Enhancing Supply Chain Resilience via Digital Technologies in Knowledge Economy with an Emphasis on Human Capital: An Integrated Systematic Literature Review and SF-AHP Approach

Supply chain resilience (SCR) refers to the capacity to respond quickly to operational disruptions, and a knowledge-based economy pushes businesses to integrate emerging technologies for improving resilience. However, how human capital plays a critical role in such regard is not well documented. Thus, there is a need for determining the relationship structures between key components improving SCR and human capital. Accordingly, this paper is aimed at providing new insights by constructing a theoretical framework to draw attention to the relationship structure of SCR factors and lack of attention to human capital. This study systematically reviews the literature to reach critical SCR factors and then conducts the Spherical Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (SF-AHP) method to reveal the degree of importance of prominent elements. The data includes 86 articles published between 2016 and 2023, derived from the Web of Science database. Based on the thematic analysis, the topic dendrogram identified eleven sub-themes under the main themes of sustainability and supply chain risk management. Then, the SF-AHP questionnaire, using those themes as criteria, was applied to seven experts. Depending on dendrogram and SF-AHP scores, this study proposes a new framework and propositions utilizing the human capital view. Accordingly, we discuss that agility and artificial intelligence under sustainability work well together to provide sustainability. We also consider that technological capabilities such as blockchain technology and big data, providing data security and information sharing, protect enterprises from supply chain risks. However, the utilization of such technologies to assess SCR is highly dependent on human capital. Finally, this study offers research questions derived from the propositions to guide future research.