emergency planning. The ultimate objective is to clarify the agenda for further research. The paper begins with an examination of the concept of a ‘supply chain’ and the scope and nature of supply chain management (SCM), then the fusion of SCM with the many and varied interpretations of ‘risk’ and its faltering relationship to risk management. It is argued that attitudes to risk and approaches to risk management vary greatly within SCM and between related disciplines. It is concluded that although more work is needed within the SCM discipline, the issue of supply chain risk and vulnerability should not be addressed solely from a functional SCM perspective. Supply chain vulnerability is a concern for many other managerial disciplines. Research agendas should therefore strive to inform and support the needs of all those with a legitimate interest in supply chain risk and vulnerability management.