Purpose

The purpose of this study is to develop a conceptual framework to support original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in adopting reverse logistics (RL) strategies within circular supply chains. The study aims to identify key contextual factors influencing the adoption of RL strategies and to explore the challenges OEMs face when implementing different RL strategies. Accordingly, the study addresses two research questions: (1) Which supply chain contextual factors influence OEMs’ strategic choices in developing RL? and (2) What challenges arise in the adoption of RL strategies?

Design/methodology/approach

The study adopts a qualitative research approach, combining a literature review with a casestudy. Empirical data were collected through 14 semi-structured interviews, complemented by secondary documents provided by the case company.

Findings

The findings indicate that the RL strategy is influenced by its interaction with forward supply chain strategies. Key contextual factors influencing RL strategy include logistics strategies, marketing and sales channels, after-market services, and product characteristics. The findings further reveal that inconsistencies in the product’s quality, pricing, and response times are the challenges that OEMs consider in RL strategy adoption.

Research limitations/implications

The study is based on a single case study, which may limit generalizability.

Practical implications

The proposed framework supports OEMs in adopting appropriate RL strategies.

Societal implications

By enabling effective RL, the framework supports waste reduction, resource efficiency, and circular economy objectives.

Original/value

The study contributes a novel conceptual framework linking forward supply chain strategies to RL decision-making, offering new insights into circular supply chain decision-making.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate how contextual factors influence reverse logistics (RL) strategy, allocation of activities, and centralization or decentralization of RL facilities.

Design/methodology/approach: An exploratory multi-case study approach is employed, comprising three cases drawn from two Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs). Data was collected through 14 semi-structured interviews, complemented by secondary documents. Cross-case analysis integrates empirical findings with theory.

Findings: The results reveal that product characteristics, particularly complexity, customization, value, lifecycle stage, usage condition, and return volume, influence shaping different RL strategies. These product characteristics translate into decision criteria related to quality control, economic sustainability, and in-house knowledge development. In addition, after-market strategy influences in-house knowledge, while sales strategy affects the geographical dispersion of products and collaboration among actors. These decision criteria, in turn, impact RL decision-making.

Research limitations/implications: By focusing on refurbishment, the study is constrained to a single R-strategy, allowing the identified findings to be attributed to contextual factors rather than to variation in R-strategies.

Practical implications: The results highlight the need for OEMs to adopt a holistic view when establishing RL, offering guidance for both researchers and practitioners.

Original/value: The study contributes to the RL and circular economy literature by providing empirically grounded insights into how contextual factors shape OEM’s RL decision-making. While research has examined RL, less is understood about how contextual factors influence RL strategy, allocation of RL activities to actors, and centralization and decentralization of RL activities across facilities. 

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to develop a conceptual framework to support original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in adopting reverse logistics (RL) strategies within circular supply chains. The study aims to identify key contextual factors influencing the adoption of RL strategies and to explore the challenges OEMs face when implementing different RL strategies. Accordingly, the study addresses two research questions: (1) Which supply chain contextual factors influence OEMs’ strategic choices in developing RL? and (2) What challenges arise in the adoption of RL strategies?

Design/methodology/approach: The study adopts a qualitative research approach, combining a literature review with a case study. Empirical data were collected through semi-structured interviews, complemented by secondary documents provided by the case company.

Findings: The findings indicate that the RL strategy is significantly influenced by its interaction with forward supply chain strategies. Key contextual factors influencing RL strategy include logistics strategies, marketing and sales channels, after-market services, and product characteristics. The findings further reveal that inconsistencies in the product’s quality, pricing, and response times are the challenges that OEMs consider in RL strategy adoption.

Research limitations/implications: The study is based on a single case study, which may limit generalizability.

Practical implications: The proposed framework supports OEMs in adopting appropriate RL strategies.

Societal implications: By enabling effective RL, the framework supports waste reduction, resource efficiency, and circular economy objectives.

Original/value: The study contributes a novel conceptual framework linking forward supply chain strategies to RL decision-making, offering new insights into circular supply chain decision-making.

This study examines Alternative Food Networks (AFNs), specifically REKO Rings and on-farm shops in Sweden, as deliberate mechanisms for structural simplification in agri-food supply chains. By reducing intermediary tiers, compressing coordination layers, and reshaping relational dependencies, AFNs decrease systemic complexity, enhance producer visibility, and foster trust-based producer–consumer relationships. Simplification reduces reliance on centralized logistics but concentrates responsibility at the producer. The findings advance supply chain complexity theory, highlighting AFNs as intentional design interventions that balance efficiency, adaptability, and localized resilience, offering actionable insights for purchasing and supply management in volatile environments.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to describe the impact of supply chain disruptions on small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Swedish wood house industry supply chain and how they build resilience and respond to supply chain disruptions.

Design/methodology/approachThe paper is based on the empirical findings from Swedish wood house industry supply chain. The data was collected from observations, company documents and semi structured interviews. Pattern matching based on deductive approach was used to identify the specific risks and resilience capabilities in SMEs from Swedish wood house industry supply chain.

FindingsThe findings depict the supply, demand and process risks induced by the supply chain disruptions on SMEs within Swedish wood house industry. The paper also describes how these SMEs leverage their existing capabilities and respond to supply chain disruptions and become resilient.

Research limitations/implications (if applicable)This study is conducted within a specific industry and region and hence the findings may have limited generalizability. However, the findings may be applicable to manufacturing SMEs with similar challenges.

Practical implications (if applicable)This paper increases risk awareness among SMEs within the industrial wood house industry supply chain and explores the current strategies deployed by SMEs to become resilient. The idea is to provide guidelines to SMEs to manage disruptions and become resilient by leveraging their existing capabilities.Original/valueThis paper contributes to identifying supply chain risks experienced by SMEs in a new context and strategies to become resilient based on the knowledge of current strategies deployed by SMEs in Swedish wood house industry.

Leasing is one approach towards a circular business strategy to enable the transition to CE. At the end of a lease, products are either purchased by the customer or returned to an OEM to be refurbished and resold to a new customer. Leasing contracts outline the rights, conditions, and responsibilities of both the customers and the OEM, including return or purchase conditions and penalties. However, defining these terms poses a challenge to OEMs especially under stochastic conditions. These challenges arise because the customers’ decisions influence the decision of an OEM and vice versa. Furthermore, different decision paths lead the OEM to adopt different refurbishment strategies. To enhance circularity, the life cycle of returned products can be extended through R-strategies such as refurbishment.

This study develops a stochastic Stackelberg game-theoretic model in which an OEM acts as the leader and customers as followers. The game evaluates the interplay between initial pricing, leasing revenue, customer segmentation, and residual value. The findings demonstrate that customers’ decisions to return products are driven by the OEM’s upfront pricing decisions. Additionally, the study identifies a parabolic relationship between leasing revenue and NPV. Finally, results reveal that the optimal refurbishment strategy is dynamic: in-house operations are economically justified for high-value products that can amortize fixed costs. These insights provide actionable guidelines to balance secondary market supply, ensuring the long-term profitability of leasing and refurbishment in support of circularity.

This study investigates how purchasing can be differentiated in delivery site-based engineer-to-order operations, where installation occurs under site-specific temporal constraints. Building on the customer differentiated purchasing method, the study introduces delivery-site lead time as a basis for item differentiation and analyzes its implications through an empirical example from industrialized housebuilding. The findings show that delivery-site conditions, sequencingrequirements, and customer choices collectively shape purchasing decisions, making traditional product- and demand based classifications insufficient. The study contributes an extended framework for differentiated purchasing and highlights implications for coordination between suppliers, factory production, and delivery-site operations

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to develop a framework for supply chain resilience in context of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the manufacturing sector to manage supply chain disruptions.

Design/methodology/approachThis paper is based on a systematic review of literature from peer reviewed journals indexed in Scopus and Web of science, focusing on supply chain resilience in the context of SMEs.

FindingsThe preliminary findings show that SMEs differ from other organizations in terms of how they are affected by supply chain disruptions and how they respond to disruptions to be resilient, due to their unique characteristics. The paper also illustrates how SMEs leverage their existing capabilities to manage disruptions and become resilient.

Research limitations/implications (if applicable)This is a conceptual paper based on the review of literature and needs empirical validation.

Practical implications (if applicable)The paper contributes to supporting SMEs to become resilient to supply chain disruptions by building on their existing capabilities. The idea of the paper is to provide actionable insights to manage supply chain disruptions, based on the findings of the literature.

Original/valueThis paper focuses on supply chain resilience in the SME context by emphasizing their susceptibility to supply chain disruptions and also highlights how SMEs leverage their existing capabilities to manage disruptions and become resilient. This paper also addresses the additional support which the SMEs require to manage supply chain disruptions and become resilient.

This paper examines how circularity mechanisms affect supply chain resilience in bio-based supply chains. Rather than treating circularity as a context independent positive force, it develops a mechanism-based explanation of when circularity strengthens adaptive capacity and when it may introduce vulnerabilities. Using a structured literature review and comparative analysis of food, furniture,and timber construction, the study identifies three mechanism families: short-loop recovery, product-life extension, and design-based circularity, and their effects on resilience through resource diversification, value retention, and collaborative adaptation. Benefits depend on perishability, product lifetime, and governance capacity. The framework provides guidance for designing circular and resilient industrial systems.