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Purpose Healthcare supply chains (HCSCs) face severe challenges when compared to regular chains. Besides avoiding bankruptcy, they must accomplish their goal which is to save lives. Since 2019 the COVID-19 pandemic evidenced that a HCSC disruption generates disruptions to other SCs. Therefore, the objective of this paper is threefold: conduct a systematic literature review to build a HCSC operational excellence (HSCOE) definition; build a conceptual framework by mapping the antecedents of HSCOE and formulate hypotheses; test the hypotheses using a fuzzy-Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) combined with partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) techniques to obtain empirical validation. Design/methodology/approach Given this context, this paper conducted a systematic literature review to build a HSCOE conceptual framework and used a fsQCA combined with PLS-SEM techniques to obtain empirical validation. Findings The paper revealed a relationship between important variables to achieve HSCOE, such as Supply chain 4.0, SC risk management, SC integration, SC resilience (antecedents) and HSCOE (consequent). Originality/value The literature contributions of this paper are as follows: validating a new scale for each of the constructs; finding evidence of the causal relationships between the latent variables; measuring how the constructs influence the HSCOE; in addition, the results address important literature gaps identified by researchers and serve as a guide to organizations that need to implement these practices. Furthermore, this study recommends that HCSC managers consider the implementation of robust initiatives concerning the latent variables presented in this work.
Senna et al. (Wed,) studied this question.