COVID-19 and Supply Chain Management: A Review with Bibliometric

The supply chain and its management are the hidden engines that drive the economy. The COVID-19 pandemic has precipitated an unprecedented sustained challenge to supply chain management around the world, which has highlighted the importance of research on the effects of COVID-19 on supply chain management. Most of the scholarly articles were mainly focused on content analysis to discuss aspects of the research related to COVID-19 and supply chain management. The literature reviews with the bibliometric method involving supply chain management in the COVID-19 context are still scarce. In this paper, we undertook a bibliometric analysis of the research on COVID-19 and supply chain management, finding a total of 257 papers published in 2020 and 2021 to determine the thematic direction of the related flourish of research. The analysis used a combination of bibliographic and network analysis to capture the direction the research has been taking. The study identified the most highly productive authors, prominent journals, and geographic centers of publications about this phenomenon. It also examined networks related to co-authorship, countries of collaboration, co-citations and highly cited authors, and co-wording. The examination identified four thematic clusters, comprised of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on supply chains, the improvement of supply chain resilience for viability, technology and innovation for supply chain sustainability, and supply chain risk management in response to COVID-19. These findings support the need for further investigation into supply chain management, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on supply chains, and, more broadly, supply chain resilience.

Automated summary

This study conducted a bibliometric analysis of the research on COVID-19 and supply chain management, identifying a total of 257 papers published in 2020 and 2021. The analysis determined the thematic direction of the research and identified highly productive authors, prominent journals, and geographic centers of publications. The study identified four thematic clusters, including the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on supply chains, improvement of supply chain resilience, technology and innovation for supply chain sustainability, and supply chain risk management.