Healthcare supply chain resilience framework: antecedents, mediators, consequents

Abstract

Supply chain management literature provides several frameworks aiming to identify the constructs of supply chain performance and supply chain resilience. Nevertheless, the literature lacks a framework that encompasses healthcare supply chains and its idiosyncrasies. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to propose a framework for analysing the relationships between the antecedent factors, mediators, and consequents of healthcare supply chain resilience (HCSCRes). The supply chain risk management (SCRM) literature shows a significant gap concerning a framework that comprises the particularities of SCRM applied to healthcare. In this sense, based on the importance of identifying the determinants of HCSCRes, qualitative, and exploratory research was developed through an extensive literature review. In this sense, we propose two research questions: (i) Which are the antecedents, mediators, consequents of a resilient Healthcare Supply Chain? (ii) Which are the variables that compose the constructs of a resilient healthcare supply chain? The proposed framework of this research was designed to analyse healthcare organisations, including the healthcare supply chain. To use the proposed framework in other industries (e.g. commerce, services), it is necessary to make adaptations and adjustments on the observable variables and constructs. The main contributions of the paper are twofold: (i) Show an essential theoretical value in proposing scales for the HCSCRes factors and can be useful for future quantitative approach and surveys. (ii) The literature review reveals that the set of practices and technologies known as industry 4.0 plays a major role in the theoretical framework proposed by this paper.