Call for papers: Benchmarking Adaptive Supply Chains: Performance Metrics, Maturity Models, and Socio-Technical Configurations
Introduction
The increasing volatility of global markets, constant supply chain challenges, sustainability concerns, and the rapid digitalisation have made adaptability essential for today’s and tomorrow’s supply chains. The companies are no longer rated only by their cost efficiency but also, and primarily, by their capability to adapt to uncertainty, to mitigate and to handle the disruption, and to weigh the resilience and sustainability goals against each other. Despite the significant growth of academic research around adaptive, resilient, and sustainable supply chains, most of this research is still fragmented, either targeting a specific firm’s practices or isolated capabilities, rather than drawing conclusions based on comparative performance outcomes.
As pointed out in the call for papers from Benchmarking: An International Journal, there is a great need for systematic approaches for measuring, comparing, and benchmarking adaptive supply chain performance across organisations, industries, and institutional contexts. Most of the present literature does not discuss how varied combinations of technology, governance, and human decision-making produce different adaptive outcomes. Through this special issue, we aim to remove the aforementioned barriers by promoting benchmarking-oriented studies that classify the core of performance metrics, maturity models, and socio-technical configurations in adaptive supply chain analysis..
Through the structured research assistance provided by the PhD Assistance Research Lab, researchers answering this call will get support in terms of the development of benchmarking frameworks, which would be the main area of their work. They would also get help in improving the methodological quality and in aligning their articles with the journal’s comparative and measurement-driven expectations.
Scope
The main objective of this issue is to promote a benchmark-based understanding of adaptive supply chains through the encouragement of research that directly quantifies, contrasts, and assesses adaptive performance in different organisational and contextual environments. It is anticipated that the papers will not only tell the stories of adaptability problems but also support their claims through the use of performance metrics, indices, maturity models, and configuration-based comparisons.
This issue considers theoretical, empirical, and mixed-method studies that explore how socio-technical configurations—consisting of human decision-making, digital technologies, governance mechanisms, and sustainability practices—affect adaptive supply chain performance. Contributions that take a cross-industry, cross-country, or institutional benchmarking viewpoint are especially welcomed, as they are very much in line with the journal’s goal of promoting comparative performance research.
Know More About This Issue
Supply chains have to navigate through disturbances and complexities that are the norm today. Adaptability is sometimes considered a key strategic initiative, but still organizations do not have proper metrics to understand their adaptive capabilities compared to their competitors or the industry. The absence of clear-cut metrics or maturity models makes it hard to pinpoint the performance gaps, the top-performing setups, or the areas where improvement can be made.
In this light, the special issue opens up room for examining critically and benchmarking adaptive supply chains. The issue is concentrating on measurable performance outcomes, maturity trajectories and socio-technical configurations, in order to generate insights that will clarify which adaptive supply chain models perform better, under what conditions, and why. The combined inputs are anticipated to affect both academic discussions and practical supply chain management decisions regarding design, governance, and digital transformation.
Key Themes
Performance of adaptive supply chains has been compared in various industries and regions through benchmarking.
• The development of performance measures and composite indices for adaptive, resilient, and sustainable supply chains.
• Supply chain maturity models and benchmarking trajectories have been developed.
• The impact of sociotechnical configurations on comparative performance has been analysed.
• The digital and AI-enabled supply chain systems have been compared through benchmarking.
• The performance frontiers and efficiency analysis of adaptive supply chains have been mapped out.
• Adaptability of supply chains has been benchmarked across countries and institutions.
• Governance, cooperation, and monitoring are considered as the drivers of benchmarked performance.
• The sustainability and resilience trade-offs have been subject to comparative analysis.
• The impact on society in the long run of the project-based organising model
How We Support Your Submission
In order for a paper to be presented at a special issue which highlights benchmarking, the paper should have well-defined concepts, strong measurement design and clear comparative logic. The PhD Assistance Research Lab offers comprehensive support to researchers throughout the submission phase, and these include:
• Framing the research questions so that they coincide with benchmarking and performance-comparison objectives
• Supporting the development of performance metrics, indices, and maturity models
• Applying configuration and contingency views to enhance the theoretical foundation
• Providing more methodological rigour for quantitative, qualitative and mixed-methods benchmarking studies
• Making academic writing clearer and logical
• Assisting with journal formatting, ethical and submission guidelines compliance
• Being available during the peer-review process with organised responses to reviewer comments
Journal Guidelines:
During the whole procedure of submission and publication, authors are to keep up the highest standards of research integrity, ethical conduct, and academic responsibility.
Original manuscripts that have not been published or submitted will only be considered.
– All the submissions are subjected to the peer review process and the authors are solely responsible for the accuracy and trustworthiness of their work.
– Only those who have significantly contributed intellectually should be considered as the authors and any conflicts of interest should be disclosed.
– The use of generative AI tools for content production is not accepted, but language editing with AI is allowed to a small extent and only with prior notice as per Emerald’s AI policy.
– Research with human subjects should obtain ethical clearance and demonstrate informed consent where appropriate.
– The authors must check that their manuscripts comply with Emerald’s copyright, citation, and publication ethics guidelines.
Important Dates
Manuscript Submission Opens: 01 June 2026
Final Manuscript Submission Deadline: 31 December 2026
To ensure successful and timely submission to the special issue “Benchmarking Adaptive Supply Chains: Performance Metrics, Maturity Models, and Socio-Technical Configurations,” researchers are encouraged to leverage the expert services of the PhD Assistance Research Lab, offering comprehensive support from conceptualisation to final manuscript submission within the specified deadline.
Reference
Emerald Group Publishing. (2025). Benchmarking adaptive supply chains: Performance metrics, maturity models, and socio-technical configurations (Call for papers). Benchmarking: An International Journal. https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/calls-for-papers/benchmarking-adaptive-supply-chains-performance-metrics-maturity-models-and-socio