Lydia Bals, Mainz University of Applied Sciences

Virpi Turkulainen, Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences

Organization design has been proposed to be contingent upon a broad spectrum of external and internal factors since the 1960s. Recent developments in technologies and geopolitical landscape offer a timely and important research area. Novel perspectives are needed on how processes and organization designs in operations and supply chain management (OSCM) are changing. Both sound theoretical base and appropriate methodology should drive novel perspectives on how OSCM processes and organization designs are evolving. Novel insights can pertain to the domain, the variables, variable relationships as well as predicted outcomes.

The acceleration of digitalization and new technologies has the potential to support better decision making by eliminating biases and allowing pooling of more information, yet it has increased the complexity of managing supply chains. There is now a need to share assets and information that were not considered appropriate to share before, and new types of alliances and agreements need to be created. From self-service procurement and autonomous buying to sourcing strategies and artificial intelligence utilization for data analytics, procurement departments are being digitized through new applications, smart platforms and pilot projects.

Geopolitics also increase the complexity of managing global supply chains. The global semiconductor market exemplifies this, with the majority of global semiconductor production concentrated in Taiwan, with microchips production reaching even over 90%. Recent shortages in electricity have forced factory closures globally in various sectors, making it evident that extreme global dependency on a very limited number of actors in today's geopolitical context poses severe consequences.

OSCM is at the crossroads: it can either embrace such disruptions proactively or react to them passively. New emerging technologies and changing geopolitical context force OSCM to reconsider how to adapt. Two main responses to the changes are management of the processes and organization design, aligning organizational considerations with the process landscape. Contingency theory and information processing theory are helpful theoretical underpinnings for research in this area. Contingency theory accounts for the relationship between organization design and internal or external factors such as size, strategy, and uncertainties in the task environment. Information processing theory proposes that an organization's design with its information processing capacity should fit the organization's need for information. These theories have been applied in the OSCM field to examine how different procurement organizational structures facilitate information processing capacity or how various factors affect production location decisions in high cost countries. The question remains whether these considerations hold true under the changed contextual conditions of our times and whether new variables need to update previous theoretical work.

In response to recent disruptions such as COVID-19 and the US-China trade war, companies have developed supply chain structural ambidexterity, referring to dual structures with separate roles. Work that proposes how disruptions are affecting strategic shifts in business models and subsequent adaptations to the organization design of OSCM functions would be relevant. This follows the idea that structure follows strategy. How to organize OSCM functions might need to change in the wake of new requirements; what might have been effective and efficient ways to manage and organize these functions traditionally might be less so in times of AI utilization, autonomous processes, current wars, and new trade barriers.

Potential topics

• OSCM processes: implications of emerging technologies and geopolitical disruptions on different aspects of OSCM processes, such as how absorptive capacity influences technology adoption, or how specific new technologies (e.g., regenerative AI, additive manufacturing, blockchain) or new regulations affect supply network dynamics
• OSCM organization design: incorporating technologies and geopolitics as contingency factors in models of organization design, managing division of tasks and coordination of work between IT and supply chain, operations, procurement and logistics functions, moving beyond human-centric organization designs toward designing systems composed of human and non-human knowledge workers, understanding how geopolitical disruptions affect organization design aspects on a global scale
• Technology-based decision-making: understanding factors affecting division of labor between humans and AI, coordinating work between technology and humans as decision-makers, integrating robot bosses into OSCM processes
• Competence development: identifying competences OSCM personnel need considering emerging technologies, understanding critical situations that OSCM professionals need to cope with

Timeline

• February 1, 2026: Closing date for abstract/proposal submission
• March 1, 2026: Opening date for manuscript submissions
• October 31, 2026: Closing date for manuscript submission