The contemporary world becomes more and more volatile and unpredictable every year (dynamic development of technology—Industry 4.0 and Industry 5.0, dynamic global changes related to the COVID-19 pandemic, great changes in consumer behavior, climate crisis, geopolitical disruptions). Individuals, companies, and supply chains face challenges emerging from economic, sociological, and political phenomena. These phenomena disrupt regular performance and limit the efficient functioning of companies and economies. Due to numerous relations and connections in the economy, disruptions in one area affect the others and spread, growing in range and severity. Hence, disruptions should be dealt with to provide continuity of supply chains and to ensure their efficient and effective performance. The study aims to identify crucial characteristics of disruptions to facilitate disruption minimization strategies. The characteristics of disruptions in supply chains are identified based on a literature review, synthesized and validated by the experts. A study is implemented to validate identified characteristics and to confront theoretical findings with the practical experience and observations of the experts. The results of the study are discussed and commented on. The conclusions from the study refer to the nature and characteristics of disruptions in the contemporary economy, equipping managers with useful knowledge when dealing with disruptions, and academics with observations that can stimulate further discussion on stability, flexibility, and resilience of companies and supply chains.

This article aims to evaluate sustainable supply chain risks using a novel fuzzy VIKOR–CRITIC technique. The research contributions of this study are twofold. First and foremost, this is the first attempt to integrate the fuzzy VIKOR approach with the CRITIC method in order to eradicate the inadequacies of the VIKOR method. Second, this is the first study to look at the sustainable supply chain risk management in Pakistan’s logistics industry. Four logistics companies were chosen for the study, and thirty criteria were established and divided into four categories using acquired data and literature studies. According to the findings, organizational risks are the most important to consider, whereas environmental hazards have the least influence. Supply delays, freight rate/oil price fluctuations, bankruptcy, and natural catastrophe are the four most important criteria in these categories. Limited suppliers, cargo tracking, IT system failure, and international politics are the four least significant criteria in the four risk categories. The findings are useful for the logistics industry operating in CPEC for risk mitigation and sustainable operation. The research may be used as a guideline for risk identification and management by practitioners and decision-makers in Pakistani logistics organizations.

The digitization of logistics processes enables, among others, real-time data exchange, which is currently the driving force of the modern economy, as well as functioning supply chains. Digital transformation has been accelerated in recent years, primarily by the development of the Industry 4.0 concept. It is also perceived as a trend supporting the sustainable development of organizations and industries. The main research challenge was identifying current research directions related to the digitalization of supply chains. Therefore, this article aims to present the literature review results of the last five years (2018–2022) regarding the digitalization of supply chains. The research used the PRISMA method (The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses), and 127 articles were analyzed. On this basis, we proposed a two-level qualifications framework that includes eight core categories and sixteen subcategories. The main contributions of this work are as follows: providing a complete and up-to-date (last five years) literature review on supply chains in the digital age from a global perspective that summarizes the current state of the art in an integrated framework; and provides an indication of the two most significant challenges currently observed, which are interrelated. The first key challenge is the digital transformation of businesses and supply chains; the second is sustainable development, which focuses on the Sustainable Development Goals; reducing the complexity of the issue by providing structure and clarity (Identifying categories and subcategories as the mind map); and identifying research gaps that we will work on in the future. Based on the review, we indicate three identified research gaps: there is a lack of research assessing the use of digitalization to build supply chain resilience; there are no studies evaluating the risk of the negative impact of technologies and threats on relations integrating future supply chains; and there is a lack of research on the changing role of man in modern logistics systems.