The COVID-19 crisis has shown how vulnerable our economy and society are. In the course of globalization, aiming at economic efficiency, cost minimization, inventory reduction, and maximization of asset utilization have resulted in a very few global supply chain hubs, which control most of the global movements of goods and materials. Relying only on such a few global supply chain hubs creates significant bottlenecks in the event of a global supply chain shock, like the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, and risks substantial disruptions to the global value chain network with potentially catastrophic consequences for the world economy. Arijit Paul, Romana Rauter und Rupert Baumgartner from the Institute of Systems Sciences, Innovation and Sustainability Research at the University of Graz identify glocalization as an opportunity for balancing the trade-off between economic efficiency and resilience in the global supply chains, combining global trade with local production.
>> read more in their article ‘Glocalization’ in a post-COVID-19 world, recently published on the website of the Academy of Management