Vaccine Allocation and Distribution: A Review with a Focus on Quantitative Methodologies and Application to Equity, Hesitancy, and COVID-19 Pandemic

This review focuses on vaccine distribution and allocation in the context of the current COVID-19 pandemic. The implications discussed are in the areas of equity in vaccine distribution and allocation (at a national level as well as worldwide), vaccine hesitancy, game-theoretic modeling to guide decision-making and policy-making at a governmental level, distribution and allocation barriers (in particular in low-income countries), and operations research (OR) mathematical models to plan and execute vaccine distribution and allocation. To conduct this review, we adopt a novel methodology that consists of three phases. The first phase deploys a bibliometric analysis;the second phase concentrates on a network analysis;and the last phase proposes a refined literature review based on the results obtained by the previous two phases. The quantitative techniques utilized to conduct the first two phases allow describing the evolution of the research in this area and its potential ramifications in future. In conclusion, we underscore the significance of operations research (OR)/management science (MS) research in addressing numerous challenges and trade-offs connected to the current pandemic and its strategic impact in future research. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

The impact of digital transformation on supply chains through e-commerce: Literature review and a framework

One of the profound impacts of digitalization on supply chains is manifested through e -commerce. The latter has significantly grown during the last two decades, with further amplifications during the COVID-19 pandemic. This has created operational and policy making challenges for firms when deciding about how best to manage the resulting growth in e -commerce. While the impact of e-commerce on supply chains has been widely recognized in the literature, there was no effort to systematically review the literature, conceptualize some of the challenges and propose future research directions. This paper fills this gap by reviewing 153 publications from 1999 to 2019. We classify the reviewed literature based on which supply chain drivers were investigated, as well as, the employed research methodology. In addition, we conduct network and content analysis to uncover the main research themes and potential research directions namely, developing analytical centred;modelling based ecosystem for environment;leveraging data mining to enhance sustainability;balance between growth and sustainability;consumer demand and uncertainty;coordination in e-commerce logistics;last mile alternatives and cost management of innovative technique implementations. Furthermore, based on our literature review, we propose a conceptual framework where we interlink supply chain stages with a firm's business strategy, digital transformation strategy and performance.