BARRIERS FOR IMPLEMENTING REVERSE LOGISTICS IN SUPPLY CHAINS IN COUNTRIES WITH DEVELOPING ECONOMIES: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF LITERATURE

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.