S. Tamer Cavusgil, Georgia State University

Marleen Dieleman, IMD Business School

Md. Tareq Hossain, Thammasat University

Ruey-Jer Bryan Jean, National Taiwan University

Destan Kandemir, Georgia State University

Suntichai Kotcharin, Thammasat University

Hussain Rammal, Adelaide University

Southeast Asia has emerged as one of the most consequential yet under-theorized regions in contemporary international business. The ten ASEAN economies collectively form the world's fifth-largest economic bloc, attracted record FDI inflows of approximately US$ 230 billion in 2023 and 2024, and are projected to add roughly 140 million new consumers by 2030. The region has become a critical site for phenomena that strain or extend prevailing IB theory: it is simultaneously a primary beneficiary of China-plus-one supply chain reconfiguration, a launchpad for a new generation of regional multinationals, and a laboratory for institutional heterogeneity, where ten countries with widely divergent political systems, regulatory regimes, religious traditions, and stages of development cooperate without monetary union or labor mobility.

Despite this empirical importance, Southeast Asia remains underrepresented in top international management journals, where research on emerging Asia continues to be dominated by Chinese and Indian contexts and where the theoretical voice of scholars based in the region itself is frequently filtered through Western co-authorship and Western analytical frames. This Focused Issue invites contributions that take Southeast Asian phenomena as theoretically generative rather than merely empirically illustrative, and actively encourages submissions led by scholars based in the region. The issue aims to advance international management theory beyond the BRICS-centric vocabulary that has shaped emerging-market IB research, and to surface concepts, mechanisms, and boundary conditions that the region's distinctive configuration of family capitalism, ethnic-Chinese business networks, state-linked enterprises, hyper-digital consumer markets, and ASEAN-level institutional layering uniquely reveals.

Potential topics

• The Rise and Internationalization of Southeast Asian Multinationals - Theory-building work on springboard, asset-augmentation, and catch-up strategies of ASEAN-origin MNEs; internationalization trajectories compared to Chinese and Indian counterparts; asset-augmentation versus ownership-advantage-based theories of FDI; platform architecture in cross-border expansion of digital-native champions; internationalization of state-linked enterprises under dual commercial and political principals
• Supply-Chain Reconfiguration, Maritime Connectivity, and Regional Supply-Chain Governance - Integration of Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and Philippines into reorganized global value chains; upgrading dynamics and co-location strategies with Chinese MNEs; port competitiveness and hinterland connectivity; maritime logistics resilience; multimodal transport-corridor integration; dual-sourcing and supply-chain resilience strategies; digital logistics platforms; ASEAN's role in global production-network reconfiguration
• Cross-Border Trade, Geopolitics, and the Middle-Power Firm - How Southeast Asian firms hedge between US, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and European spheres of influence; non-market strategy under strategic ambiguity; role of Singapore as neutral coordination hub; strategic ambiguity and hedging among ASEAN-based firms; locational advantages of neutral coordination hubs; non-market strategy navigating US-China technology restrictions; implications of middle-power diplomacy for firm internationalization
• Indigenous Theorizing and Methodological Innovation from the Region - Submissions drawing on Southeast Asian intellectual traditions, languages, or fieldwork methods; indigenous concepts such as gotong royong, kreng jai, and bayanihan as theoretical resources; multi-language qualitative research designs and epistemology of translation; postcolonial perspectives on knowledge production; methodological pluralism including ethnographic, historical-archival, and participatory approaches

Timeline

• March 30, 2027: Submission deadline

Guoqing Zhang, University of Windsor

Jiaguo Liu, Dalian Maritime University

Hakan Yildiz, Wayne State University

The reconfiguration of global supply chains has become increasingly urgent amid escalating tariff uncertainty and shifting international trade policies. Tariff-induced disruptions are reshaping sourcing strategies, manufacturing footprints, logistics networks, and market access worldwide.

While tariff-related supply chain research is not new, today's environment is marked by unprecedented levels of uncertainty and complexity. High tariff rates, retaliatory measures, and escalating trade tensions have created significant challenges for supply chain reconfiguration and management in practice. The unprecedented challenges of tariff uncertainty highlight the need for new decision-making models, offering significant opportunities to advance the literature and address pressing real-world challenges.

This special issue invites high-quality contributions that develop and apply Operations Research (OR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods to address the challenges and opportunities in global supply chain reconfiguration under tariff uncertainty. We welcome theoretical developments, methodological innovations, applied modelling studies, and quantitatively supported managerial insights. Interdisciplinary research that integrates OR, AI, supply chain management, and international economics, particularly with real-world case applications, is especially encouraged.

Manuscripts should be original, unpublished, and prepared according to submission guidelines. Submissions are expected to have strong methodological contributions in OR and/or AI, with clear relevance to global supply chain reconfiguration under trade policy uncertainty.

Potential topics

• Supply network redesign and optimization under tariff uncertainty
• Robust and stochastic optimization models for tariff-driven supply chain planning
• Global supply chain reconfiguration under trade policy uncertainty
• AI-powered dynamic supply chain adaptation and tariff response strategies
• Dynamic production, sourcing, and logistics strategies facing tariff risks
• Supply chain resilience and risk management for tariff disruptions
• Logistics and warehousing for global e-commerce and omnichannel supply chains
• Maritime network and logistics optimization with tariff impacts
• Hybrid OR–machine learning for adaptive decision-making in global supply chains
• Multi-echelon inventory management under fluctuating tariff policies
• AI and data-driven methods for trade policy analysis and supply chain impacts
• Optimization models and algorithms for large-scale global supply chain problems

Timeline

• October 31, 2026: Manuscript submission deadline

Kannan Govindan, University of Southern Denmark

Organizations must rethink and optimize their existing strategies to meet their sustainable business goals, due to the constant depletion of vital resources and the greater demands of societal issues. The increasing population not only has an impact on natural resources, but it also results in greater pollution and contributes to greater levels of poverty. With these considerations, on September 25, 2015, some countries adopted a new set of sustainability development goals (SDGs) to end poverty and to improve prosperity worldwide. Seventeen sustainable development goals have been targeted to achieve by 2030 under the new sustainable development agenda. Further, these sustainable development goals encompass a range of perspectives and various levels of applications, including supply chain management.

In recent years, researchers and practitioners have addressed supply chain management issues because of their significant impacts on organizational developments regardless of the field of applications. Over the years, researchers have proven that an inefficient supply chain can force an organization to fail. Hence, integrating SDGs in operations and supply chain management areas is an important topic to explore. Many studies sought to explore sustainability in supply chain management with a wide range of concepts and strategies, including green, lean, and other approaches with a special focus on newly targeted SDGs. Research is needed to further analyze and shape the implementation of SDGs in supply chain management environments with the help of advanced operations research (OR) methods, including multi-attribute decision making (MADM) and multi-objective decision making (MODM).

The main objective of this special section is to invite academic practitioners to contribute a better understanding of the scientific basis for decoupling economic growth from resource depletion and environmental degradation while improving human lives with the assistance of advanced OR methods. It is believed that advanced optimization models and algorithms can improve data-driven decision models by either formulating pattern discoveries and knowledge extraction problems or by defining efficient algorithms for implementing SDGs in supply chain management at a macro level. Additionally, new algorithms continually make efficiency gains and improve the applicability of older algorithms. Virtually every numerical analysis includes several optimization algorithms that can be applied to design sustainability in supply chain. With these concerns, this special section pertains to sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) by making direct connections between resources, the environment, the economy, and the goal of achieving SDGs in different parts of the world through OR methods.

These themes should incorporate an integrated approach: looking at possibilities of connecting the conservation of resources with sustainable human economic activities (from a supply chain perspective), and monitoring progress towards sustainable indicator strategies with the support of multi stakeholders in predominant inter- and intra- organizational management fields. This special section will comprise a significant body of knowledge about how natural resources are being utilized in various economies and will address the impact of this use on the eco-efficient and socio-economic systems, and suggest pathways of transitioning to a more sustainable future. This perspective includes building on and expounding the significance of resource conservation and efficiency along with a societal focus to improve sustainable development in supply chain management by achieving the proposed SDGs.

This special section seeks to be specific regarding the different kinds of sustainable supply chains because they can affect the policy implications of different sustainable indicators. In addition to these ideas, this special section welcomes authors to contact us to discuss other possible subtopics. To encourage effective methods and thereby motivate the authors to adopt a variety of sustainable supply chain perspectives in approaching this subject, the special section Editor has purposely kept the above list of suggested topics short. However, all submissions must suit within the domain statement of the journal.

Potential topics

• Designing and policymaking in SDGs through stakeholder support: to provide examples of sustainable policy and design making with multi-stakeholder perspectives and to define how sustainability is considered in framing policies and enumerating success factors and challenges on supply chain management
• Implementing SDGs in supply chains through innovative strategies and practices: to identify the sustainable goals, indicators, and practices related to the implementation of sustainable supply chain management and to explore how this knowledge may be used to effectively manage and conserve resources with less environmental and societal impact
• Monitoring supply chain governance and implications with a focus on SDGs: to elaborate practices and supporting mechanisms in measuring, monitoring, and reporting progress toward achieving targets, and to further emphasize various challenges related to the implementation of SDGs in supply chain management in different applications/context/economies

Timeline

• Invalid DateTime: Submission deadline

Günter Prockl, Copenhagen Business School

Alexander Pflaum, University of Bamberg

Haozhe Chen, Iowa State University

Marcel Papert, University of Bamberg

The economic environment in which companies create value today is characterized by greater vulnerability, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity than ever before. Natural disasters, geopolitical conflicts and other disruptions are affecting global supply chains and presenting great changes to established supply chain management models, processes and tools. In the meantime, Planet Earth has reached its limits; climate change and shortages of raw materials are forcing companies and supply chains to transition to more sustainable operations. The commoditization of high-tech products, which is evident in many sectors, is driving the servitization of the manufacturing industry. This presents a golden opportunity for companies to cope with the above-mentioned challenges with greater responsiveness and sustainability.

Tomorrow's supply chains must be able to react quickly to disruptions and changes. The concepts of resilience and responsiveness are key, as are flexibility, agility, adaptability and improvisation. The renewed battle for natural resources requires economic growth to be decoupled from the extraction of raw materials, ultimately forcing a transformation of established 'take, make, waste' supply chains into circular systems. R-strategies such as reduce, reuse, remanufacture and recycle play a special role in doing so. The ultimate aim is to increase resource efficiency in existing value chains, extend the service life of products, and close the loop.

Scientific literature agrees that digital technologies are key to realizing the responsive, servitized and circular supply chains of tomorrow. Important building blocks include the internet of things, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, digital twins for products and supply chains, blockchains and digital platforms. However, insufficient research has been conducted into how these building blocks support responsiveness, servitization and the transition to sustainability and circularity as a triple transformation.

This Special Issue seeks contributions that exemplify technology- or data-driven solutions for implementing resilient and circular supply chains, as well as the associated business models. Contributions employing a broad range of methodological approaches are encouraged, including but not limited to conceptual, qualitative, and quantitative research. It is essential that these contributions also derive and discuss managerial implications. We also welcome contributions addressing related topics not listed above.

Contributions should explore digital technologies in supply chain management within today's challenging business environment or specific industry contexts, such as automotive, chemicals, food, life sciences and healthcare, logistics service providers, manufacturing, or mining. Particularly interested are contributions that address the challenges and opportunities associated with digitalization, servitization and transition to sustainability and circularity across multiple supply chain tiers or at least in dyadic relationships.

All papers will be peer reviewed and should conform to Electronic Markets publication standards. Electronic Markets is a SSCI-listed journal with a 2024 Impact Factor of 6.8 and a 5-year Impact Factor of 10.0. Electronic Markets welcomes research from a technological, organizational, societal, and/or political perspective. Since Electronic Markets is a methodologically pluralistic journal, quantitative and qualitative research methods are both welcome as long as the studies are methodologically sound. Conceptual and theory-development papers, empirical hypothesis testing, and case-based studies are all welcome.

Potential topics

• Contribution of digital technologies to responsiveness, agility, flexibility, adaptability, improvisation, and resilience, sustainability, circularity, and regeneration
• Increasing supply chain visibility based on digital technologies
• AI methods supporting forecasting, planning, decision making and optimization
• Division of labour and interactions between humans and machines in AI-supported supply chains
• Virtualization and simulation of supply chains based on digital twins
• Blockchain and smart contracts in logistics and supply chain management
• The role of digital platforms in supply chain management
• Effects of smart product-service-systems on supply chains and supply chain management
• Ecosystems and federated data ecosystems enabling new data-driven R strategies
• Models, methods and tools enabling the triple transformation of supply chains
• Barriers and challenges hindering digitalization, servitization and transition to sustainability and circularity
• Data security and cyber security challenges in digital supply chain structures
• Legal aspects within the digital, servitized, circular supply chain
• Potential of digital technologies for ensuring compliance with legal requirements in the context of sustainability and circularity
• Relationship management mechanisms and governance structures in the era of digitalized supply chains

Timeline

• October 15, 2026: Submission deadline

Mahyar Eftekhar, Arizona State University

Serguei Netessine, University of Pennsylvania

Yanchong Zheng, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

According to the International Monetary Fund, 152 countries—home to approximately 6.87 billion people—are classified as emerging and developing economies. Despite this, much of the research published in top operations management journals remains focused on industrialized nations. Emerging and developing economies, home to over 85% of the global population, remain underrepresented in top OM journals.

This special issue aims to expand the field by advancing Development Operations Management (DOM)—a subfield akin to development economics. DOM focuses on designing and implementing strategies, policies, and solutions to enhance economic prosperity and industrial competitiveness in resource-constrained environments, aligning with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. This vision is inspired by impactful studies conducted by renowned development economists and Nobel laureates, whose work has shaped evidence-based approaches to addressing economic and social challenges in developing countries.

Although developed and developing economies may encounter similar supply chain and operations management issues, solutions effective in developed contexts often fail to translate due to structural differences. These include inadequate infrastructure, fragile institutions, political instability, currency fluctuations, and the prevalence of informal sectors. To tackle these complexities, it is vital to account for a range of local factors, including legal frameworks and foreign exchange risks, market dynamics, cultural norms, religious influences, and local content requirements such as reliance on domestic goods, services, and labor. Broadening the scope of research may necessitate incorporating new theories, tools, and methodologies designed to address the unique challenges that firms in developing nations face.

We welcome theoretical, empirical, and field-based research that focuses on the unique characteristics of developing countries—including market dynamics, institutional constraints, cultural factors, and local supply chains. Studies centered on multinational firms' operations in developing economies or humanitarian logistics fall outside the scope of this special issue.

Potential topics

• Extending OM theory to economies at the bottom of the pyramid
• Promoting economic prosperity in less-developed regions
• Enhancing OM practice by integrating innovations from developing economies
• Supply chain management in developing countries
• Market dynamics and institutional constraints in developing economies
• Cultural factors and local supply chains
• Infrastructure and institutional challenges in resource-constrained environments
• Currency fluctuations and foreign exchange risks
• Informal sector operations
• Local content requirements and domestic reliance

Timeline

• June 1, 2026: Deadline for submission
• September 1, 2026: First-round decision and feedback
• March 1, 2027: Second-round submission (for papers invited to revise)
• June 1, 2027: Final decisions (subject to minor revisions)

Weihua Liu, Tianjin University

Lei Xu, Civil Aviation University of China

Kannan Govindan, Adelaide University

Yang Cheng, Aalborg University

Driven by the deep integration of digital economy, intelligent manufacturing and modern logistics industry, low-altitude airspace resources have gradually become a key new carrier for breaking through the bottlenecks of traditional ground logistics. Low-altitude logistics, which is enabled by drones, unmanned aerial vehicles, intelligent terminals, digital platforms and low-altitude airspace management, has been emerging as a new frontier in logistics and supply chain management. Unlike traditional logistics systems that mainly rely on ground-based transportation, warehousing and distribution networks, it extends logistics operations into three-dimensional, air-ground integrated systems. This shift is closely related to the broader development of smart logistics, digital platforms and Industry 4.0, which have changed how logistics resources are connected, scheduled and governed.

Existing studies on drone-assisted parcel delivery, truck-drone coordination and drone-based logistics models have demonstrated the operational potential of this emerging mode. Meanwhile, research on urban air mobility and the environmental and societal implications of drone delivery suggests that low-altitude operations may reshape urban transport systems and logistics sustainability, although their value depends on network design, energy conditions, public acceptance, and regulatory readiness. Low-altitude logistics is therefore becoming an important application domain for last-mile delivery, emergency response, medical logistics, rural distribution and urban service logistics.

The International Journal of Logistics Research and Applications is well positioned to host this conversation. The journal has long published research on smart logistics, logistics technologies, supply chain risks, sustainable supply chains and logistics service networks, providing an important foundation for studying logistics systems shaped by new technologies and new organizational forms. More directly, recent influential studies have examined barriers to drone logistics implementation, consumer adoption of last-mile drone delivery, drone delivery logistics models for hyperlocal markets, and drones for supply chain management and logistics. These studies suggest that low-altitude logistics is not only a technological issue, but also a logistics and supply chain management issue involving adoption, coordination, governance, service design, sustainability and stakeholder acceptance.

The urgency of this Special Issue lies in the widening gap between fast-moving practice and still-fragmented academic understanding. Around the world, firms, cities and public agencies are experimenting with drone delivery, low-altitude mobility, emergency supply, medical distribution and air-ground logistics services, yet much of the existing research remains concentrated in routing optimization, technical feasibility or single-application analysis. How do logistics firms decide whether, when and how to adopt low-altitude logistics, given the organizational, regulatory and privacy barriers? How should low-altitude logistics be integrated with warehouses, fulfillment centers, ground fleets, urban distribution hubs and airport logistics systems, when hybrid logistics networks show both promise and complexity? How do consumers, communities and regulators respond to safety, privacy, noise, trust and airspace-use concerns, which have been shown to affect both drone delivery and urban air mobility acceptance? How can firms develop viable business models when low-altitude logistics requires new infrastructure, digital coordination, service guarantees and multi-stakeholder governance? Finally, how can low-altitude logistics contribute to sustainability, resilience and public value, while avoiding new externalities related to energy use, warehousing, unequal access and social acceptance? These questions reveal a pressing need for empirical research that connects technological experimentation with logistics and supply chain theory.

This Special Issue seeks to move low-altitude logistics research beyond isolated technological applications and toward a coherent logistics and supply chain research agenda. We call for empirically grounded studies that develop theoretical frameworks, uncover underlying mechanisms and examine scenario-based applications of low-altitude logistics in real organizational and institutional contexts. In particular, we invite research that explains how low-altitude logistics is adopted, organized, governed and evaluated; how it reshapes logistics networks, service processes and supply chain relationships; and how it affects logistics operational efficiency, resilience, sustainability, social acceptance and public value. As logistics systems face increasing pressure to become faster, greener, more resilient, and more responsive, the design, governance, and scaling of low-altitude logistics have become important questions for scholars, managers, policymakers, and practitioners.

Potential topics

• Theoretical frameworks and future research directions for low-altitude logistics
• Adoption, implementation, and diffusion of drone logistics
• Consumer acceptance and user perceptions of last-mile drone delivery
• Low-altitude logistics networks and air-ground collaborative distribution
• Smart logistics nodes, digital platforms, and infrastructure for low-altitude logistics
• Low-altitude logistics for urban last-mile delivery, instant retail, and on-demand services
• Drone-enabled emergency logistics, medical logistics, and humanitarian operations
• Low-altitude logistics for remote regions, islands, and mountainous communities
• Low-altitude logistics applications in airport cargo, air express, and air-ground freight connection
• Cold-chain, fresh food, and pharmaceutical delivery enabled by low-altitude logistics
• Low-altitude logistics for urban public services, infrastructure inspection, and smart city operations
• Business models, service innovation, and value creation in low-altitude logistics
• Supply chain coordination and governance in low-altitude logistics ecosystems
• Safety, privacy, regulation, and institutional challenges in drone logistics
• Sustainability, resilience, and social impacts of low-altitude logistics
• Empirical methods, data sources, and measurement issues in low-altitude logistics research
• Sustainability policies, governance mechanisms, and environmental impacts of low-altitude logistics
• Value chain development, industrial ecosystems, and empirical mechanisms in low-altitude logistics

Timeline

• July 30, 2026: Submission period opens
• March 31, 2027: Full paper submission deadline

Alexandra Brintrup, University of Cambridge

Thomas Choi, Arizona State University

George Huang, Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Dmitry Ivanov, Berlin School of Economics and Law

Recent advances in Agentic Large Language Models (LLMs) are reshaping the discourse on how autonomous decision systems might operate in complex environments such as supply chains. The motivation for the special issue is to facilitate rigorous research in the transformative potential of agentic technology for Supply Chain Management (SCM). A key objective is to foster collaboration and unlock synergies by merging diverse perspectives from operations and supply chain management, AI, complexity science, and industrial engineering.

An AI agent is characterised as one that has a predefined or emergent goal and uses cognitive tools to achieve its objectives, such as situational awareness, data-driven learning and prediction, decision optimisation, negotiation, and problem-solving with human or other AI agents. Supply chain management scholars have long studied agent-based systems, especially multi-agent systems (MAS) since the 2000s. However, research has stalled as MAS were slow to develop, difficult to code, debug and scale, and were prone to severe coordination problems. Most supply chain agent research was not adopted in the industry.

Recent advances in LLMs have now brought in a new paradigm that might reverse this trend: LLM agents are widely expected to usher in a new era where specialist programming knowledge is no longer required. LLM agents utilize a large language model as their information processing unit for core reasoning, planning, and decision-making. They can also utilize bespoke tools and recall past actions and conversations to generate contextual awareness. Whereas in the past, specialist MAS agents required rigorously defined rules and frameworks to operate, LLM agents begin their operation having already learned from vast amounts of open data. A generic knowledge base enables LLM agents to adapt to complex environments in real-time. This new paradigm makes agents much more flexible and scalable. LLM agents can interact with humans in natural language, coordinate or compete with other LLM agents, use custom tools to perform tasks such as search and optimisation, query documents and databases, and search the web.

Large multi-national corporations like Walmart and Siemens are already experimenting with agentic LLMs to automate their supply chain tasks. Supply chain information system providers, such as SAP, Microsoft, and Google, are actively developing supply chain agent platforms and interoperability initiatives to enable cross-organizational supply chain automation.

Academic agentic supply chain research is in its infancy, with research fragmented across computer science, operations research, and manufacturing engineering. Early research points to its potential for overcoming supply chain inefficiencies through rapid access to data, improved planning, and cross-organisational negotiation, but also warns against agentic AI mirroring human bias, challenges in the verification of output and lack of precise language leading to wrong decisions. As this field continues to evolve, it is crucial for researchers to stay informed about the latest developments, raise awareness of potential challenges, and contribute to the growing body of knowledge on the application of agentic AI in supply chain management.

This Special Issue seeks to integrate multi-disciplinary research from various perspectives on shaping agentic automation in the supply chain. A variety of submissions and perspectives are welcome. Technical solutions, advanced modeling, mixed-methods, rigorous quantitative and qualitative empirical research, experimental and analytical methodologies with practical industry, managerial, and policy implications are welcome.

Potential topics

• Discourse on utilising agentic systems for complex scenarios in supply chain management: Risk and disruption management, logistics and supply chain optimisation, transportation routes, inventory management, quality control, demand forecasting, and warehouse planning and location, and cash flow predictions
• Supply network design with agentic technology: Supplier relationship configurations, agentic digital twins to simulate inventory flows, sustainability implications across the supply chain, circular supply chains, supply chain visibility, and supply chain financing
• Interorganisational agentic systems: Effective multi-agent negotiation and coordination, the design of mediative and persuasive agentic systems, preservation of organisational privacy during multi-agent communication
• Hybrid systems: Integration of agentic systems with blockchain, IoT, Omniverse, and traditional multi-agent systems
• Emergence and Complexity: Unintended consequences of agentic deployment at the system scale, governance, trustworthiness and safety, centralised versus decentralised control, human-in-the-loop agentic systems
• Technical challenges: Performance evaluation, efficient task division, ablation analysis and back testing, sensitivity analysis, agentic architectures operating in high uncertainty environments, long-term horizon reasoning, overcoming hallucinations

Timeline

• September 30, 2026: Manuscript deadline

Elizabeth Couzineau-Zegwaard, PPA Business School

Nathalie Fabbe-Costes, Aix-Marseille Université

Olivier Meier, Université Paris-Est Créteil

Globalization of trade, intensification of environmental pressures, and construction of a binding European regulatory framework in a context of successive crises are profoundly redefining expectations for supply chains. With fewer than 10% of consumer goods currently being recycled globally, resource scarcity and climate urgency are forcing companies to articulate economic competitiveness with sustainability requirements. In this context of polycrisis and permacrisis, non-financial performance, measured through environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria, is emerging as a strategic lever influencing access to financing, organizational reputation and resilience to systemic risks. Continuous measurement of non-financial performance also helps develop dynamic management of supply chains subject to contradictory and evolving injunctions.

The integration of these non-financial criteria into supply chain management, however, raises considerable methodological and operational challenges, particularly in terms of impact measurement, traceability and inter-organizational coordination. This special issue aims to explore the tensions and synergies between non-financial performance and supply chain management, by crossing academic, regulatory and managerial perspectives.

Non-financial performance has become an essential complement to traditional economic evaluation, under the effect of three converging dynamics: the evolution of stakeholder expectations in favor of increased transparency, the financialization of sustainability through the growth of ESG funds and green bonds, and the rise of systemic risks revealed by recent health and geopolitical crises. Supply chain management is therefore no longer solely a tool for logistics optimization, but a vector for creating sustainable value and a factor of competitive differentiation.

In Europe, several legislative texts now structure the field of action for companies. The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD, 2023) extends the obligation for non-financial reporting to nearly 50,000 companies according to harmonized standards (ESRS), including Scope 3 emissions, biodiversity and social risks. The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD, 2024) establishes a duty of care across the entire value chain, with sanctions. The European taxonomy (2020, revised in 2023) imposes strengthened traceability of financial and logistics flows, while the deforestation regulation (EUDR, 2023) conditions the importation of certain raw materials on evidence of compliance. Added to these measures is the regulation on ecodesign of sustainable products (ESPR, 2024), which progressively generalizes the digital product passport and strengthens traceability requirements throughout the life cycle.

These measures create an unprecedented normative framework, where compliance becomes a strategic imperative but also a source of complexity, particularly for data collection and verification. They also pave the way for international benchmarking of companies, which explains the stakes surrounding the definition and adoption of European standards versus standards from other economic blocs.

However, this regulatory expansion movement is experiencing a major inflection. The 'Omnibus' simplification package, proposed by the European Commission in early 2025, provides for raising thresholds for applicability, postponing certain deadlines and easing obligations related to Scope 3 and duty of care. This simplification dynamic (or even partial retreat) introduces unprecedented normative instability: companies engaged in costly compliance trajectories face a shifting framework, raising questions of path dependency, sunk costs and trade-offs between regulatory anticipation and wait-and-see approaches, even greenwashing versus greenhushing. The tension between stated ambitions, operational feasibility and revealed results thus constitutes a research object in its own right.

The adoption of sustainable practices generates tangible benefits. The circular economy (reuse, recycling, eco-design) reduces costs related to raw materials and waste management. Companies with strong ESG performance benefit from favorable financing conditions (green loans) and increased resilience to external shocks. However, several obstacles persist: the complexity of impact measurement, particularly for Scope 3 emissions, the risk of greenwashing when stated commitments do not translate into operational transformation, and trade-offs between sustainability and resilience, particularly regarding relocation.

Digital technologies (also called 4.0) appear to constitute a central transformation vector. Blockchain allows certification of raw material origin and data security, artificial intelligence and Big Data help optimize flows and anticipate risks, the Internet of Things (IoT) facilitates real-time monitoring of flows and activities to calculate ESG indicators. These innovations, however, raise questions about data protection, accessibility for SMEs and interoperability between actors. While they facilitate automation of reporting, they leave entirely open the strategic choice of whether or not to reveal the actual level of non-financial performance of supply chains.

Potential topics

• Sustainable regulations and supply chain management strategies: effects of CSRD, CSDDD and European taxonomy on supply chain structuring and associated logistics choices (relocation, supplier diversification), methods for integrating ESRS into non-financial reports, tools and methodologies for compliance
• Circular economy and innovation: circular business models (reuse, repair, recycling), eco-design levers, contribution of digital technologies (blockchain, AI, IoT) to the transition towards more sustainable or even regenerative supply chains
• Measurement, transparency and risks: indicators and methodologies for assessing impact (Scope 3, biodiversity, human rights), comparative uses of GRI, SASB and ESRS frameworks, identification of greenwashing signals and best practices for credibilizing ESG commitments, strategy for disclosing objectives vs results regarding non-financial performance of supply chains
• Non-financial performance measurement and supply chain management: impact of non-financial performance measurement on supply chain design, decisions and trade-offs between cost control, profitability and value creation other than financial. Does work around measuring and improving non-financial performance stimulate logistics innovations?

Timeline

• November 15, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

Adèle Fouché, Université de Tours

François Fulconis, Aix-Marseille Université

Gilles Paché, Aix-Marseille Université

Logistics and supply chain management are currently well-structured, stabilized fields dominated by normative, technicist and performance-oriented approaches. Classical themes such as flow and process optimization, rationalization of logistics infrastructure, supply chain resilience, global supply chains and sustainability, emerging technologies and digital transformation of data flows have contributed to establishing the scientific and managerial legitimacy of the discipline. However, such normalization carries a risk of reducing analytical perspective, leading to the invisibility of practices, actors and dynamics that are nonetheless constitutive of logistics logics.

In response to this observation, this special issue proposes to explore another path: that of heterodox logistics, understood as a scientific approach aimed at questioning the blind spots of the field, displacing analytical frameworks and opening new, even iconoclastic perspectives. The goal is to move beyond conventional approaches to understand logistics as a social fact traversed by historical, political, cultural and sometimes transgressive issues.

From this perspective, logistics is not limited to the efficient management of licit and visible flows of products and information. It can also be examined through fields and objects considered 'non-standard' or 'sensitive': informal economies, parallel networks, illicit circulations, clandestine systems, controversial historical devices or marginal social practices. Such configurations, often relegated to the margins of academic discourse, nevertheless offer powerful empirical spaces for understanding the materiality of flows, alternative forms of coordination and power logics that structure supply chains.

Research can interrogate the logistical dimensions of phenomena such as trafficking (drugs, weapons, organs, counterfeits, etc.) or human trafficking economies (past or contemporary slavery systems, sexual exploitation, forced labor, constrained begging, irregular migration, as well as parallel circuits and black markets during wartime). These contexts highlight highly sophisticated organizational forms, capable of articulating physical constraints, human coordination and informational devices in uncertain or even hostile environments.

Beyond these different fields, heterodox logistics also invites revisiting more classical objects from a renewed perspective: long history of infrastructures, military logistics, colonialism and resource circulation, logistics of humanitarian crises, or governance of flows in fragile institutional contexts. These approaches reveal continuities and ruptures between so-called 'legitimate' and 'illegitimate' logistics, as well as increasing hybridizations between the two.

This special issue aims to gather ambitious interdisciplinary contributions, mobilizing varied theoretical frameworks (sociology, history, geography, industrial economics, economics, politics, anthropology, legal sciences, political science, etc.) to enrich understanding of logistical phenomena. Critical, reflexive and exploratory approaches are particularly encouraged. Theoretical, empirical or methodological contributions proposing original and rigorous analyses are invited. Works based on atypical fieldwork, historical archives, in-depth qualitative surveys or comparative approaches will be particularly valued. Purely descriptive or strictly normative articles do not correspond to the spirit of this special issue, which aims to contribute to broadening the scope of research in logistics and supply chain management, assuming an exploratory and critical posture. It addresses researchers wishing to question established views, displace the boundaries of the field and propose alternative readings of contemporary and past logistical phenomena.

Potential topics

• Logistical practices in informal, illegal or clandestine contexts
• Rethinking classical supply chain management concepts (performance, resilience, coordination, visibility) through non-standard configurations
• Continuities between historical logistics (slavery, colonization) and contemporary systems
• Organization of flow circulation in constrained, uncertain or hostile environments
• Role of infrastructure, institutions and technologies in alternative systems
• Post-COVID-19 supply chain disruptions and the just-in-time model
• Heterodox logistics approaches for industrial sovereignty and relocalization
• Short supply chains as central elements of heterodox logistics
• Construction and recomposition of licit/illicit boundaries in supply chains
• Ethical, political and societal implications of studying these objects
• Theoretical and methodological renewal of logistics and supply chain management research

Timeline

• January 7, 2027: Full manuscript submission deadline

Paul Tae-Woo Lee, Zhejiang University

Kai-Chieh Hu, Soochow University

Kyoung-Suk Choi, Jeonbuk National University

International organizations such as International Maritime Organization (IMO), European Union (EU), and United National Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have begun implementing regulations and guidelines for decarbonization of transportation, manufacturing, and logistics industries. The IMO's 2023 Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Strategy targets net-zero GHG emissions from international shipping by or around 2050. The EU has adopted the EU Emission Trading System (ETS), effective on 1 January 2024, and the FuelEU, effective on 1 January 2025. The above two organisations have driven stakeholders in maritime transportation and logistics toward net-zero pathways through regulatory and pricing measures. Meanwhile, the green shipping corridor (GSC) by the Clydebank Declaration at the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) to the UNFCCC has been initiated in November 2021, based on the IMO's regulations, the Paris Agreement, and others, aiming at decarbonizing the maritime industry.

Unlike the IMO and the EU, since COP29, GSC has aimed to integrate land and river transportation modes into sea transportation to achieve overall decarbonization of multimodal transport. In particular, major cargo owners, as one of ten stakeholders of GSC (e.g., Amazon, IKEA, Unilever, Walmart, BP Oil), have committed to transporting their cargoes by zero-emission vessels within the time frame announced. In addition, other stakeholders such as port authorities, shipbuilding companies, shipping companies, ship classification societies, central governments, green fuel producers, not to mention the IMO and the EU, have formed a coalition platform at every COP meeting to promote decarbonization at sea and a multimodal transport network.

As for maritime transportation and logistics and supply chain management, the rapid advancement in artificial intelligence (AI) and big data technologies has become a catalyst of digital transformation and driving force to accelerate convergence towards net-zero carbon emissions. The integration of AI and big data technologies can be applied for optimizing logistical operations and minimizing carbon footprints through real-time monitoring, demand forecasting, and route optimization to reduce fuel consumption and GHG emissions in logistics and transportation. These analytical capabilities allow organizations to improve the environmental performance and ensure that emission reductions can be realized through data-driven decision-making.

All stakeholders in the industries and governments have shifted from advocacy to setting up more targeted goals that they should achieve by the given time frame in the context of the net-zero paths. The stakeholders in the transport, logistics, and supply chain industries are facing three key challenges in implementing net-zero paths: challenges of higher capital costs (CAPEX) and higher operating costs (OPEX) to use green fuel energy in association with new vehicles and new technologies in the context of green transport and logistics chains model, and the need to establish sustainable green energy supply chains. To cope with them, the stakeholders in the industries and governments should seek key success factors in implementing it. Existing literature have not addressed these challenges in comprehensive and integrated approaches.

This Special Issue on Net-Zero Pathways in Logistics, Transportation, and Supply Chain Management aims to address not only reduction of direct emissions from transport operations, modal shift, use of alternative fuels, but also transformation of entire supply chains through AI-powered digitalization and adoption of new technologies. This SI contributes to exploring how to enable the logistics and transportation industries to achieve carbon reduction in their supply chains and multimodal transportation network and how to adopt AI and big data technologies and pricing and incentivization policies to support decarbonization technology adoption. The findings in the SI contributes to providing research community and practitioners in transport, logistics and supply chains with managerial and policy insights and expanding literature of net-zero pathways in logistics, transportation, and supply chain management.

Potential topics

• Decarbonization pathways for transport and logistics services
• Zero-emission freight transport
• Decarbonization and digitalization in transport and logistics services
• Application of AI & big data for decarbonization
• Green shipping and digital corridors
• Green transport and logistics models
• Green fuel supply chains, comprising supply, transport, and storage
• Green energy transitions in smart cities
• Sustainable procurement for net-zero transitions
• Regenerative supply chain design and resilient networks
• Electrification of transport fleets and charging infrastructure challenges
• Policy, regulation, and carbon pricing impacts on logistics decarbonisation
• Safety and environmental monitoring

Timeline

• Invalid DateTime: Paper proposal submission deadline
• April 30, 2027: Full manuscript submission deadline

Bernie F. Quiroga, West Virginia University

Xuying Zhao, Texas A&M University

Oleg Gusikhin, Ford Motor Company

Andrea Matta, Politecnico di Milano

Yong Yin, Doshisha Business School

Professor Kathryn E. Stecke is an internationally renowned scholar whose pioneering work has profoundly shaped the fields of flexible manufacturing systems (FMSs), supply chain management, and production planning. Prof. Stecke has dedicated her career to advancing research on manufacturing efficiencies, supply chain resilience, and innovative production systems, while also bridging the academic discussion between operations and marketing. She is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Flexible Manufacturing Systems and Operations Management Education Review. Her contributions have earned her prestigious recognitions, including being elected a Fellow of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) in 2009, of the Production and Operations Management Society (POMS) in 2017, of the Decision Sciences Institute (DSI) in 2019, and of the Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association (AAIA). She has also been the recipient of the 2013 WORMS Award for the advancement of women in operations research, and the 2008 George E. Kimball medal for recognition of her service to the profession of operations research and the management sciences, and was recognized also by her alma mater, Purdue University, with the Distinguished Woman Scholar Award (2014) and the Outstanding Industrial Engineer Award (2017).

Prof. Stecke's early work laid foundational methodologies for FMS, addressing critical challenges in machine grouping, loading, and production ratios to optimize utilization and flexibility. Stecke (1983), a seminal paper, developed nonlinear integer programming models and hierarchical solution approaches for part type selection, machine grouping, and resource allocation in FMS, providing a framework that has influenced subsequent optimization techniques in automated manufacturing. This article was recognized by INFORMS as one of 50 papers that represented the most significant research published in Management Science in the last half century in February 2004. Berrada and Stecke (1986) introduced algorithmic solutions for balancing workloads in FMS, influencing subsequent research on system efficiency. Stecke and Solberg (1981) explored routing and sequencing strategies to enhance throughput in dynamic manufacturing environments.

Over the decades, her research evolved to encompass supply chain disruptions and adaptive strategies. In Schmitt et al. (2017), winner of the Best Paper Award given by Omega in 2018, she examined resilient ordering policies to counter volatility, providing practical insights for multi-tier networks. Stecke and Kumar (2009) has been the most cited paper in the Journal of Marketing Channels for over a decade. More recently, Prof. Stecke has contributed to understanding innovative production paradigms like the Seru system, a cellular manufacturing approach originating from Japan that emphasizes reconfigurability and responsiveness. Her collaborations with Yin et al. (2017), winner of the Jack Meredith Best Paper Award given by the Journal of Operations Management in 2018, Yin et al. (2018), given a Best Paper Award by IJPR in 2019, and Li et al. (2025) demonstrate how Seru improves rapid response capabilities compared to traditional systems, such as the Toyota Production System, highlighting its potential for flexible manufacturing.

Prof. Stecke has also made significant contributions at the interface between production research and marketing, exploring how operational decisions interact with consumer behavior and market dynamics. Notable works include Zhao et al. (2016), which analyzes conditions under which advance selling strategies enhance profitability across supply chain partners; Zhao et al. (2012) examined optimal quotation modes for customizing lead times and prices; Prasad et al. (2011) investigated advance selling tactics for retailers facing demand uncertainty; Zhao and Stecke (2010) incorporated behavioral economics into pre-order strategies; and Stecke and Zhao (2017) integrated production and logistics for commit-to-delivery models.

This special issue celebrates Prof. Stecke's 75th birthday by inviting contributions that build upon, extend, or reflect on her legacy in production research. It aims to curate cutting-edge articles in active and emerging areas, serving as a focal point for discourse on flexible, resilient, and efficient production systems, as well as the intersection of production research with marketing. By honoring her trailblazing efforts, the issue seeks to inspire future directions in manufacturing and supply chain innovation, ensuring her influence continues to guide the field.

We welcome high-quality submissions, including empirical studies, analytical models, simulation-based research, case analyses, and conceptual papers that offer novel insights. All manuscripts should align with the journal's emphasis on rigorous, impactful research and incorporate key elements such as an exhaustive literature analysis, novel decision-aid models explained for a broad audience, comparisons with state-of-the-art methods, discussions on real-life applications, managerial insights, and research perspectives.

Potential topics

• Advances in flexible manufacturing systems (FMSs), including machine grouping, loading policies, and production ratio optimization for enhanced utilization
• Interfaces between production and marketing, including focal points such as advance selling strategies, pre-order mechanisms considering consumer behavior (e.g., loss aversion), lead time and price quotation modes, production-transportation integration in make-to-order systems, and competition/coordination in online marketplaces
• Reconfigurable production systems, such as Seru, for improving responsiveness and adaptability in volatile environments
• Supply chain resilience strategies, including adaptive ordering, disruption mitigation, and multi-echelon network design amid geopolitical and operational uncertainties
• Production planning and scheduling in capital-intensive systems with machine flexibility, focusing on hierarchical approaches and real-time control
• Integration of digital technologies (e.g., AI, digital twins, and data analytics) in manufacturing and supply chains to boost efficiency and cost control
• Empirical analyses of manufacturing efficiencies in sectors like semiconductors, automotive, and electronics, drawing on case studies of disruption responses
• Comparative studies of traditional vs. innovative production methods, such as Toyota Production System vs. Seru, with emphasis on performance metrics
• Managerial insights for decision-makers on implementing flexible routing, robot scheduling, and state-dependent sequencing in production environments
• Future perspectives on sustainable manufacturing, addressing global supply chain vulnerabilities and policy implications

Timeline

• March 1, 2026: Open for submissions
• October 31, 2026: Submission deadline

Hugo Lam, affiliation required but not provided

Jens Roehrich, affiliation required but not provided

Martin C. Schleper, affiliation required but not provided

Shuang Ren, affiliation required but not provided

Soumyadeb Chowdhury, affiliation required but not provided

Over the last decade, managers, policymakers, scholars, and society at large have grappled with an escalating series of interconnected shocks: climate emergencies, geopolitical tensions, economic volatility and rapid technological disruption. What distinguishes the current era is not simply the frequency or severity of these shocks, but their deep interdependence, which is likely to prolong their effects for decades. Climate events often trigger food insecurity that fuels political instability; geopolitical conflict reshapes energy markets and trade flows; and technological breakthrough creates new vulnerabilities even as it may offer new capabilities. These dynamics do not unfold in isolation, but very often interact, amplify one another, and cascade across organisational boundaries and supply chains to impact sectors, regions and continents.

This condition, in which multiple crises occur simultaneously and interact in ways that amplify each other's impacts, is often described as 'polycrisis'. The era of polycrisis poses profound challenges for organisations, supply chains, and wider ecosystems on which they depend. Employees and managers must interpret, prioritise and respond to overlapping crises when navigating competing demands, moral tensions and cognitive overload. At the same time, global supply chains and production networks, long optimised for efficiency and cost, now face non-linear and cross level disruptions that defy traditional risk management approaches. For example, a drought in one region can destabilise agricultural supply chains, which in turn affects consumer markets, labour mobility and political legitimacy elsewhere. Similarly, a cyberattack on a manufacturing firm can reverberate across entire supply chains. The difficulty of addressing one crisis without exacerbating another underscores the need for rich theoretical and empirical research that captures the complexity, simultaneity and systemic nature of these interdependencies.

For scholars of business and management in general, and operations and supply chain management in specific, the polycrisis presents both an intellectual challenge and an opportunity. Existing theories of resilience, adaptation, governance and organisational design were not built for a world in which shocks are interacting rather than discrete, and in which cascading failures propagate through tightly coupled global systems. Likewise, OSCM research mainly focused on focal organisations and their upstream supply chains as the unit of analysis, while other actors and contextual factors have been largely neglected. Empirical research has only begun to illuminate how organisations, supply chains and various institutional actors navigate these overlapping crises, reconfigure capabilities and experiment with new forms of coordination and collective action. Understanding these timely and impactful dynamics requires methodological pluralism and empirical depth at a scale commensurate with the phenomena themselves. From a business and management perspective, this calls for a collaborative scholarly effort that integrates insights from multiple management fields including strategy, organisational behaviour, OSCM, entrepreneurship, public policy, information systems, human resource management and sustainability studies to rethink how organisations and supply chains will create value, exercise responsibility, and build continued resilience when polycrisis is no longer an exception but the normal backdrop of managerial decision-making and organising. In this context, existing theoretical frameworks may be limited in their ability to explain organisational and supply chain dynamics in a polycrisis era. Interconnected crises create conditions more akin to far-from-equilibrium systems than to stable or self-correcting environments. Consequently, theories grounded in assumptions of economic equilibrium and linear adjustment offer only limited insights into the complex, non-linear and emergent mechanisms that characterise such contexts.

This Special Joint Initiative spearheaded by the Co-Editors-in-Chief of two leading management journals, the International Journal of Operations & Production Management and the British Journal of Management, seeks to showcase pathbreaking research that advances our understanding of how the polycrisis is impacting managers, policymakers and other stakeholders, as well as reshaping organisations and supply chains. The Call for Papers is divided in two distinct, yet interlinked, perspectives: BJM will approach the topic from an organisational point of view, while IJOPM focuses on an inter-organisational/supply chain angle. BJM seeks empirical studies with strong theoretical and practical contributions that examine the polycrisis from an organisational and managerial perspective, including investigations into microfoundations, governance arrangements, leadership processes, innovation and organizational design choices that emerge and adapt in response to polycrisis challenges and opportunities. IJOPM seeks strong empirically grounded research studies that identify and evidence the mechanisms through which interacting shocks unfold through supply chains; the emerging inter-organisational, technological and governance responses; and the implications for OSCM theory, business, policy and society.

Both journals seek empirically-grounded studies that offer clear, original and substantial theoretical contributions capable of shaping the future trajectory of business and management scholarship on polycrisis. All manuscripts submitted to this special joint initiative should advance conceptual clarity, thereby fostering richer scholarly dialogue on major organisational, supply chain and/or societal challenges of our time. Research that not only documents organisational responses, but also develops and challenges concepts, frameworks and mechanisms explaining how climate, geopolitical, economic and technological shocks jointly reshape organisational dynamics is particularly welcome. Submissions must move beyond the examination of a single crisis and instead theorise and empirically investigate interactions among multiple crises. Specifically, papers should address at least two interrelated crises and examine how their simultaneity, sequencing, and mutual reinforcement influence organisational processes, structures, practices, governance, resilience, competitiveness and productivity. Authors should clearly justify why the selected set of crises is analytically meaningful and theoretically consequential, demonstrate how their interdependencies unfold within and across organisational contexts and explain how this multi-crisis perspective advances theoretical and practical understanding beyond single crisis approaches.

Methodological rigour and data transparency are essential. Manuscripts should provide clear accounts of data sources, sampling strategies and research designs, along with justification for their suitability in capturing polycrisis complexity, interdependencies and/or temporal dynamics. Authors should acknowledge the limitations of their study and empirical data and ensure transparency in their analytical procedures to support replication and cumulative knowledge-building on how organisations and supply chains interpret, navigate and reshape systems under conditions of entangled crises.

Potential topics

• Leadership, stakeholder, and identity under polycrisis - What leadership, human systems, and micro-foundations are required to navigate entangled crises across levels and time horizons?
• Leadership, stakeholder, and identity under polycrisis - How do organisations and supply chains maintain legitimacy when actions addressing one crisis exacerbate another?
• Leadership, stakeholder, and identity under polycrisis - How does polycrisis reshape (inter-) organisational identity and stakeholder expectations?
• Understanding interacting disruptions/shocks and cascading failures - How do climate, geopolitical, economic and technological crises interact to generate cascading disruptions across global supply chains?
• Understanding interacting disruptions/shocks and cascading failures - What mechanisms explain how a localised shock propagates/ripples through multi tier networks and across sectors and/or regions?
• Understanding interacting disruptions/shocks and cascading failures - How do organisations perceive, prioritise and make sense of simultaneous crises, and how does this shape their operational and strategic responses?
• Rethinking resilience, risk, and adaptation during a polycrisis - How should resilience be operationalised when disruptions are interacting rather than being discrete?
• Rethinking resilience, risk, and adaptation during a polycrisis - What capabilities enable organisations to anticipate and/or mitigate cascading risks?
• Rethinking resilience, risk, and adaptation during a polycrisis - What forms of adaptation prove most effective when crises overlap and/or reinforce one another?
• Role of technology, innovation, and societal forces in polycrisis - How do organisations leverage technological innovation to simultaneously pursue climate resilience, social justice and economic viability under overlapping crises?
• Role of technology, innovation, and societal forces in polycrisis - How do supply chain decisions made under polycrisis conditions shape long term societal resilience and sustainability?
• Role of technology, innovation, and societal forces in polycrisis - What new forms of coordination emerge when organisations, governments and civil society actors confront multi level, multi actor disruptions?

Timeline

• May 1, 2026: Informational webinars for interested authors
• June 27, 2026: EurOMA Conference 2026: Further information on the Special Joint Initiative will be circulated
• July 1, 2026: Submissions portal for proposals open
• September 9, 2026: British Academy of Management Conference 2026: Further information on the Special Joint Initiative will be circulated
• November 1, 2026: Submission portal (BJM and IJOPM) for full manuscripts opens
• January 31, 2027: Closing date for full manuscripts submission

Maciel Queiroz, FGV EAESP

Morgane Fritz, Excelia Business School

Britta Gammelgaard, University of Southern Denmark

Logistics and supply chain management (L/SCM) have advanced through analytical rigor and empirical refinement. However, the contemporary landscape, shaped by geopolitical shifts, digital transformation, climate pressures, and evolving societal expectations, requires more than incremental extensions of existing models. It calls for a reconsideration of the assumptions, values, and conceptual boundaries that underpin the field. Many of the most pressing challenges in L/SCM today are not only empirical, but also normative, philosophical, and inherently interdisciplinary.

This special issue seeks essays that move beyond established paradigms and offer reflective, provocative, and conceptually grounded perspectives that offer new lenses and open new directions for research and practice. The objective is to complement empirical work by fostering ideas that challenge, reframe, and extend our understanding of L/SCM.

Essays should articulate a coherent argument, engage with relevant scholarly conversations, and demonstrate originality, while remaining open to alternative forms of reasoning and expression. Contributions may draw on theory, practice, or lived experience, but should aim to question dominant assumptions, surface overlooked tensions, or propose new ways of thinking.

L/SCM intersects with organization studies, strategy, international business, human resource management, and entrepreneurship, among other fields. Engaging with these perspectives enables richer understandings of issues such as power, governance, labor, innovation, and institutional complexity in L/SCM.

This is an invitation to think differently. Essays should be rigorous, reflective, and bold, capable of not only interpreting the field's evolution but also actively shaping its future.

Potential topics

• Algorithmic management and the reconfiguration of work in logistics
• Supply chains as political and strategic infrastructures
• Entrepreneurial supply chains in contexts of institutional fragility
• Efficiency versus dignity: ethical boundaries of automation
• Decolonizing supply chain theory and practice
• Beyond resilience: strategic adaptation, transformation, and fragility
• Platformization and ecosystem competition in logistics
• Invisible labor and precarity in digitally mediated supply chains
• Sustainability, legitimacy, and organizational narratives
• The role of human resources in supply chain management
• Temporal trade-offs: speed, flexibility, and human well-being
• Culture, identity, and coordination in global supply networks
• Human–AI collaboration and decision authority in SCM
• Moral responsibility and accountability in complex supply networks
• Business model innovation in circular and regenerative supply chains
• Reimagining SCM theory: integration, borrowing, or paradigm shift?

Timeline

• May 21, 2026: Opening date for abstract submissions
• September 30, 2026: Closing date for abstract submissions
• November 30, 2026: Opening date for manuscript submissions
• April 30, 2027: Closing date for manuscript submissions