Flexible Green Supply Chain Management in Emerging Economies: A Systematic Literature Review

The purpose of this research is to synthesize the fragmented extant knowledge on flexible and green supply chain management (FGSCM) in the context of emerging economies and to unearth research gaps to motivate future research. We adopted a novel structured systematic literature review by triangulating a systematic literature review, text mining, and network analysis. Institutional theory and contingency theory were employed to analyze the results of the review. The results show that, firstly, research on FGSCM in emerging economies, despite its importance, is immature compared to general FGSCM literature. Second, the specificities of strategies and practices that distinguish this topic in emerging economies are discussed and the drivers and barriers are identified with respect to sources of institutional pressure. Third, a research framework for FGSCM in emerging economies is developed and 12 gaps for future research are identified. This study has exclusively developed a research framework for FGSCM in an emerging economy which has received the least consideration in the literature and practice. The framework was developed to synthesize the existing literature and to identify the research gaps to inspire future research.


Introduction
Economic growth and consumerism have placed greater demands for energy and material consumption, resulting in increased concerns for environmental and natural resource preservation (Jia et al., 2018). Environmental issues are prime concerns for global economies due to global warming, increased pollution and depleting non-renewable resources (Malviya & Kant, 2015). Supply chain advancements since the 1990s introduced a new perspective that integrates environmental management within business operations to achieve a competitive advantage (Srivastava, 2007). Moreover, dissemination of flexibility from the manufacturing sector to the interorganizational and supply chain level created exciting, yet under-researched, opportunities for supply chain flexibility (Singh et al., 2020a(Singh et al., , 2020bStevenson & Spring, 2007;Wadhwa & Rao, 2004).
Globalization resulted in increased demand for various products in the mid-twentieth century forcing global organizations to enter into new contexts of production where they had never operated before (Rajeev et al., 2017). The geographic extension of the supply chain resulted in more than 20% of the greenhouse gas to be emitted by organizations venturing on global platforms, due to the increased complexity of the sourcing and distribution channels as well as the socio-economic conditions of different countries (Dubey et al., 2017). Globalization not only created concerns vis-à-vis the ecological impact of supply chains, but also affected recent supply chain disruptions due to the Covid-19 pandemic. From this, it was established that the supply chain must be built flexibly to survive in volatile environments (Butt, 2021;Stevenson & Spring, 2007).
Growing environmental concerns and stringent environmental laws in developed countries have driven global companies to outsource the most polluting segments of their businesses to developing nations (Dwivedi et al., 2021;Garcia-Saravia Ortiz-de-Montellano & van der Meer, 2022;Geng et al., 2017aGeng et al., , 2017b. Among developing countries, emerging economies (e.g., Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, known as BRICS) are prime targets of multinational corporations due to a large consumer base, relatively disposable income, rapid industrialization, diversity of supply base, availability of skilled workforce, and lower operating costs (Tumpa et al., 2019). Emerging economies welcome foreign direct investment and benefit directly from globalization. This shift of location, however, has increased environmental concerns in emerging nations as well as the need for stricter environmental and social standards (Geng et al., 2017a(Geng et al., , 2017b. On the other side, focal supply chain firms understood that the shift to emerging economies, despite the lower operating costs and new markets, involves unforeseen risks, which are specific to these countries. These risks can be mitigated only if the supply chain is proactive and if flexibility is built in supply chains in advance (Settembre-Blundo et al., 2021;Tukamuhabwa et al., 2017).
Recently, supply chain flexibility is becoming an attractive area of research for researchers and academicians (Singh et al., 2020a(Singh et al., , 2020b. There is some research in this area, such as by Singh et al., (2020aSingh et al., ( , 2020b, who focus on measuring the performance of supply chain flexibility of an Indian soap manufacturing firm. Another research by Singh et al., (2020aSingh et al., ( , 2020b focuses on mapping the causal relations among various supply chain flexibility dimensions and their impact on the Indian hygiene industry. However, there is limited research in the context of flexible green supply chain management (FGSCM). Research on FGSCM in emerging economies has been limited due to the contextual specificities of these countries such as the uncertainty inherent in their business environment and poor infrastructure to deal with sustainability issues (Silvestre, 2015;Singh et al., 2020aSingh et al., , 2020b. For example, 90% waste in India is dumped in the environment due to the lack of waste treatment and disposal facilities (Soda et al., 2015). Western corporates widely source from these manufacturers and service providers due to the availability of cheap labor and material. However, they have limited understanding of the context and poor visibility over the operational practices of their supply chains in such emerging economies (Rosin et al., 2020;Singh et al., 2019Singh et al., , 2020aSingh et al., , 2020b. Consequently, they are subject to scandals such as the Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh and enduring criticisms of overlooking environmental issues in their supply chain operations carried out in emerging economies (Bin Makhashen et al., 2020). Moreover, supply chain environmental issues exacerbated by disruptions in the recent pandemic have shown that sustainability and flexibility should be considered jointly in supply chain management, a need that has not been addressed in the literature hitherto (Paul & Chowdhury, 2020;Sassanelli & Terzi, 2022;Shibin et al., 2016).
Our initial review of the literature on FGSCM identifies the following gaps: (a) Limited research has been conducted on FGSCM in the context of emerging economies, despite the increasing trend of operations and procurement from these countries (Singh et al., 2019(Singh et al., , 2020a, 2020b) (b) Despite the interconnectedness of flexibility and environmental sustainability in the supply chain management context, the literature has investigated these topics separately. (c) Existing frameworks for flexible or green supply chain management fall short of utility for emerging economies due to inherently different characteristics of the business environment in these countries. (d) While some systematic literature reviews in emerging economies have been conducted on flexible or green supply chain management barriers Shibin et al., 2016;Tumpa et al., 2019) and organizational performance (Geng et al., 2017a(Geng et al., , 2017b, the literature scants systematic reviews that unearth the specificities and the sources of institutional pressures in emerging economies.
This review seeks to bridge these gaps by conducting a systematic literature review on FGSCM in emerging economies and addressing the following interrelated research questionsi. What is the status quo of FGSCM research in emerging economies? ii. What are the specificities of FGSCM strategies and practices in emerging economies? iii. What are the sources of institutional pressure, i.e., drivers and barriers, to adopt FGSCM strategies and practices in emerging economies? iv. How can the extant body of knowledge inform future research on FGSCM in emerging economies?
This article responds to the calls for further work on the FGSCM in emerging economies by proposing an innovative methodology that triangulates data from eclectic methods through a systematic literature review, text mining, and network analysis supported by two organizational theories for the cross-validation of findings and to eliminate subjectivity from the selection and review process. Three contributions to the literature of supply chain management are made. First, this article brings together the interrelated, yet separate, research developments in flexibility and environmental sustainability in supply chain management in emerging economies within the past 20 years. Second, it juxtaposes the FGSCM strategies and practices in emerging economies with the ones from the general literature, and thus unearths the contextual specificities of emerging economies using a contingency theory lens. Third, it identifies the sources of pressures that motivate or hinder FGSCM in emerging economies using institution theory to help policy makers advocate for FGSCM drivers and tackle the barriers.
The rest of this article is organized as follows. Section 2 presents the research design, theoretical perspectives, and the methodology used for the systematic literature review. Section 3 presents the results of a systematic literature review and provides infographics of the important trends found in the literature. Section 4 provides a thematic analysis of the results by identifying the strategies, practices, barriers, and enablers of FGSCM in emerging economies and comparing them against general FGSCM literature using the theoretical perspectives. Section 5 unearths the research gaps for future research and develops a research framework for FGSCM in emerging economies. Finally, Sect. 6 concludes the paper and provides the limitations.

Research Design and Methodology
This section describes the research design, including the methodology, theoretical underpinning, and analysis approaches. The research gap, as discussed in Sect. 1, is where flexible SCM, green SCM, and SCM in emerging economies overlap. Motivated by this research gap, our proposed methodology triangulates different approaches to extract, analyze, and synthesize extant literature on FGSCM in emerging economies. It combines a systematic literature review, text mining, and network analysis to identify, evaluate, and synthesize the existing research (Denyer & Tranfield, 2009). An eclectic theoretical underpinning of contingency theory and institutional theory is adopted throughout the review. The methodology integrates the findings to build a theoretical framework for FGSCM in emerging economies. Figure 1 shows the research gap, theoretical lens, and the steps of the proposed methodology.

Theoretical Perspective
A combined contingency theory and institutional theory lens was used to interpret the selected articles and develop a research framework. Contingency theory (Lawrence & Lorsch, 1967) is a major theoretical lens that expresses different organizational systems are the results of differences in their operating context. Since one of the objectives of this research is to understand the specificities of FGSCM in emerging economies, it can serve as an appropriate theoretical lens to scrutinize the differences between FGSCM strategies and practices in developed and emerging economies. Furthermore, we considered drivers and barriers as sources of positive and negative pressures, respectively, on the firms to adopt FGSCM strategies and practices. We take an institutional theory perspective (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983) to identify the source of drivers and barriers in emerging economies and discern whether they emerged to comply with regulations (coercive), to copy competitors or cope with cultural cognitive pressures (mimetic), or if they are in response to customer pressure (normative).

Stages of the Methodology
The methodology started with a search in electronic databases to locate, select, and evaluate extant studies. First, relevant keywords were identified based on the internal discussion of authors, all of whom are academics with a background in supply chain and operations management. A corporate practitioner from India, experienced in FGSCM, was involved in the discussions at a later stage to ensure the viability of the keywords. The initial keywords were refined into series of search strings using Boolean logic, for example, ''Green AND/OR Supply Chain,'' and ''Emerging AND/OR Economy AND/OR Flexible AND/OR Supply Chain.'' Nearly synonymous keywords such as ''Developing Country'' or ''Sustainable/Ethical Supply Chain'' were also used. The search strings were continuously refined, resulting in 26 of the most relevant strings that were used to search data on Web of Science, Science Direct, ABI/INFORM and Emerald Insight. The following exclusion criteria, as proposed by Newbert (2007), were used to narrow the results down to those which were more relevant.
• Articles should be published in peer-reviewed scientific journals in English. • Only journals in the area of logistics, operations management, and supply chain management are included. • Articles should be published in the last 20 years. • Articles must contain at least one of the keywords in their title or abstract.
After reviewing the title, keywords, and abstract of the returned results, irrelevant articles were excluded and the rest of the articles were reviewed in their entirety, resulting in 108 articles shortlisted for the review. Table 1 shows the process of applying inclusion and exclusion criteria in detail and Fig. 2 summarizes Table 1. Figure 2 summarizes the total exclusion and remaining articles in each stage.
Next, to extract the key themes covered in the shortlisted articles, the text-mining technique was employed. The finalized articles from the previous stage were imported into NVivo12 for cross-validation. The articles were coded and categorized in terms of FGSCM conceptualization, operational impacts, strategies and practices, and drivers and barriers. All the authors were involved in coding and compiling the articles, which was later validated by an external researcher to ensure reproducibility of results and eliminating subjectivity. Text mining strengthened the validity and reliability of the selection process, including the finalized articles and the main themes. It also Fig. 1 The research design and methodology for the systematic literature review highlighted low values of relative frequencies as potential themes for future research.
Finally, to unearth the interconnection among the identified results, a network analysis was used. All major and minor categories and frequencies resulting from the previous stage were coded in a separate dataset and stored in NVivo12 for network analysis. Conducting a network analysis on this dataset identified the knowledge gaps of FGSCM in emerging economies and revealed the studies with higher interconnection. A combined contingency and institutional theory lens were used to synthesize the findings and develop a research framework.

Results of Systematic Literature Review
This section explains the stages of implementing the proposed research methodology and addressing the first research question on the status quo of FGSCM literature in emerging economies.

Phase I: Initial Search in Academic Databases
The concept of FGSCM gained its academic coverage in the 1990s (Fahimnia et al., 2015). However, most of the articles on FGSCM-related wider issues emerged after  2000 (Quarshie et al., 2016) followed by a sharp growth in academic publications afterward (Rafi-ul-Shan et al., 2018). Thus, the period used to conduct this review was determined to be from January 2000 to December 2021. Figures 3 compares the annual frequency of publications on general FGSCM and FGSCM in emerging economies indicating that, firstly, noticeably less research has been conducted on FGSCM in emerging economies and, secondly, the slope of increase is significantly lower for the latter.

Phase II: Text Mining
Conducting text mining using NVivo12 on the articles resulting from phase 1 facilitated visualization of the focus using word clouds as well as further analysis based on the industry sector, research methodology, and data analytics tools of the reviewed articles (Bin Makhashen et al., 2020). Figure 4 depicts the word cloud, highlighting the most frequently used words in the selected articles in bigger fonts, while other less frequent words appear in smaller fonts. A word cloud is a powerful visualization tool to identify common words in complex environments and facilitates unearthing dominant themes and keywords in a given context (Birko et al., 2015). The most frequently used words were ''green'' (word count: 5652), ''supply chain'' (4361), ''sustainable'' (4002), ''environmental'' (3794), ''flexible'' (3220), ''management'' (2431), and ''emerging'' (2187), followed by other keywords. The analysis of articles by industry sector suggests that the extant empirical research on FGSCM used various industrial sectors, as shown in Fig. 5. The top three industries were the manufacturing industry 11.2% (29 articles), electronics and electrical industries 10.42% (27 articles), and textile and apparel industry 8.88% (23 articles). A figure of 12% of reviewed articles (31 articles) did not disclose the industry. The reviewed articles were sorted based on the country on which the study focused. The results, shown in Table 2, reveal that India (43 articles) and China (38 articles) were by far the two highest-researched emerging economies.
The articles were also analyzed based on research methodologies. As shown in Fig. 6, quantitative and mathematical modeling prevailed, which is at odds with the general trend of FGSCM literature. Our findings are at odds with Ansari and Kant (2017) who found more case studies and empirical qualitative studies, but are supported by Rajeev et al. (2017) who found that GSCM lacks qualitative research in the context of emerging economies when compared to the developed economies. It implies the maturity of literature on FGSCM as compared to FGSCM in emerging economies. Since quantitative methods were prevailing, the articles were further analyzed based on the applied data analytical tools, as shown in Fig. 7. Among various analytical tools applied, interpretive structural modeling (ISM) with 13 articles was the most popular data analysis technique, followed by Fuzzy TOPSIS (12 articles) and sensitivity analysis with 11 articles.

Phase III: Network Analysis
The articles with at least one citation were selected from the final list of articles, and their objectives and key findings were scrutinized to conduct network analysis. A network analysis was conducted on these articles. The results are depicted in Fig. 8

Thematic Analysis of the Literature
This section provides an in-depth analysis of the selected articles from the systematic literature review. Firstly, FGSCM strategies and practices were extracted. Building upon the contingency theory, they were juxtaposed with the general literature of FGSCM to identify the contextual specificities of emerging economies (second research question). Secondly, the drivers and barriers of FGSCM in emerging economies were identified and categorized based on the source of institutional pressure using the institutional theory (third research question).

FGSCM Strategies and Practices
Many researchers attempted to identify and categorize FGSCM strategies and practices (e.g., Fang & Zhang, 2018;Nema et al., 2013;Srivastava, 2007; Singh et al., (2020aSingh et al., ( , 2020b, Singh et al. (2019), and Singh and Acharya (2013) that extensively focused on developing a framework for supply chain flexibility. However, it was noticed that FGSCM strategies and practices received the least consideration in literature and practice. Thus, we identified FGSCM strategies and practices from the selected articles and juxtaposed them with the ones from the general FGSCM literature using the contingency theory lens. The results, summarized in Table 3, reveal that there are significant disparities between FGSCM strategies and practices in emerging economies and developed countries. These specificities should be considered when devising a FGSCM strategy or implementing practice in an emerging economy.

FGSCM Drivers and Barriers
Organizations in emerging economies face various drivers and barriers to adopt FGSCM strategies and practices. These pressures originate from different internal (from within the organization) and external (from outside the organization) stakeholders. This review unearthed major drivers and barriers and analyzed the sources from which they originated. Drivers related to government and regulations were categorized as coercive pressure. Drivers motivated by competitors or the cultural environment were considered as mimetic pressures. When a driver pertained to customer or market, it was perceived as normative pressure. Similarly, where a barrier was related to lack of government regulations or support, it was categorized as coercive pressure, indicating that governments should increase their support or exert further pressure to address the barrier. The same holds for barriers assigned to mimetic and normative pressures. When a driver or barrier originated from the internal environment of a firm, e.g., management commitment to environmental training, it is considered as an internal driver or barrier. For the sake of simplicity, when the analysis found management support as a driver and lack of management support as a barrier, for instance, it was only mentioned once in the list of drivers. Tables 4 and 5 provide a summary of identified drivers and barriers, respectively. These tables spotlight the two major key drivers/barriers (internal and external) of FGSCM in emerging economies.

Toward a Research Framework for FGSCM in Emerging Economies
This section addresses the fourth research question about synthesizing the extant body of knowledge to inform future research on FGSCM in emerging economies. Firstly, it puts forward research gaps based on the findings of the systematic literature review. Next, it integrates the findings of the study and the research gaps to develop a research framework for FGSCM in emerging economies.

Research Gaps to Inspire Future Research
Overall, the results confirm the findings of previous research (Geng et al., 2017a(Geng et al., , 2017bSilvestre, 2015) about the dearth of research on FGSCM in emerging economies. Despite the calls and dire need from a practice perspective, the research shows only a modest increase in this area. This section identifies the research gaps to develop a research framework and motivate future research.

Purchasing and Supply Management
The analysis of the word cloud reveals that some important themes in FGSCM such as purchasing and supply management are overlooked in emerging economies. Further analysis of institutional pressures shows that these areas are particularly important because larger multinational organizations often exert their purchasing power to increase their profit share, rather than to drive suppliers in emerging economies toward sustainability and flexibility. Moreover, no studies, apart from Adhikari and Bisi (2020), were found to investigate the effect of different types of contracts on sustainability.
Gap 1: To further investigate green/flexible purchasing and supply management in emerging economies and particularly how supplier-buyer power imbalance influences mainstreaming sustainability and flexibility in supply chains.
Gap 2: To study the impact of contract terms and contract types, e.g., profit-sharing contracts or performance-based contracts on the sustainability and flexibility of firms in emerging economies.

Industry and Country Analysis
The analysis of industries and countries show while some industries such as manufacturing, electronics, and the apparel industry received the most attention, other industries such as the service sector, SMEs, nonprofits, and development organizations are overlooked. This is an important observation as smaller firms in emerging Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management (March 2023) 24(1):1-28 9 Diab et al.
Jabbour et al.
Jabbour et al.
Rafi-Ul-Shan et al. (2018) In light of weaker regulations, internal stakeholders in emerging economies such as firm owners play a greater role in green / flexible manufacturing and operations than external stakeholders such as governments In emerging economies, the production is more labor-oriented rather than technology-oriented which leads to higher sustainability risks In emerging economies, green/flexible production is determined mostly when the cost-benefit analysis indicates profitability Green logistic Corporate environmental strategies toward logistics, reduction of carbon emissions and the use of a greener fleet Using greener modes of transport Using fuel with less carbon intensity

Reduction of exhaust emission
Luthra et al.
Ali et al. (2016) In emerging economies, sustainability terms are barely included in the contracts of third-party logistics providers Due to unaligned objectives of different organizational functions, green logistics would not necessarily lead to improved cost performance in emerging economies SMEs in emerging economies have just recently started considering green logistics initiatives such as minimizing empty miles and better space utilizations Vijayvargy et al.
Bai and Sarkis (2010) Nishitani (2010) Due to lower awareness of customers in emerging economies about environmental issues, more information should be provided in product marketing as well as through product labels and leaflets In emerging economies, customer collaboration has a stronger impact on environmental performance, as compared to supplier collaboration In emerging economies, firms compete based on minimum environmental quality standards and low prices, rather than focusing on high environmental performance Luthra et al.
Silvestre (2015) Fang and Zhang In terms of flexibility, our analysis of the literature shows that while the research has transcended beyond manufacturing flexibility in developed economies, as highlighted by Stevenson and Spring, (2007) and , the interorganizational components of supply chain flexibility are still absent in emerging economies. In terms of countries, China and India received the greatest research attention while other emerging economies have been investigated less.
Gap 3: To investigate FGSCM in the service sector, SMEs, nonprofit and development supply chains in emerging economies Gap 4: To transcend research beyond firm level flexibility and account for interorganizational and supply chain flexibility in emerging economies Gap 5: To study FGSCM in less explored emerging economies such as Mexico, Russia, South Africa, and Turkey and to conduct comparative cross-country analysis with the extant studies in China and India.

Methodology and Theory
In terms of methodology, unlike the trend in general FGSCM literature where qualitative studies prevail (Ansari & Kant, 2017), the reviewed articles heavily used quantitative methods such as mathematical modeling (31%) and surveys (20%). Moreover, collaboration and action research aims at generating contextual knowledge (Coughlan & Coghlan, 2002), making it a perfect methodology to elaborate on the context of emerging economies. However, no participatory or action research methodologies were found during the review. In turn, the dearth of qualitative methods led to poor theory application and development. The review of Geng et al., (2017aGeng et al., ( , 2017b identified that the majority of articles in emerging economies had not specified any theory in the period 1996-2015. Our review supports their findings and postulates that in the period 2000-2020, insufficient theory development, testing, and elaboration still prevails.
Gap 6: To conduct case studies and participatory/action research and further theory application and development on FGSCM in emerging economies Silvestre (2015) Pakdeechoho and Sukhotu Focal firms in emerging economies are the main determinants of green/flexible innovation. It is less likely that other supply chain members take initiatives Governments of emerging economies offer less sustainability incentives to motivate firms for innovation In emerging economies, green / flexible innovations are mostly concentrated at the end of product life, e.g., to repurpose the used product or its components, while in developed countries green/flexible innovation is placed throughout the supply chain including at the product design level Green/flexible information system Designing energy efficient IT equipment Reducing data centers energy consumption Green et al.
Inadequate infrastructures in emerging economies such as internet access, fiber optic, and information technology knowledge limit the implementation and efficiency of green information systems and negatively impact supply chain flexibility

Context Specificity
Using the contingency theory lens helped to juxtapose the studies in general FGSCM with the ones in emerging economies (Table 3) and revealed that the contextual specificities in emerging economies reduce the slope of FGSCM evolution trajectory (supported by Silvestre, 2015). From the theoretical perspective, such specificities are the contingency factors in the context of an emerging economy that drive organizations to adopt different decisions vis-a-vis their operating context. Therefore, an interesting avenue for future research is studying how organizations, especially focal business firms, operating in emerging economies align their strategies and practices (response variables) to achieve a fit with these contingency factors (as context variables) to achieve more sustainable and flexible supply chains (as performance) (see: Sousa & Voss, 2008). Gap 7: To identify the specificities of emerging economies context, to explore how firms adjust their    Lorek and Spangenberg, Majumdar and Sinha (2019) Lack of skilled workforce for FGSCM Geng et al., (2017aGeng et al., ( , 2017b strategies and practices to cope with such specificities, and to assess the resulting flexibility and sustainability performance. Further comparison of the two contexts shows that in emerging economies, FGSCM strategies are often adopted only when they promise financial returns and are more likely to be abandoned if they fail in doing so (Esfahbodi et al., 2016), making proactive green strategy adoption less prevalent in emerging economies. Moreover, flexible reverse logistics, waste management, and green/flexible design were found to be the least developed strategies in emerging economies. The literature of FGSCM in developed countries can provide valuable insights for these areas.
As for other strategies, while present in both contexts, the implementation shows disparities. Customer collaboration in emerging economies leads to a stronger impact on environmental performance, as compared to supplier collaboration. Yet, studies on customer sustainability awareness in emerging economies are scarce. This motivates future research to explore strategies that improve customer collaboration and awareness in emerging economies. Furthermore, while research in developed countries indicates the positive impact of emerging technologies such as blockchain or industry 4.0 on FGSCM (Saberi et al., 2019), our review found no studies on the adoption of these technologies in emerging economies.
Gap 8: To study how to customize or transfer benchmark strategies and practices of flexible reverse logistics, waste management, and green/flexible design from developed countries to emerging economies.
Gap 9: To identify the strategies that improve customer collaboration and awareness in emerging economies and evaluate their impact on the flexibility and sustainability performance of firms.
Gap 10: To investigate the impact of emerging technologies and concepts such as blockchain, industry 4.0, 3D printing, and big data on FGSCM in emerging economies

Institutional Pressures
Identifying the sources of pressures on organizations that cause drivers or barriers on the path of FGSCM help managers to harness these pressures for mainstreaming FGSCM in emerging economies. The analysis presented in Tables 4 and 5 reveals more drivers and barriers related to the internal environment of firms, indicating that the (lack of) internal organizational support is an overriding (barrier) driver. This is in accordance with the findings of Jabbour et al. (2020) who expressed that company owners and shareholders are the most salient stakeholders to drive FGSCM in emerging economies. Little research, however, exists on the organizational functions and their impact on FGSCM in emerging economies.
Gap 11: To investigate the internal organizational factors, from a functional perspective, that impact the adoption of FGSCM strategies and practices in emerging economies By taking an institutional theory lens, this review identified coercive pressures from government and regulations as powerful sources of compliance. However, fewer drivers and barriers related to coercive pressures were found, compared to the ones related to mimetic and normative pressures. This is notwithstanding the findings of Jayaram and Avittathur (2015)  Our findings suggests that business firms in emerging economies increasingly earn legitimacy by copying successful FGSCM strategies and practices of other firms (mimetic isomorphism) or due to customer and market pressures (normative isomorphism). It can imply that FGSCM in emerging economies is moving from mere compliance with regulations (coercive isomorphism) as firms are under increasing pressures by competitors and customers to gain legitimacy and market sustainability through FGSCM strategies and practices.
Gap 12: To study the institutional pressures emanating from customers and competitors driving/impeding FGSCM strategies and practices in emerging economies

Developing a Research Framework of FGSCM in Emerging Economies
Developing research frameworks for flexible or sustainable SCM has been at the center of scholars' attention as these frameworks synthesize and illustrate the status quo and future directions in a concise and visualized, yet inclusive, manner. Some examples of such research frameworks are, inter alia, Seuring and Müller (2008), Sarkis et al. (2011), Dubey et al. (2015, Rajeev et al. (2017), Liao (2020), andCarter et al. (2021). However, our survey of the literature shows the paucity of combined flexible and sustainable SCM frameworks in the context of emerging economies. Hitherto, extant research frameworks focused merely on one aspect of FGSCM in emerging economies such as barriers and enablers (see Delmonico et al., 2018;Rahman et al., 2019;Tumpa et al., 2019), or investigated the impact of FGSCM strategies and practices on environmental performance (e.g., Esfahbodi et al., 2016;Geng et al., 2017aGeng et al., , 2017bLuthra & Mangla, 2018). The literature scants research frameworks that firstly delve into the specificities of emerging economies vis-à-vis combined flexible and sustainable SCM, and secondly inclusively synthesize strategies and practices, as well as drivers and barriers.
Our proposed research framework addresses these shortcomings. Firstly, it not only synthesizes FGSCM strategies and practices in emerging economies, but also it discerns the specificities of emerging economies using the contingency theory lens (Table 3). This helps managers and decision-makers to account for the contextual differences in emerging economies when devising their organizational strategies and practices. Secondly, the literature advocates that institutional pressures in emerging economies to adopt FGSCM strategies and practices are significantly different in emerging economies from developed countries (Raj et al., 2022). We have classified the identified drivers and barriers found from our systematic review, based on the source of pressure they originate using the institutional theory perspective (Tables 4 and 5). This classification deepens the understanding of policymakers about the institutional pressures in emerging economies and allows them to harness these pressures appropriately to promote FGSCM. Resulting from these observations, the research framework directs scholars to future research by identifying the main research gaps in the literature. The research framework is presented in Fig. 9.

Conclusion
Emerging economies are prime targets of global businesses and multinational corporations for the outsourcing of manufacturing while the in-house operations that satisfy domestic demand in these countries are also seeing sharp growth (Jayaram & Avittathur, 2015). This paper reviewed the literature within the past 20 years and proposed a strategic research framework of FGSCM in emerging economies to address the increasing pressures from different stakeholders and calls from scholars to study FGSCM in emerging economies.
The study set out a systematic literature review to identify the status quo of research on the topic. The methodology is novel in that it combines a systematic literature review, text mining, and network analysis to explore, analyze, and synthesize knowledge gaps in the research domain. The applied inclusion and exclusion Contingency theory perspective Green

Specificities of EE
-Dependence on internal stakeholders' G/F initiatives rather than government-led initiatives -Environmental risks of more labor-intensive processes -G/F production decisions based on profitability only -Absence of sustainability terms in third-party logistics providers' contracts -Unaligned objectives of organizational functions with logistics function -Immature green logistics implementation in SMEs -Less developed reverse logistics systems (in EE other than China) -Reactive (rather than proactive) approaches in acquiring green design standards -Lower governments' investment in waste management infrastructure -Lower awareness of customers about environmental issues -Customer collaboration has a stronger impact on environmental performance, as compared to supplier collaboration

Source of institutional pressure
Description of institutional pressure -Government regulations and incentives to promote FGSCM practices + -Corruption and bribery --Bureaucracy and intricate import-export regulations --Increased competition for G/F initiatives and adoption of FGSCM practices by suppliers and other supply chain partners + -Gaining competitive advantage over competitors by differentiation of products and services through G/F initiatives + -Weak collaboration among supply chain partners --Unavailability of third-party logistics providers to implement reverse logistics --Growing awareness among the customers for eco-friendly products + -Improving organizational image in the eyes of customers + -Lower customer demand and higher cost of for G/F products --Weak promotion of green products --Managers and employees' willingness, organizational culture, and organizational training about G/F products + -Unfit business models and organizational strategies to support FGSCM initiatives --Staff resistance to change to new practices supporting G/F products --Higher production costs of G/F products --Performance management systems considering financial measures only --Lack of appropriate technologies for G/F design, manufacturing, and recycling -  Fig. 9 The proposed research framework for FGSCM in emerging economies criteria, brainstorming sessions and crosschecks applied in consecutive steps contributed toward the selection quality of shortlisted articles and their subsequent analysis by limiting subjective biasness (Denyer & Tranfield, 2009). Text mining and network analysis of selected articles facilitated identifying networks of research articles dealing with particular aspects of FGSCM strategies and practices and showed that the extant empirical research articles in the research domain are fragmented. Two grand organizational theories were employed: contingency theory to distinguish the specificities of emerging economies context, and institutional theory to discern the sources of pressures on institutions that facilitate or hinder FGSCM in emerging economies. Using contingency theory revealed that contextual specificities reduce the slope of FGSCM in emerging economies and using institutional theory revealed that coercive pressures from governments and regulations are powerful sources of compliances.
Finally, a research framework was developed to synthesize the extant literature and to identify the research gaps to inspire future research. This framework will help managers and decision-makers to understand the contextual differences in emerging economies while planning their organizational strategies and practices. Furthermore, the classification of drivers and barriers deepens the understanding of policy makers about the institutional pressures in the emerging economies allowing them to promote FGSCM.
This study is not devoid of limitations; firstly, the systematic literature review did not include studies with a mere focus on social sustainability. Higher prevalence of issues such as worker exploitation, unfair wages, substandard working environment, gender discrimination, and child labor in emerging economies are imperative avenues for future research. Secondly, the systematic literature review was restricted to the period of 2000-2020, to four academic databases, and to the research published in English. Some more important articles might exist outside our search boundaries.

Appendix
See Table 6

India
To explore collaboration mechanism using greening costsharing and profit-sharing contracts for FGSCM in apparel industry It analyzes the bargaining process between the supply chain members for cost-sharing and profit-sharing contracts and investigates the impact of the fairness concern of the supply chain members on the greening and pricing decisions Jawaad and Zafar (2020) Pakistan To study the impact of FGSCM on firm performance with a mediating role of investment recovery and competitiveness FGSCM practices positive influence firm performance while investment recovery is a strong mediator between intra-organizational green activities and firm performance Rahman et al.
Bangladesh To identify and evaluate barriers of implementing FGSCM Using a Fuzzy-VIKOR approach the following barriers were identified in the plastic industry of Bangladesh: inadequate knowledge and support, insufficient technology and infrastructure, financial constraints and unsupportive organizational and operational policies Pinto et al.

BRICS
To explore and analyze the environmental management practices adopted by industries in BRICS countries in the period from 2011 to 2015 China, India and Brazil show a greater interest in disseminating research on environmental management issues whereas Russia and South Africa did not follow the same trend due to weaker environmental engagement Delmonico et al. (2018) Brazil Identifying the barriers to sustainable procurement in Brazil Five categories of barriers -organizational culture, motivation, economic uncertainty, market, and operations -were identified, out of which organizational culture is the most prominent one Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management (March 2023) 24(1):1-28

China
To examine the mediating effect of green product innovation between the regulatory pressures and firm performance including the moderating effect of environmental dynamism on the relationship between green production innovation and firm performance Environmental regulations have a positive impact on green product innovation whereas environmental dynamism has a relatively strong moderation effect on the relationship among green product innovation and cost efficiency Jabbour and Jabbour (2016) Brazil To propose a synergistic and integrative framework for the green human resources management (GHRM) and FGSCM relationship and to propose a research agenda for this integration It advocated GHRM-FGSCM integration from academic, managerial, and practical perspectives in the areas of organizational sustainability Prasad et al. (2016) India To investigate the applicability of lean and green practices to foundry industries in India It found that lean and green practices should be linked to enhance operational and environmental performance Feng et al. (2016aFeng et al. ( , 2016b China To examine how the relationship between environmental management systems and financial performance is moderated by switching cost, competitive intensity and their interaction The results show a positive relationship between environmental management systems and financial performance. This relationship effects negatively by switching cost and effects positively by competitive intensity Soundararajan and Brown (2016) India To examine the problems related to supplier facilities from a developing country supplier perspective Due to suppliers' traditions, beliefs, local demands and resource dependency, codes of conducts fail in practice in emerging economies. In order to improve practices, buyer-supplier collaboration and trust is required China and India, and Sweden To investigate the environmental management practices (EMPs) and firm performance in manufacturing companies of Sweden, China, and India The results indicate that most EMPs do not have a positive correlation with financial performance, whereas a number of EMPs were found to have a strong correlation with improving innovation performance in various companies. Similarly, a negative correlation was found between the environmental standard for suppliers and sales growth Jayaram and Avittathur (2015) India To analyze the expected changes to supply chain management by deploying FGSCM strategies The article developed a conceptual grounded theory framework that linked environmental government policies to customer actions and firm sustainability strategies. It identified that green design, product recovery and reverse logistics are the key to FGSCM strategies This study found a critical need for a balance between centralized and decentralized governance for a successful sustainability strategy Jia et al. (2015) India To analyze and identify the dominant SSCM practices in Indian mining and mineral industry The article concluded that suppliers' ISO14000 certification plays the most influential role over the recommended 25 SSCM practices. This certification is considered essential to increase sustainability performances in Indian mining and mineral industries Lee (2015) South Korea To investigate the effects of FGSCM on environmental and operational performances considering social capital accumulation in the supply chain The study found that FGSCM contributes to the environmental and operational performance improvements of the supply chain through social capital accumulation. Relational capital particularly plays a vital role in the relationships between FGSCM and environmental and operational performances Luthra et al., (2015aLuthra et al., ( , 2015b India To identify, analyze and model the critical success factor to implement FGSCM toward sustainability in Indian mining industries The article identified scarcity of natural resources as the most important critical success factor for FGSCM implementation and further developed a model to test its applicability in the Indian mining industry Silvestre (2015) Brazil To study how supply chain sustainability can be implemented and managed in emerging economies through an evolutionary approach This study found that the way a buyer company manager is influenced by its established network of relationships contributes to shaping the evolution of SSCM Mansi (2015) India To explore the sustainable procurement practices across the Central Public Sector Enterprise in India The study proposes a sustainable procurement index by analyzing the sustainability reports of 50 government owned companies in India. The study findings suggest a low adoption of green initiatives

Brazil and India
To investigate the firms' responses to carbon markets in Brazil and India There is no standard practice to account for financial benefits of clean development mechanisms investments. The non-financial reputational factors were the primary motivation for managers that are pursuing clean development mechanisms projects Jayaraman et al.

India
To investigate the relationship between the consumer's attitude toward the environment and the perceived image of a company that was environmentally conscious Investigate relationship between the consumer's attitude toward the environment and the perceived image of a company that was environmentally conscious. It found a strong correlation between the decision to buy a green product and the respondent's concern for the environment as well as the perception formed of the firm Koh et al. (2012) India To assess the adoption of low carbon and FGSCM practices by Indian service and manufacturing sectors The research found that low carbon and FGSCM practice is a quality management initiative that requires bilateral efforts for the integration of the whole supply chain along with setting-up of supplier evaluation methods that ensures sustainable environmental operations

India
To understand the scenarios of remanufacturing and its implementation in the current socio-economic context Investigated opportunities for establishing remanufacturing as a formal activity from the user perspective. A prescriptive model was proposed which utilizes the usage patterns of different consumer groups to create a selfsustainable demand-supply system Park et al. (2010) China To analyze the integration of business values and environmental returns in the Chinese circular economy policy Findings suggest that value creation within a supply chain can provide the impetus for organizations to adopt a circular economy and sustainable supply chain practices for competitive reasons. The four major business value dimensions include cost reduction, revenue generation, resiliency, and legitimacy and image Sen (2009) India To investigate the relationship between the adoption of FGSCM practices and shareholder value creation Investigated relationship between the adoption of FGSCM practices and shareholder value creation and found a positive correlation Shukla et al.

India
To identify implementation level, major drivers, various practices and performance of environmentally and socially conscious SCM Environmentally and socially responsive supply chains are in the early adoption stages in India.
Research companies were aware of environmental and social issues, but actual implementation lacks a holistic approach Zhu and Sarkis (2006) China To investigate the drivers and practices of FGSCM in Chinese manufacturing sector The results suggest that FGSCM drivers are similar in the manufacturing sector, but FGSCM practices are industry specific Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management (March 2023) 24(1):1-28 21 Acknowledgements The authors are very thankful to all the associated personnel in any reference that contributed in/for the purpose of this research.
Funding This research was not funded by any person neither by any public or private body.

Declarations
Conflict of interest The authors declare no competing interest.
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by/4.0/. To describe the findings of a project carried out in developing countries to help small and medium enterprises developing sustainable initiatives without compromising competitiveness The results suggest that well targeted, enterprisespecific efforts to meet corporate social responsibility requirements can make a positive contribution to both short-term profitability and longer-term competitiveness Zhu and Sarkis (2004) China To analyze the role of quality management and just-intime practices as moderators in the adoption of FGSCM Findings suggest that FGSCM practices tended to have win-win relationships in terms of environmental and economic performance. Quality management was found to be a positive moderator while JIT programs with internal environmental management practices may cause further degradation of environmental performance P. M. Rafi-Ul-Shan is a senior Lecturer in Supply chain management and organisational behaviour at the University for Creative Arts, UK. He previously worked for the Cardiff Metropolitan University, Coventry University and Sheffield University. He has teaching and supervision experience at the UG, PG and supervising PhD students. Piyya's main research interests are supply chain risk management, sustainable supply chain management, supply chain design and redesign for resilience, supply chain relationships and the fashion and food industry.
H. Amar is a Senior Lecturer in the Westminster Business School at University of Westminster. Previously, he has worked for Nottingham Trent, Coventry, and Bedfordshire Universities and supported their Business and Management Departments. Hassan has a vast experience of working in industry before joining academia where he mainly functioned in a project manager role. Hassan's main research interests are in the areas of business and management, particularly focused on operations, projects, and supply chain management subjects.
F. Sher is Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering, School of Scienceand Technology at Nottingham Trent University. His undergraduate degree (BEng) was inChemical Engineering, followed by MSc Chemical Engineering from the University of Leeds.He was awarded PhD in Chemical and Environmental Engineering from the University ofNottingham in 2017. He has extensive teaching experience across multidisciplinaryengineering and sciences. His research focus is on the area of energy and environment withan emphasis on the utilisation of various renewable energy resources for clean energy usingsustainable technologies.