From Individuals to Organizations: Unpacking Behavioral Issues in Supply Chain Risk Management

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Introduction

At its core, supply chain risk management (SCRM) research has focused on identifying and assessing known and unknown risks, and on risk mitigation to derive and implement solutions that ensure supply will continue to meet demand during and after a disruptive event. However, supply chain disruptions have been escalating in recent years and revealed considerable complex vulnerabilities in how firms manage their global operations (van Hoek and Wong, 2025). Current SCRM strategies, theories, and frameworks are ill-equipped to address these vulnerabilities, despite years of experience and research. A justified concern in the literature is that the assumptions of risk neutrality and rationality of decision-makers is unrealistic (Hult et al. 2010). In reality, supply chain decision-makers fall along a broad spectrum from risk seeking to risk aversion and often make decisions under bounded rationality and are influenced by cognitive biases and other factors that cause them to deviate from optimal or rational choices, especially under conditions of uncertainty, tension, and time pressure (Carter et al., 2007; Pournader et al., 2024). Deviations from rationality influence risk identification, assessment, and mitigation, leading to a gap between theoretical predictions and actual supply chain outcomes. Ignoring behavioral realities leads to suboptimal risk management strategies, reduced operational efficiency and profitability (Duhadway et al., 2022). Thus, the behavioral aspect is crucial in determining whether supply chains recover or remain fragile in the face of disruption.

Research on the behavioral and non-rational aspects of supply chain risk management has also been primarily at the individual level such as human cognition, biases, interpersonal relationship, individualism, confidence level, personal wealth and regulatory focus (Pournader et al. 2020; Xu and Zhang, 2024; Gomez-Mejia et al. 2021). However, little attention has been devoted to how individual behavior is shaped by organizational and inter-organizational factors such as risk appetite, dependency and power asymmetries, and the adoption of industry 4.0 technologies. Therefore, research on behavioral issues in supply chain risk management also needs to be researched across the individual decision making-level (micro), the entity decision making-level (macro), and the supply chain decision making-level (interorganizational).

This perspective also requires investigating how decisions by one actor (individual, team, or organization) cascade systematically influence others, both within an organization and across the broader supply chain network. Drawing on insights from psychology, behavioral theories, decision -making frameworks, organizational studies, and risk management frameworks, this special issue seeks to unpack these behavioral dimensions to advance a holistic understanding of SCRM. 

This call for papers focuses on behavioral issues in supply chain risk management, across multiple levels. In line with IJPDLM’s aim to advance theoretical concepts and frameworks and given this call’s focus on unpacking behavioral issues in supply chain risk management, we are particularly interested in research that explores the limitations of existing theories in the literature and/or research that introduces new and innovative concepts and frameworks that address the complexities of supply chain risk management. We believe that this call for papers will encourage scholars to consider the topic seriously and submit high quality research that makes significant contributions to the supply chain risk management literature and supports the goals of IJPDLM to be a forward-driven and innovative outlet.

List of Topic Areas

The guest editors are interested in both conceptual and empirical research that present a robust discussion across three main themes. Authors are not bound by one specific area related to the topic of this call for papers. However, we encourage interested authors to pick one of the following themes and sub-areas as the main focus of their research.

Forging the future: 

Building theory for the next era of supply chain risk management research. Research is needed that can advance behavioral supply chain risk management research by integrating insights from supply chain management theories from other disciplines to help to explain intention, action and reaction in risk situations across multiple units of analysis. Potential research questions for this theme would be:

• To what extent does strategic manipulation of information (withholding, distorting, or framing risk signals) affect collective supply chain resilience outcomes?
• How can behavioral theories explain inter-firm risk-sharing under uncertainty?
• How can interdisciplinary (i.e. psychology, sociology) perspectives be used to explain multi-level intention–action–reaction dynamics in risk situations spanning individuals, organizations and supply chains?

Navigating complexity:

Building theory to unravel interplay of decision-making across micro-, macro-, and interorganizational-levels. A more nuanced understanding is needed to explore how behavioral risk management dynamics influence each other across these levels. Potential research questions for this theme would be:

• How do individual decision-making styles aggregate into organizational risk cultures and capabilities?
• How do behavioral dynamics across levels (micro, macro, interorganizational) complement or contradict one another in shaping supply chain resilience?
• What mechanisms explain how individual-level behaviors (e.g., bounded rationality, trust, or opportunism) cascade into network-level collaboration or conflict in supply chain risk management?

Structuring decisions:  

Developing theoretical frameworks to address behavioral supply chain risk management in varied contexts that explores emerging and underexplored contexts such as social conflict risks (DuHadway et al., 2022), interactions with AI-based systems (Kessler et al., 2024), cyber risk management (Friday, et al., 2024; Jazairy et al., 2024), and the dynamics of deteriorating supplier-buyer relationships (Xu and Zhang, 2024), to name a few. Potential research questions for this theme would be:

• What are the unintended consequences when human intuition and AI recommendations diverge in supply chain risk management decisions?
• To what extent do fear appeals, regulatory pressures, or organizational risk cultures motivate or inhibit proactive cyber risk management?
• How do disruptive technologies impact behavior?

Guest Editors 

Jon F. Kirchoff, East Carolina University, United States of America, kirchoffj@ecu.edu

Ying Liao, East Carolina University, United States of America, liaoy17@ecu.edu

Shingirai “Chris” Kwaramba, Virginia Commonwealth University, United States of America, kwarambasc@vcu.edu

Submissions Information

Submissions are made using ScholarOne Manuscripts. Author guidelines must be strictly followed.

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Author Guidelines

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.

Instructions for abstract submissions: Authors interested in submitting to this special issue are strongly encouraged to send their proposal and/or research idea to the Guest Editors to receive feedback before full paper submission. Proposals should be around 1,000 words (excluding references, tables, and figures). All the proposals should be sent to the Managing Guest Editor, Dr. Jon Kirchoff, at kirchoffj@ecu.edu.

Key Deadlines

Opening date for manuscripts submissions: 15th March 2026

Closing date for abastract submission: 15th April 2026

Closing date for manuscripts submission: 15th September 2026