This study investigated how small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in a country perceive major global risks. The aim was to explore how country attributes and circumstances affect SME assessments of the likelihood, impacts, and rankings of global risks, and to find out if SME risk assessment and rankings differ from the global rankings. Data were gathered using an online survey of manufacturing SMEs in Turkey. The results show that global economic risks and geopolitical risks are of major concern for SMEs, and environmental risks are at the bottom of their ranking. Among the economic risks, fiscal crises in key economies and high structural unemployment or underemployment were found to be the highest risks for the SMEs. Failure of regional or global governance, failure of national governance, and interstate conflict with regional consequences were found to be among the top geopolitical risks for the SMEs. The SMEs considered the risk of largescale cyber-attacks and massive incident of data fraud/theft to be relatively higher than other global technological risks. Profound social instability and failure of urban planning were among the top societal risks for the SMEs. Although the global environmental and disaster risks were ranked lowest on the list, man-made environmental damage and disasters and major natural hazard-induced disasters were ranked the highest among this group of risks. Overall, the results show that SMEs at a country level, for example Turkey, perceive global risks differently than the major global players.

PurposeThe objective of this study is to investigate the role of blockchain in reducing the impact of barriers to humanitarian supply chain management (HSCM) using a list of blockchain benefits.Design/methodology/approachA decision aid was used to explore the suitability of blockchain in humanitarian supply chains. To achieve that, first, a list of barriers to HSCM was identified. Then, the intuitionistic fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (IF–DEMATEL) method was utilized to determine the relationships and the level of interdependencies among the criteria. Finally, the intuitionistic fuzzyanalytic network process (IF–ANP) technique was employed, as it successfully handles dependencies among the criteria.FindingsThe findings of this study suggest that interorganizational barriers are the most suitable ones, the impacts of which blockchain may alleviate. This study further suggests that trust turned out to be the most significant benefit criterion for the analysis.Research limitations/implicationsThe readers should construe the findings of this study with caution since it was carried out using the data collected from the experts of a particular country. Moreover, the proposed decision aid contemplates a limited set of criteria to assess a possible role of blockchain in overcoming the barriers to HSCM.Practical implicationsThe findings of this study can assist humanitarian supply chain managers to make more judicious assessments on whether they implement the blockchain in humanitarian supply chain operations. Specifically, this research may help decision makers to identify the certain barriers, the impact of which may be reduced by using the blockchain. The findings of this research will also help various decision makers make more rational decisions and allocate their resources more effectively.Originality/valueTo the best of authors’ knowledge, no single study exists to investigate the role of blockchain in reducing the impact of barriers to HSCM using an intuitionistic fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making approach.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract