Supply Chain Digitalization, Resilience, and Performance:A Literature Review and Conceptual Framework

Abstract

Supply chain digitalization has become a central response to disruption, market volatility, and rising coordination complexity, yet the mechanisms through which digitalization produces resilience and performance remain fragmented across the literature. This narrative review synthesizes recent conceptual and empirical studies on supply chain digitalization, supply chain resilience, and supply chain performance. The evidence indicates that digitalization should not be treated as a stand-alone technological input or as an automatic source of performance improvement. Its value is realized through information transparency, real-time visibility, supply chain integration, collaboration, risk management, analytical capability, and resource reconfiguration. These mechanisms strengthen resilience before, during, and after disruption through absorption, response, and recovery capabilities. Resilience, in turn, translates digital investments into cost, quality, delivery, service-continuity, innovation, and sustainability outcomes. However, findings also show that the digitalization–resilience–performance relationship depends on supply chain dynamism, environmental uncertainty, disruption intensity, digital maturity, formal governance, top management commitment, and industry context. Digitalization can also create new vulnerabilities through cybersecurity exposure, system failure, data fragmentation, and technological dependence. An integrated conceptual framework is therefore proposed in which resilience is the central conversion mechanism between digitalization and performance, while contextual and governance factors shape the strength and direction of the relationship. The review concludes with propositions, a future research agenda, and managerial implications for building digitally enabled but risk-aware supply chains.