Crossing the chasm: investigating the relationship between sustainability and resilience in supply chain management

In recent years, several studies have been conducted on the joint investigation of sustainability and supply chain resilience. However, they revealed the presence of divergent viewpoints in discussing the sustainability-resilience relationship. To fill this gap, this paper presents a Systematic Literature Network Analysis that combines the traditional systematic literature review with bibliometric techniques to analyse how the relationship between supply chain sustainability and supply chain resilience has been addressed by previous literature in the main research thematic areas of the field. The analysis revealed the presence of four perspectives for organizing the concepts of supply chain sustainability and supply chain resilience, sustainability and resilience are considered to be two different concepts that rely on separate and distinguishable goals, resilience is considered a component of sustainability, sustainability is considered a component of resilience, and they are considered as synonyms. The rationale for the presence of different perspectives can be identified in the level of detail with which sustain-ability and resilience objectives are considered. As a result, an original framework is developed to explain the different perspectives and link them with the emerging research streams of the literature. Research allows for providing conceptual clarity on definitions and the combination of resilience and sustainability to build a solid theoretical background for academics and to help effectively drive managerial decisions.