Understanding Resilience of Logistics Management in Multinational Corporations

Abstract

Multinational corporations (MNCs) operate logistics systems that span heterogeneous regulatory regimes, infrastructure qualities and disruption profiles, making logistics resilience a strategic rather than purely operational concern. This paper reports an integrative, evidence-informed literature review that examines why MNCs must invest systematically in logistics resilience, how logistics resilience is conceptually distinct from vulnerability and from broader supply chain resilience and how resilience can be measured, modelled and governed across cross-border operations. Building on a transparent, protocol-driven search and selection strategy, the review synthesizes interdisciplinary scholarship from resilience theory, organizational studies, supply chain and logistics management, disaster risk reduction and sustainability research and extends this synthesis with recent empirical evidence specifically addressing multinational, cross-border and institutionally heterogeneous logistics contexts. The analysis identifies structural, technological, organizational-relational and external-contextual determinants of resilience; traces the mediating role of information visibility and dynamic capabilities; and shows how institutional environments and regulatory heterogeneity moderate the transferability of resilience strategies across borders. The paper concludes with a phased implementation roadmap, a set of theoretical and practical contributions, an explicit statement of review limitations and a research agenda emphasizing longitudinal, multi-institutional and psychometrically validated inquiry into logistics resilience for MNCs.