Emerging technologies are often introduced with the promise of improving operational performance. OSCM research has therefore emphasised their potential to enhance operational efficiency and business performance (Lam et al., 2016; Xiong et al., 2025). Yet recent evidence suggests that scaling these technologies is constrained by operational tensions that emerge within and across processes (Wang et al., 2026; Zhan et al., 2025). We define operational tensions as persistent and interdependent trade-offs, such as centralisation versus decentralisation, efficiency versus flexibility, autonomy versus control, and sustainability versus profitability – that arise when new technologies reconfigure processes, resource allocation and governance structures, generating competing demands that cannot be easily reconciled (Roehrich et al., 2025). These tensions may remain relatively contained during pilots, but become amplified as technologies are scaled across functions, organisational units, supply networks and institutional contexts. Scaling increases interdependence, coordination costs and exposure to system-level risks, turning local implementation challenges into broader operational problems.
AI provides a salient example. Its integration into operational decision-making shifts authority from human judgment to algorithmic systems, creating operational tensions between autonomy and control. AI can improve demand forecasting, capacity planning, and supplier selection, but it also introduces dependencies, opacity, and less transparent decision-making logic (Rana et al., 2022), as well as cybersecurity vulnerabilities in processes (Cohen et al., 2026; Jazairy et al., 2025). Its rapid expansion also places pressure on supporting infrastructures, including electricity systems and energy consumption, revealing tensions between technological advancement and sustainability constraints (Muir, 2025). These issues become more pronounced when AI scales across organisational boundaries, where standardisation, data integration and governance requirements may constrain flexibility and managerial oversight.
Similar tensions arise across other technology-enabled operations. Blockchain can enhance supply chain transparency, but may also generate coordination burdens and scalability constraints (Xiong et al., 2021; Xu et al., 2022). Its implementation reflects the operational tensions between decentralised technological architecture and centralised strategic control (Hanisch et al., 2025), as well as between narrow within-technology search and broader cross-domain exploration (Zhan et al., 2025). These examples extend a long-standing OSCM concern with trade-offs and complementarities, where improvement in one dimension may generate unintended consequences in another (Ferdows and De Meyer, 1990). Whereas earlier work treated such trade-offs as relatively stable design choices, emerging technologies render them more dynamic, systemic and context-dependent (Wimelius et al., 2021; Wang et al., 2026).
Despite these developments, OSCM research has yet to fully theorise how the scaling of emerging technologies generates and amplifies such operational tensions, and how organisations can manage these tensions across multiple levels of analysis. This gap is particularly critical in resource-constrained and disruption-prone contexts, such as healthcare and humanitarian operations, where technology-enabled operations may improve visibility, responsiveness and coordination, but also intensify operational tensions around scarce resource allocation and inter-organisational accountability (Azadegan et al., 2021; Bichescu et al., 2025; Shaheen et al., 2023; Wang et al., 2026). Importantly, these tensions not only affect efficiency and coordination outcomes but also have broader implications for resilience, governance, and sustainability, as technology-enabled operations increasingly shape resource consumption, risk exposure, and long-term system viability (Roehrich et al., 2025).
List of Topic Areas
This Special Issue invites studies at three interrelated levels of analysis.
At the intra-organisational level, relevant topics include how technology scaling reshapes operational processes, routines, decision rights, resource allocation, performance measurement and human-technology interaction. Indicative questions include:
- How do emerging technologies reconfigure operational processes, routines and decision rights during adoption and scaling?
- What operational capabilities, performance measurement systems and managerial practices enable organisations to balance experimentation, learning and operational reliability?
- How do organisations manage operational tensions arising from the simultaneous scaling of emerging technologies and the maintenance, integration or phase-out of legacy technologies?
At the inter-organisational network or platform level, we encourage research on supply chain relationships, governance, coordination, data sharing, platform use and ecosystem collaboration. Indicative questions include:
- How does the scaling of emerging technologies across supply networks reshape coordination, collaboration, trust, power and dependency relationships?
- How do organisations manage tensions between transparency and confidentiality, decentralisation and strategic control, or local optimisation and network-wide performance?
- How do AI-enabled ecosystems, intelligent intermediaries and algorithmic brokers transform supply network structures, relational dynamics and orchestration practices?
- How do differences in digital maturity, resources and strategic priorities among supply chain partners affect technology scaling, governance and risks of digital exclusion or inequality?
At the wider operational-system level, we invite work that examines how scaling emerging technologies creates operational tensions across supply networks, infrastructure interfaces, regulation, resilience, sustainability, cybersecurity and resource constraints, particularly under disruption, recovery or crisis-prone operating conditions. Potential directions include:
- How do emerging technologies create tensions between operational performance improvement and system-level constraints such as resilience, cybersecurity, regulation, infrastructure capacity, energy consumption and sustainability?
- How do technology-enabled operations redistribute risks, costs and operational burdens across firms, supply networks, workers, suppliers, customers and operational locations?
- How are technologies scaled under disruptive, resource-constrained or recovery-oriented operating conditions, and how do organisations manage tensions between speed and control, improvisation and standardisation, risk-taking and accountability, or local responsiveness and system-wide coordination?
Guest Editors
Dr Minhao Zhang, University of Bristol, United Kingdom, minhao.zhang@bristol.ac.uk
Dr Yuanzhu Zhan, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom, y.zhan@bham.ac.uk
Dr Iana Jackson, University of Arkansas, United States, ijackson@walton.uark.edu
Professor Zhijun Yan, Beijing Institute of Technology, China, yanzhijun@bit.edu.cn
Submissions Information
Submissions are made using ScholarOne Manuscripts. Author guidelines must be strictly followed.
Authors should select (from the drop-down menu) the special issue title at the appropriate step in the submission process, i.e. in response to “Please select the issue you are submitting to”. Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication anywhere else, while under review for this journal.
Journal Information: Scopus Journal Q1, H-Index 177
Key Deadlines
Opening date for manuscripts submissions: 8th January 2027
Closing date for manuscripts submission: 8th April 2027
For more details refer here
