Centrality Measures in Supply Chain Management Research

Can social network analysis contribute to supply chain management? A systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis

“…Centrality measures in supply networks. When studying networks, it is crucial to examine their structural patterns and how they impact the members within the network [ 5 ]. In addition to simple network descriptions, network analysis offers numerous techniques to examine, evaluate, and explore the positions of individual nodes and connections [ 45 ].…”

“…In a supply chain context, researchers have utilized various measures of centrality to assess prominent network members. The position of a focal firm within a network can be measured in various ways, including the number of direct links to other firms (degree centrality), the average distance between the focal firm and all other firms in the network (closeness centrality), the degree to which the primary company connects other firms that would otherwise not be connected (betweenness centrality), and the degree of connectedness to well-connected nodes (eigenvector centrality) [ 5 ]. Our research involved examining which centrality measures were utilized in each article within our data collection.…”

“…The initial stage involved gathering relevant literature on the topic under investigation. Following Wichmann and Kaufmann [ 4 ], a search string was utilized to perform a Boolean search across article titles, abstracts, and keywords: (“supply chain" OR “supply network") AND (“SNA" OR “social network analysis" OR “network analysis”) in Clarivate Analytics Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection databases [ 5 ]. In December 2023, a search was carried out, resulting in 698 articles.…”

“…There has been a growing recognition of the importance of viewing supply chains as interconnected systems that involve multiple actors and relationships [ 2 , 4 ]. Researchers studying supply chains are exploring aspects of Supply Chain Management (SCM) that go beyond the usual two-party relationships and adopting a network view of the supply chain [ [3] , [4] , [5] ].…”

“…Several systematic literature reviews on SNA in SCM have been conducted in the past few years. Some of these reviews have been general and comprehensive [ 2 , 4 , 5 , 9 ] while others have focused on specific aspects, such as network structural properties in supply chain sustainability [ 10 ], disruptions mitigation in complex supply chain structures [ 11 ], or structural analysis for collaborative business ecosystems [ 12 ]. While previous reviews have made valuable contributions by identifying key themes and offering insights into the field, our analysis aims to build upon this foundation by providing a more comprehensive and detailed examination.…”