Mapping social media engagement in the food supply chain

Abstract

The growth of digitalisation has fundamentally changed the interaction between food suppliers, consumers, and governments. Despite recognition of its significance by practitioners and academics, social media engagement in the food supply chain has yet to be thoroughly investigated in the extant literature and is grappling with issues such as food quality, food safety, and food waste. This paper presents a review aimed at mapping research on social media engagement in the food supply chain. The contribution of this review is threefold. First, we apply a bibliometric analysis to identify four overarching thematic clusters in the literature inspired by findings from semi-structured interviews. Second, integrative frameworks for examining patterns and trends within the research topic are developed, enabling the identification of new research questions. Third, in contrast to traditional literature reviews, we incorporate practical needs and insights into our future research projections. Full paper available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2023.122547

Keywords: Social media engagement, Food supply chain, Digital foodwork, Bibliometric analysis, Relevance-driven review