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Practices, Challenges, and Influence of Company Characteristics on Supply Chain Risk Management

Loggarfve, Louise LU and Wetterberg, Josefin LU (2025) MTTM05 20251
Production Management
Engineering Logistics
Abstract
Background
In recent years, supply chains have faced major disruptions, including the Covid-19 pandemic, the Suez Canal blockage, and the Russia-Ukraine war, highlighting their vulnerability. As supply chains have become more global and interconnected, the complexity of supply chain networks has increased, leading to them being more exposed to risks. This has resulted in disruptions becoming more frequent and severe, reinforcing the need for stronger supply chain resilience, which can be achieved through implementation of Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM) practices.

Problem Definition and Purpose
A structured approach to SCRM is seen as essential for building supply chain resilience, yet previous conducted studies reveal a gap... (More)
Background
In recent years, supply chains have faced major disruptions, including the Covid-19 pandemic, the Suez Canal blockage, and the Russia-Ukraine war, highlighting their vulnerability. As supply chains have become more global and interconnected, the complexity of supply chain networks has increased, leading to them being more exposed to risks. This has resulted in disruptions becoming more frequent and severe, reinforcing the need for stronger supply chain resilience, which can be achieved through implementation of Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM) practices.

Problem Definition and Purpose
A structured approach to SCRM is seen as essential for building supply chain resilience, yet previous conducted studies reveal a gap between its perceived importance and actual implementation, indicating there is substantial development potential for companies to improve their SCRM efforts. The consultancy firm 4C Strategies want to expand their offering within SCRM by addressing this potential gap. Therefore, this thesis aims to explore SCRM practices, their potential challenges, and variations among different sized companies in Sweden’s retail, food, and manufacturing industries. SCRM practices include proactive and reactive process activities, methods and tools, IT softwares and IT capabilities, and organizational capabilities.

Method
This thesis employed a deductive, quantitative, and cross-sectional approach using a questionnaire distributed to over 600 relevant employees at companies operating in Sweden across three industries, resulting in 72 responses. To ensure relevant and theory-grounded questions, a comprehensive literature review was conducted on SCRM practices, challenges, and industry specific characteristics. The analysis was based on 65 valid responses, using descriptive methods such as boxplots and bar charts, explanatory methods such as bubble charts to compare implementation and challenge levels, and statistical Kruskal-Wallis tests to identify significant differences between industries and company sizes. This thesis has been a complete collaboration between the two authors. Each author has been involved in every part of the process and contributed equally.

Conclusions
The results show that most organizations apply both proactive and reactive SCRM practices to a moderate or high degree, though with variation in application levels across process steps. Tools and organizational aspects have an inward focus where external collaboration is deprioritized and IT tools are highly underdeveloped. Proactive practices are generally perceived as more challenging than reactive, however higher perceived level of difficulty does not always seem to impact implementation level. While organizational challenges vary, limitations in technical resources and cultural integration emerge as key constraints to advancing organizational maturity. Clear industry differences exist, with manufacturing and food showing higher SCRM maturity than retail. Company size has a smaller impact, though larger firms tend to have more structured processes and capabilities. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Loggarfve, Louise LU and Wetterberg, Josefin LU
supervisor
organization
course
MTTM05 20251
year
type
H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
subject
keywords
Supply Chain Risk Management, Proactive and Reactive Supply Chain Risk Management, Supply Chain Resilience, Organizational Capabilities, Supply Chain Risk Management Methods and Tools, Supply Chain Risk Management Challenges, Swedish Industries
other publication id
6042
language
English
id
9197947
date added to LUP
2025-06-19 13:02:37
date last changed
2025-06-19 13:02:37
@misc{9197947,
  abstract     = {{Background
In recent years, supply chains have faced major disruptions, including the Covid-19 pandemic, the Suez Canal blockage, and the Russia-Ukraine war, highlighting their vulnerability. As supply chains have become more global and interconnected, the complexity of supply chain networks has increased, leading to them being more exposed to risks. This has resulted in disruptions becoming more frequent and severe, reinforcing the need for stronger supply chain resilience, which can be achieved through implementation of Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM) practices. 

Problem Definition and Purpose
A structured approach to SCRM is seen as essential for building supply chain resilience, yet previous conducted studies reveal a gap between its perceived importance and actual implementation, indicating there is substantial development potential for companies to improve their SCRM efforts. The consultancy firm 4C Strategies want to expand their offering within SCRM by addressing this potential gap. Therefore, this thesis aims to explore SCRM practices, their potential challenges, and variations among different sized companies in Sweden’s retail, food, and manufacturing industries. SCRM practices include proactive and reactive process activities, methods and tools, IT softwares and IT capabilities, and organizational capabilities. 

Method 
This thesis employed a deductive, quantitative, and cross-sectional approach using a questionnaire distributed to over 600 relevant employees at companies operating in Sweden across three industries, resulting in 72 responses. To ensure relevant and theory-grounded questions, a comprehensive literature review was conducted on SCRM practices, challenges, and industry specific characteristics. The analysis was based on 65 valid responses, using descriptive methods such as boxplots and bar charts, explanatory methods such as bubble charts to compare implementation and challenge levels, and statistical Kruskal-Wallis tests to identify significant differences between industries and company sizes. This thesis has been a complete collaboration between the two authors. Each author has been involved in every part of the process and contributed equally.

Conclusions
The results show that most organizations apply both proactive and reactive SCRM practices to a moderate or high degree, though with variation in application levels across process steps. Tools and organizational aspects have an inward focus where external collaboration is deprioritized and IT tools are highly underdeveloped. Proactive practices are generally perceived as more challenging than reactive, however higher perceived level of difficulty does not always seem to impact implementation level. While organizational challenges vary, limitations in technical resources and cultural integration emerge as key constraints to advancing organizational maturity. Clear industry differences exist, with manufacturing and food showing higher SCRM maturity than retail. Company size has a smaller impact, though larger firms tend to have more structured processes and capabilities.}},
  author       = {{Loggarfve, Louise and Wetterberg, Josefin}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Practices, Challenges, and Influence of Company Characteristics on Supply Chain Risk Management}},
  year         = {{2025}},
}