According to the World Health Organization (WHO), one out of 10 people get sick from eating contaminated food. Complex food production process and globalization make food supply chain more delicate. Many technologies have been investigated in recent years to address food insecurity and achieve efficiency in dealing with food recalls. One of the most promising technologies is Blockchain, which has already been used successfully in financial aspects, such as bitcoin, and it is attracting interests from food supply chain organizations. As blockchain has characteristics, such as decentralization, security, immutability, smart contract, it is therefore expected to improve sustainable food supply chain management and food traceability. This paper applies a content-analysis based literature review in blockchain adoption within food supply chain. We propose four benefits. Blockchain can help to improve food traceability, information transparency, and recall efficiency; it can also be combined with Internet of things (IoT) to achieve better efficiency. We also propose five potential challenges, including lack of deeper understanding of blockchain, technology difficulties, raw data manipulation, difficulties of getting all stakeholders on board, and the deficiency of regulations.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore how multinational corporations (MNCs) orchestrate internal and external resources to help their multi-tier supply chains learn sustainability-related knowledge.Design/methodology/approach: An exploratory multiple case study approach was adopted and three MNCs’ sustainable initiatives in China were examined. The data were primarily collected through 43 semi-structured interviews with managers of focal companies and their multi-tier suppliers.Findings: The authors found that in order to facilitate their supply chains to learn sustainability, MNCs tend to orchestrate in breadth by internally setting up new functional departments and externally working with third parties, and orchestrate in depth working directly with their extreme upstream suppliers adopting varied governance mechanisms on lower-tier suppliers along the project lifecycle. The resource orchestration in breadth and depth and along the project lifecycle results in changes of supply chain structure.Practical implications: The proposed conceptual model provides an overall framework for companies to design and implement their multi-tier sustainable initiatives. Companies could learn from the suggested learning stages and the best practices of case companies.Originality/value: The authors extend and enrich resource orchestration perspective (ROP), which is internally focused, to a supply chain level, and answer a theoretical question of how MNCs orchestrate their internal and external resources to help their supply chains to learn sustainability. The extension of ROP refutes the resource dependence theory, which adopts a passive approach of relying on external suppliers and proposes that MNCs should proactively work with internal and external stakeholders to learn sustainability.

Many nations have committed to achieving carbon neutrality to combat climate change, but little is known about its drivers at the micro level and implications for firm performance and supply chain management. To address the knowledge gap, this research conducts case studies of seven early movers in the initiative by exploring the key drivers, influential stakeholders and effects of institutional pressures. We find four major drivers: ‘customer enforcement’, ‘sustainable business value’, ‘environmental legitimacy’ and ‘competitive pressures’. Customers and competitors were the most influential external stakeholders. Shareholders and top management with intrinsic environmental values, being internal stakeholders, played pivotal roles in a proactive move to carbon neutrality when there was limited regulatory pressure. The early movers believed in the long‐term economic benefits of transitioning to carbon neutrality. We also identify the implications of carbon neutrality initiatives for supply chain management. Based on the research findings, we develop a decision support framework to guide firms in transitioning towards carbon neutrality in a multi‐tier supply chain context.