Abstract:
Reverse logistics has become a significant green supply chain management practice
and has attracted the attention of many researchers. Implementation of reverse
logistics in any supply chain is challenged by contrasting barriers with diverse
implications on the supply chain, hindering reverse logistics performance. Numerous
studies have been carried out under diverse contexts to identify and analyze barriers.
However, the majority of these studies are based on the contexts of developed
countries, and only a few studies have been found from the context of countries with
developing economies. It was identified that a research gap exists in identifying and
evaluating the barriers for reverse logistics from the context of developing countries.
To address the research gap, this paper identifies and analyses the occurrence of
critical barriers reported by the studies from the developing countries and provides
a comprehensive summary of frequently highlighted and prioritized barriers from
those studies. The paper identified that every developing country has a similar set of
critical barriers under the identified barrier domains: knowledge and awareness
barriers, technology and infrastructure barriers, economic and market-related
barriers, legal and policy barriers, and management-related barriers. The barriers
were classified as internal and external barriers, and through the evaluation, it was
recognized that firms should tackle their internal barriers first to implement return
management. Through identified barriers, the paper has presented a conceptual
model including key factors to be considered when implementing reverse logistics
providing valuable insights for future studies on reverse logistics.
