Tracing Bad Products in Supply Chains: The Roles of Temporality, Supply Chain Permeation, and Product Information Ambiguity

To minimize negative consequences, bad products must be removed quickly once found within supply chains. This makes traceability—the ability to track the flow of a product—a key issue. Unfortunately, firms struggle to create traceability and little interdisciplinary research has been conducted in this area. Accordingly, we conducted a grounded theory investigation that transcends functional and organizational boundaries. Although past literature tends to consider a firm's ability to trace products as one‐dimensional and inherently good or bad, we find that a firm's ability to trace products varies based on contextual factors. Specifically, our study reveals that traceability is hindered by temporality (i.e., time pressures that strain a firm's ability to track products), supply chain permeation (i.e., supply chain flow characteristics that represent the degree of bad product infiltration), and product information ambiguity (i.e., product characteristics that create vagueness about what to trace). We provide prescriptive advice about how firms can overcome these traceability barriers and thus enhance their ability to identify and recall tainted products. Broadly, our findings support the need to manage traceability from a nuanced approach and to seek boundary‐spanning supply chain solutions.