Supply chain management (SCM) has nowadays become a crucial strategy for firms to enhance their profitability and stay competitive (Li et al., 2006). Thus, SCM has been recognised as an important phenomenon that has generated extensive interest among managers and academic researchers. Thus, over the last decade, scholars have increased the degree of attention paid to SCM. This has resulted in a rich stream of research, mainly focussed on particular aspects of the field of SCM that include, among others, supplier selection (e.g. Igarashi et al., 2013; Inemek and Tuna, 2009), supplier involvement (e.g. Johnsen, 2011), supplier alliances (e.g. Kannan and Tan, 2004; Lee et al., 2009), supplier management (e.g. Reuter et al., 2010), upstream supply chain-related research (e.g. Oosterhuis et al., 2012; Finne and Holmström, 2013), manufacturer and retailers linkages (e.g. Li and Zhang, 2015), supply chain resilience (e.g. Carvalho et al., 2014), SCM practices (SCMPs) (e.g. Zimmermann and Foerstl, 2014; Li et al., 2005, 2006), sustainable and green supply chains (e.g. Choi et al., 2016; Kumar et al., 2015), etc. The wide and diverse stream of research conducted into different aspects of SCM may be explained by the interdisciplinary nature of this subject area. Therefore, SCM is considered as a multidisciplinary field that has been explored from many different perspectives (Papakiriakopoulos and Pramatari, 2010). Mainly, the concept of SCM has been considered from two alternative perspectives: purchasing and supply management. These perspectives emphasise purchasing and materials management as a basic strategic business process, rather than a narrow specialized supporting function (Narasimhan et al., 2008; Sandberg, 2007); transportation and logistics management, which focusses on integrated logistics systems (e.g. inventory management, vendor relationships, transportation, distribution, warehousing and delivery services) that lead to inventory reduction both within and across firms in the supply chain (Banomyong and Supatn, 2011; Cook et al., 2011).