Content area
Full text
1. Introduction
The recent literature reviews on supply chain management have focused on the contemporary issues and challenges such as disruptive technologies, including big data analytics, the Internet of Things (Aryal et al., 2018; Bălan, 2018), blockchain (Van Hoek, 2019; Queiroz et al., 2019) and extension of Industry 4.0 (Frederico et al., 2019; Liboni et al., 2019). Nevertheless, the classic theme of the role of leadership even in the supply chain management is gaining ground (Mokhtar et al., 2019), with a particular highlight on the role of top management in the context of international human resource management (González-Loureiro et al., 2014), change management (Frederico et al., 2019), sales and operations (Tuomikangas and Kaipia, 2014), supply chain quality management (Foster, 2008), transformational leadership in the supply chain (Mokhtar et al., 2019). The supply chain is becoming more critical for firms’ competitiveness (Gosling et al., 2016; Lockström and Lei, 2013). Consequently, the literature on supply chain management is also on the rise with the focus on supply chain integration, agility and flexibility, supplier relations and performance (Huo et al., 2014; Ramesh et al., 2010; Roh et al., 2016; Sharma and Bhat, 2014; Singh et al., 2017; Youn et al., 2012), inter-organizational relationships (Maestrini et al., 2017) and inter-organizational governance in the supply chain (Ciardiello et al., 2018; Defee et al., 2010; Ojha et al., 2018; Youn, 2012).
With the inherent quality of intangibility and difficulty to imitate, leadership in supply chain management bolsters the competitive advantage for the firms. While studies are exploring the impact of leadership style on firm performance (Chen et al., 2015; Obeidat and Tarhini, 2016; Srinivas Rao and Kareem Abdul, 2015), there is a lack of literature reviews on the role of leadership in the supply chain. The past reviews have discussed issues related to supply chain management in global organizations (González-Loureiro et al., 2014), leadership in supply chain research in Europe and Asia (Babbar et al., 2018; Behara et al., 2014), implementing quality management practices in supply chain and supply chain resilience (Kamalahmadi and Parast, 2016; Robinson and Malhotra, 2005). Mokhtar et al. (2019) recently conducted a literature review...