Uncertainty and Risk in Global Supply Chains

Abstract

This chapter explores the uncertainties associated with today’s highly interdependent supply chains and the risks inherent their geographic dispersion and organizational fragmentation. It first lays out the sources of risk and their potential consequences to the corporations who are supply chain owners, orchestrators, or customers; workers engaged in the global production system; entrepreneurs and larger firms who comprise the supply chains; and the regions and nations whose workers and firms make up the supply chain. It then considers how these risks can be mitigated and/or assigned to various parties in line with their comparative advantage. It concludes with a discussion of which risks are likely to be relatively well managed through the self-interest of the affected parties and which require concerted action across classes of actors.

Keywords: Global supply chains, global value chains, supply chain risk

JEL Classification: D81