A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW ON THE IMPACT OF GLOBAL MERCHANDISING STRATEGIES ON U.S. SUPPLY CHAIN RESILIENCE

Abstract

This study addresses a clear problem: despite abundant work on supply chain resilience, the specific ways global merchandising choices shape U.S. continuity and recovery performance remain under-specified. The purpose is to quantify those linkages and provide design-ready guidance for practice. We first conducted a systematic mapping of the field and retained 43 peer-reviewed studies to ground constructs and hypotheses, then executed a quantitative, cross-sectional, multi-case design on a sample of 198 U.S. retail and consumer-enterprise cases observed at the firm-year level. Key independent variables operationalize merchandising architecture assortment breadth and depth, standardization versus localization intensity, private-label intensity, price policy consistency, promotion cadence, and sourcing diversification while outcomes capture resilience service-level stability during disruption windows, inbound lead-time variability, time-to-recover proxies, and revenue recovery slope. The analysis plan comprises descriptive profiles, Pearson and Spearman correlations, and hierarchical OLS with heteroskedasticity-robust errors and industry fixed effects, extended with nonlinearity tests and theory-driven interactions, cross-validated for predictive stability. Headline findings show sourcing diversification as the strongest positive correlate of resilience, disciplined price architectures as a second positive lever, and heavy promotion cadence as a negative driver unless buffered by diversification; private-label intensity exhibits an inverted-U with a resilience-efficient band at moderate-to-high exposure. Implications are managerial and architectural: standardize backbone elements that create fungibility, calibrate private label to the efficiency band with dual qualification, rationalize promotion calendars as a managed volatility budget, and build structurally decoupled diversification across countries and corridors to absorb shocks and speed recovery without sacrificing commercial intent.