Facoltà: Ingegneria Gestionale - classe LM-31
Collocazione: 19838
Autore: Valeriani Maria Francesca
Data: 20/12/2021
Titolo: Sharing economy solutions for sustainable and resilient supply chains
Relatore: Creazza Alessandro
Correlatore: Dallari Fabrizio
Autorizzazione per la consultazione: SI
Le tesi si possono consultare unicamente in sede
Purpose After the Covid-19 pandemic and with the need to be sustainable, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies need to understand if sharing economy solutions can be the answer to find a way towards for the new normal. The objective of the study is to research sharing economy solutions applied to FMCG supply chains (SCs) to improve sustainability in its three dimensions (environmental, social and economic) and resilience. In particular, the study aims to investigate the sustainability and resilience benefits associated with the solutions and the related enabling factors. Methodology The first part of the methodology consists in a literature review to define the objectives by formulating targeted review questions. The scope of the literature research focused on aspects related to characteristics of resilience, sustainability and sharing economy solutions adopted by FMCG SCs. Given the large number of papers, a skimming operation was carried out and this led to the inclusion of 32 articles. In addition to the 32 articles, other texts have been added to provide further insights through a cross-referencing approach. The second part of the methodology, chosen to achieve the objective of this work, is a qualitative approach, based on semi-structured interviews with managers of a sample of companies operating in the FMCG sector. This methodology was chosen to report on concrete cases and to delve deeper in the analysis of benefits and enabling factors of sharing economy solutions. Findings The analysis of the literature review revealed that not all sharing economy solutions are applicable to the FMCG SCs. Moreover, not all papers analysed clearly report on the benefits in terms of sustainability in the three dimensions and resilience. From the analysis of the cases, the benefits in terms of sustainability and resilience, as well as the enabling factors of these solutions, are multiple and interconnected. In particular, it can be seen that the benefits have different facets or how the enabling factors can relate to different business aspects. It is clear that companies are able to successfully adopt several sharing economy solutions at the same time, but their first objective is to achieve economic sustainability. The analysed sharing economy solutions allow monitoring and control of the systems. By collecting data, which is done for all solutions, it is possible for actors to monitor activities and identify critical factors. Implications The study contributes to drawing attention to sharing economy solutions within FCMG SCs, decreasing misinformation on the concepts of collaboration and sharing economy. Furthermore, the thesis enriches the literature on the topic of benefits and enabling factors related to this type of sharing economy solutions. The study brings together the proactive and reactive aspects of resilience. Conclusion and future developments The pandemic was an opportunity for many companies to reach a new level of awareness of the importance of risk prediction and responsiveness to unexpected events. Moreover, this period brought companies even closer to the sensitive issues of sustainability, fostering a focus on its three dimensions. The creation of a network comprising companies of different types fosters the ability to limit dependence on own assets and resources and on other companies, thus favouring the application of these types of solutions. It is suggested to further investigate sharing economy solutions also in other sectors and extending to B2C and C2C channels. Furthermore, it could be very interesting to build tools to support managerial decisions in choosing the most appropriate sharing economy solutions for business needs.
