A Transformative Supply Chain Response to COVID-19

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What We Did

We employed a transformative service lens to examine the role of the supply chain ecosystem in ensuring the health and safety of employees and customers as a well-being outcome during the coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The focus was specifically on the food supply chain, in which consumers, shoppers, and retail employees frequently interact.

Who Was Involved

The lead author: Dr. Diane Mollenkopf. Co-authors: Dr. Lucie K. Ozanne, University of Canterbury, New Zealand; Dr. Hannah Stolze, Lipscomb University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA

Why It Matters

This research draws the supply chain management discipline (academic and practitioner perspectives) into the transformative domain, which has been pioneered by the transformative consumer research as well as the transformative service research movements. The research represents a first foray into the development of a transformative supply chain ecosystem framework, which is being designed to encourage supply chain organizations to incorporate individual and collective well-being outcomes into corporate strategies that have historically focused solely on economic outcomes. A transformative supply chain ecosystem captures the network of organisations that interact to coordinate information and exchange resources to source and distribute goods and services to meet demand with the well-being of organisations, individuals and society as end goals. In particular, sustainable food production and distribution play a pivotal role in the well-being of people, individuals and organisation as well as the well-being of the planet and the natural environment. Thus, food supply chains are uniquely poised to have a transformative effect on the collective well-being of both people and the planet.

Learn More

• “A Transformative Supply Chain Response to COVID-19,” by Diane A. Mollenkopf, Lucie K. Ozanne, and Hannah Stolze. 2021. Journal of Service Management, 32(2), 190-202. DOI 10.1108/JOSM-05-2020-0143. This recently published paper represents the first publication in an ongoing research project. Further updates will be provided as available.