RESEARCH PAPER Supply chain management in emerging economies Balram Avittathur . Jayanth Jayaram Published online: 23 April 2016 Ó Indian Institute of Management Calcutta 2016 Abstract This introductory article of the special issue on supply chain management in the emerging economies attempts to categorize the research that exists in the field and identify the areas of potential research opportunities in supply chain management within the context of emerging economies. Specifi- cally, we note that (i) few studies have been conducted at the supply chain level; (ii) few studies have looked at supply chain practices in the context of emerging economies; and (iii) a significant gap exists on how cultural and infrastructural issues could influence the performance of supply chains in emerging economies in comparison with what exists in developed econo- mies. The articles selected for the special issue are summarized, implications of the findings of these articles are synthesized, and some recommendations for future research in this field are offered. Keywords Supply chain management Á Emerging economies Á Research opportunities Introduction With the emergence of economies like Brazil, China and India in the center stage of the global economy, lot of focus in media and academic literature have shifted to these countries. By 2001 when Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs coined the term BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China), which later became BRICS to include South Africa, the emerging economies were elevated to a greater level of economic respectability from the ‘developing economies’ tag that they had been granted till then. Their share of the world GDP increased from about 31 % in 1980 to 50.4 % in 2013 according to IMF data, though they account for about 85 % of the world population. China is today the second largest economy in the world and is the largest on purchasing power parity. India has recently over- taken China as the fastest growing large economy. The emergence of these economies is already altering the dynamics within global supply chains. Significant parts of supply chains are now located in emerging economies. Strategic supply chain programs such as lean management and agility, which have yielded considerable benefits for supply chain pro- cesses in developed countries, are now being adopted in other countries as well. These changes suggest new implications for designing supply chains, particularly from the point of view of emerging economies (Fine 1998). Supply chain challenges have become even more acute given that customers and suppliers of firms B. Avittathur (&) OM Group, Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, D.H. Road, Joka, Kolkata 700 104, India e-mail: balram@iimcal.ac.in J. Jayaram Department of Management Science, Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208, USA e-mail: jayaram@moore.sc.edu 123 Decision (June 2016) 43(2):117–124 DOI 10.1007/s40622-016-0130-8