Pandemics and Supply Chain Management Research: Toward a Theoretical Toolbox*

Abstract

The COVID‐19 pandemic paralyzed the world and revealed the critical importance of supply chain management—perhaps more so than any other event in modern history—in navigating crises. The extensive scope of disruption, massive spillover of effects across countries and industries, and extreme shifts in demand and supply that occurred during the COVID‐19 pandemic illustrate that pandemics are qualitatively different from typical disruptions. As such, pandemics require scholars to take a fresh look at what lenses offer understanding of supply chain phenomena in order to help supply chain managers better prepare for the next pandemic and foster transiliency (i.e., the ability to simultaneously restore some processes and change—often radically—others). To help scholars and managers achieve these aims, we offer an agenda for supply chain management research on pandemics by considering how the key tenets of well‐known and emergent theories can illuminate challenges and potential solutions. Specifically, we consider how resource dependence theory, institutional theory, resource orchestration theory, structural inertia, game theory, real options theory, event systems theory, awareness–motivation–capability framework, prospect theory, and tournament theory offer ideas that can help scholars build knowledge about pandemics’ effects on supply chains as well as help managers formulate responses.