The data were gathered qualitatively via semi-structured interviews. The next step was to begin the data structure building for each of these six cases, following the Gioia method (Langley and Abdallah, 2011; Gioia et al., 2012; Gehman et al., 2018). To each case, we applied the Gioia method to create data structures (Langley and Abdallah, 2011; Gioia et al., 2012; Gehman et al., 2018). The researchers met weekly from June 2020 until February 2021 to discuss and analyze the coded data. The dataset included a collection of social media posts on LinkedIn, trade journal articles, and company press releases.

• The second theme includes the collection of concerns about some SCF solutions.
• While this company integrated services in its own offering, other companies integrated across their company boundaries.
• It is extensively noticed that although various financing sources are available today; issue in choosing the proper one in order to decrease the cost of capital investment with the most effectiveness, still remain in supply chains.
• Initially, future studies should pay more attention to the formation and dynamics of the SCF ecosystem.

4. Case 4: Interactions between physical and financial SC actors

They then published the maps to the buyers and suppliers across the SC. The U.S. Treasury Department provided direct loans to buyers and suppliers through paycheck protection programs (PPP). Through a stimulus package, central banks supported SCF practices and saved them from collapse. Several banks have run into difficulties and had to adapt their lending practices, for instance, by reprioritizing credit lines. The rating agencies accused SCF of providing a way for companies to conceal financial stress. Overall, regulatory and governmental agency actors were firing on all cylinders to control and help the financial SCA.

They did so by invoking the countercyclical capital buffer that banks use to help alleviate market downturns. It was as if the governments were saying, “help us help you, so you can help them.” Encouraging targeted banks to extend loans to troubled companies. If anything, they were promoting the banks and fintechs to voluntarily provide liquidity in SCs.

• In total, 4027 scientific documents were retrieved from the Scopus database.
• Alibaba offered on their online marketplace an innovative solution through which small buyers could also enjoy late payments (i.e., 60-day payment terms) that would have been reserved for large buyers with leverage.
• The latter was mainly observable in cases where some liquidity reserves were available.
• The demand for SCF solutions triggered by COVID-19 affected the financial SCA in many different ways.
• The uncertainty and financial instability that has plagued companies and industries in the last decade is one of the root causes behind the development of Supply Chain Finance (SCF), a set of schemes aiming to optimise the management of financial flows at the supply chain level.
• A US-based fintech was cited by the Australian government for using AI to compute how much it can “squeeze” suppliers.

Our emergent model consists of three large sections—the locus of interventions, patterns of activities, and interactions across sets of actors. Next, we look across all six data structures presented previously to create a grounded theoretic model (Corley and Gioia, 2004; Gioia et al., 2012; Villena and Gioia, 2018). Regional development banks (i.e., Asian DB) have proactively engaged in the trade of medical and pharmaceutical goods.

The supply chain financing ecosystem: Early responses during the COVID-19 crisis

At the core, the SCF community consists of buyers and suppliers, we add LSPs, and call them the physical SCA (Case 1). These cases emerged from our data analyses, with additional actors not demonstrated in our initial Fig. These data structures are then used to create our grounded theoretical model for the SCF ecosystem.

During COVID-19, this utilization of SCF as a tool to strengthen suppliers has clearly become visible in its criticality to the firms’ survival and well-being. All in all, the patterns of activities in the SCF ecosystem form the core of the grounded theoretical model and can be expressed with the question “what? We would expect governmental agencies to retain a relevant role in the SCF ecosystem in the coming years as we anticipate continuing major disruptions (Flyvbjerg, 2020).

Previous studies used the agency theory framework (Eisenhardt, 1989) to reduce SCR and improve OP through SCF management. In addition, (Hofmann & Belin, 2011) claimed that SCF can be seen as a strategy to enhance working capital, that reduces Supply Chain Risk and boosts Organisation Performance of enterprises. In doing so, it becomes apparent that an explicit examination and optimisation of the cost of capital has been missing so far.

The SCF ecosystem then provided funding to companies with liquidity needs. In the course of uncovering the SCF business service ecosystem, the essence of SCF has come to the fore. The desperate need for liquidity and the lack of other solutions fully up to the task of keeping SCs gave rise to the SCF ecosystem. Some major companies had established reverse factoring programs as a way to reduce their reliance on outside funding, and there were a growing number of companies offering services.

Supply Chain Finance as an emergent and currently, one of the most viable and plausible financing procedural instruments is not a new conceptual framework. This paper builds on the increasing body of research and practice that suggests trading firm-optimized for supply chain optimized performance reduces overall cost and improves customer value. Furthermore, it appears that suppliers are hesitant to adopt Supply Chain Finance because there is little evidence of the actual cost savings and its benefits. This research has particular relevance in the light of the disruptions that the global credit crunch has brought to global financial systems, and the changes that are likely as responses to these disruptions. This paper explores current models and practice regarding the dynamics of financial flows along global supply networks.

APPENDIX C. Time spent on the various activities

The goal was to inject liquidity into banks, so they can lend more money. They required their local banks to lend money to SMEs that included what they called micro-businesses. Regulatory and governmental agency actors tried to help the financial SCA do their part to keep SCs as healthy as possible. In particular, the Australian government was preventing fintechs from supporting big buying companies mistreating smaller suppliers with unilateral term extensions beyond 30 days during COVID-19.

Data availability

They also include quasi-governmental regulatory organizations such as central banks. The third level consists of the regulatory and governmental agency actors, including governments, regulatory agencies, and credit rating agencies. As SCF solutions providers, this group created opportunities, as discussed in Case 2.

A bibliometric review of supply chain finance and digitalisation: mapping, current streams, and future research agenda

We have also been able to learn how FSPs helped some buyers establish new ways to extend payables. Thus, a new type of phenomenon involving the use of new technologies, such as blockchain, known as “deep-tier financing,” was increasingly gaining traction. The data structure presented in Table 7shows how we arrived at a total of four 2nd-order themes from the 17 1st-order categories. In the fourth case, we took a closer look at the collective activities of fintechs and banks. Thereby, the buyer would take short-term loans to pay their suppliers but gain from their suppliers’ discounts.

Table 3.

During the crisis, even FSPs received support from governmental agencies. While this theoretical contribution is not novel, this research supports the need for ability to generate liquidity. It was as if the COVID-19 crisis unveiled the curtain and the fourth purpose of SCs came to light. Instead, it could be described as a community of actors that were loosely related to each other. Before the A Contribution to the SCF Literature pandemic, it was a growing area of finance, but also one that was relatively obscure.

Both fintechs and banks have implemented numerous initiatives during the crisis to strengthen the SC’s liquidity situation. While this company integrated services in its own offering, other companies integrated across their company boundaries. As the COVID-19 crisis drew attention to the payment extension programs at buying companies, the regulatory and governmental agency actors voiced concern about the classification of SCF activities on books. Many of them decided to finance stimulus packages to encourage goods and services to move across SCs.

Newswire services reported the widespread impact of the COVID-19 crisis on organizations and their SCs worldwide. For example, buying companies benefit from the fact that other competitors have already introduced SCF practices with the same suppliers. The SCF ecosystem as an example of a business service ecosystem shows four main characteristics that we draw upon.

Thereby, the SCF community exhibited both business and innovation ecosystems traits in the crisis (Adner, 2006). So, this new purpose of the SC is to utilize the SC to fund the organization, and, using the organization’s financial strength (i.e., lower cost of capital) to help fund suppliers. It is usually not small suppliers that take the lead, but either large buying companies or banks and fintechs. In supply chain finance transactions at the operational level, different actors in the supply chain will take the lead. They then joined in the SCF solutions by providing data and connect their IT systems with those of the service providers.

Then, we have regulatory and governmental agency actors controlling and helping the FSC activities (see Case 5). Most immediately, the financial SCA’ impact what these physical SCA do. Overall, governments actively conducted economic policies, including SCF practices. For instance, regulatory agencies pledged monetary stimuli and set up intermediaries to release liquidity.

For example, the governments’ behavior was not only intended to create confidence in the financial markets. The activities undertaken by governments during the crisis extended further than usual. More broadly, governments intervened in the pandemic to calm financial markets. The first theme addresses the concerns expressed about SCF practices during COVID-19.