Enhancing Supply Chain Resilience and Sustainability: Integrating Big Data, AI, and Blockchain through a Relational Competence Lens

Abstract

The complexities of modern supply chains, exacerbated by global disruptions and increasing sustainability demands, necessitate a multifaceted integration of advanced technologies with relational management practices. This article presents a conceptual and theoretical exploration of how relational competencies — trust, transparency, communication, and inter-organizational collaboration — interact with emerging technologies such as Big Data analytics, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), and Blockchain to enhance supply chain resilience and sustainability. By synthesizing insights from seminal works on relational supply chain management (Wieland & Wallenburg, 2013), reviews on Big Data and analytics in product lifecycle and supply chain contexts (Ren et al., 2019; Wang et al., 2016; Dubey et al., 2016), studies on AI adoption in supply chains (Brintrup & Kito, 2020; Cole & Lee, 2021; Tran-Dang & Van, 2022), and foundational research on Blockchain’s role in supply chains (Fang & Xiang, 2020; Sternberg & Baruffaldi, 2018; Kshetri, 2018), this study proposes an integrated framework: Relationally–Enabled Tech‑Augmented Resilient Supply Chain (RE‑TARSC). The framework theorizes how relational competencies moderate and mediate the effectiveness of technology deployment, impacting both resilience and sustainability outcomes. The analysis identifies mechanisms by which relational factors enable data sharing, trust in AI-driven decision-making, and adoption of transparent blockchain-based processes. The paper concludes with propositions for empirical testing, discusses limitations, and outlines future research directions.