Supply chain (as) risk: a unifying typology

Purpose This research categorizes and synthesizes various seemingly distinct supply chain risk phenomena. It advances an opening-up of discourses on supply chain risk management to acknowledge a supply chain’s broader systemic context. Design/methodology/approach The article develops a comprehensive and systematic perspective on supply chain risk by employing a blend of conceptual theorizing and desk research, illustrating each category with scholarly or real-world examples. Findings The conceptual study offers a typology that unites an understanding of supply chain risk as risk within supply chains with a conceptualization that views supply chains themselves as risks for the contexts in which they are embedded. Research limitations/implications Five constraints apply to the typology, pertaining to a plurality of effects, excerpts in the chain of causality, researchers’ lens on supply chains, dynamic transitions between the types within the typology and simplified representations of the empirical reality. Practical implications Supply chain managers can use the typology to guide their risk identification processes to analyze their supply chain risks more holistically and proactively. Social implications Emphasizing the vulnerability and harmfulness of supply chains facilitates a more substantiated interaction between supply chain scholarship and audiences such as policymakers and society-at-large. Originality/value The typology clarifies the link between concept labels in supply chain risk management. It helps to reconcile the academic discourse with public debates in which supply chains have been viewed as risky for some time.