Role of digital supply chain capabilities in streamlining regionalization initiatives

Abstract

This study examines how digital supply chain capabilities (IoT, blockchain, etc.) streamline firms' regionalization initiatives. The study adopts a rigorous qualitative, cross-industry research design. Forty semi-structured interviews were conducted with managers from 11 manufacturing firms (4 pharmaceuticals, 4 food and beverage and 3 electronics firms). Participating firms were in the initial-to-mid stage of regionalizing their supply chain operations. The cross-industry analysis reveals that the reported regionalization outcomes/benefits are enabled through digitally embedded information-processing and evidence-production routines rather than geographic proximity alone. The data analysis revealed six reported outcomes across three industries, including enhanced resilience (recoverability), stronger supplier ecosystem, ESG outcomes, quality compliance and switching flexibility, revenue protection and market access. The data also revealed mechanisms leading to these outcomes, including reduced data-to-decision latency, coordinated response routines, traceability and audit-ready documentation, digital quality governance, reusable qualification, data-driven communication, continuity signalling and structured exception/assurance communication, amongst others. This study develops theory from a qualitative sample of 40 interviews and is therefore not intended to produce statistically generalizable findings. In addition, because the participating firms were in the initial-to-mid stages of their regionalization initiatives, reported outcomes were still emerging rather than fully realized or measurable. The findings should therefore be interpreted as explaining the mechanisms through which digital supply chain capabilities support regionalization rather than as providing definitive evidence of long-term performance effects. Managers can use the identified mechanisms to design regionalization programmes around faster exception communication, reusable qualification evidence and audit-ready traceability routines. The results also guide industry-specific priorities such as compliance evidence cycles in pharmaceuticals, qualification/engineering information integration in electronics and information-enabled cold-chain control loops in food and beverage. Prior regionalization research mainly treats digitalization as technology adoption, offering limited process-level insight into how digital supply chain capabilities bolster regionalization. This study advances the literature by theorizing digital supply chain capability (DSSC) as a set of information-processing and evidence-production mechanisms that explain regionalization outcomes under varying regulatory intensity, technological specificity and perishability.