Review of Research on Cold Chain and Its Risk Transmission Mechanisms
Cold chain logistics services are suitable for products with high temperature requirements,however,the numerous uncertain factors along the various links of the services could lead to increased cold chain risks.As the size of the Chinese cold chain logistics market continues to grow,accurately identifying and evaluating risk factors in the cold chain process has become a hot topic attracting much attention in recent years,particularly so with researches on the mechanism and principle of transmission of the risks down the cold chain.In this paper,with"cold chain risk"and"risk transmission mechanism"as the keywords,we searched through the published literature in CNKI and WOS,and by subject word searching,abstract reading and key paper reading,analyzed the body of relevant literature in terms of nationality and major source journal,etc.Through comparative analysis,we pointed out that domestic cold chain research lags slightly behind the for-eign academia and with the development of the cold chain logistics industry,domestic scholars are paying more attention to the source identification and risk evaluation system of cold chain risks;the research on the mecha-nism of risk transmission has always been more advanced overseas than domestically;the transmission mecha-nism of cold chain risks has been seen rather scarcely in the papers,which shows that this is an emerging direc-tion of research;and the literature on cold chain risks and their transmission mechanisms is rising rapidly both in volume and quality.In terms of cold chain risk research,in view of the different types of cold chains formed around different product types and different cold chain risk factors leading to different cold chain risk types,therefore,scholars have been classifying the cold chain risks by distinguishing the differences in their triggering factors;the identification methods of the risks mainly include quantitative analysis,such as SCOR model,FMEA,ANP,and WBS-RBS coupling matrix,etc.,while the prevalent methods of cold chain risk factor identification are mainly qualitative,including literature research,expert experience,and flow chart analysis,etc.,which are inaccurate in risk factor screening and incomplete in risk assessment system;currently cold chain risk assessment includes both qualitative and quantitative analysis.Since qualitative analysis is limited by their subjectivity,as the understanding in this field deepens,quantitative analysis will become more popular.In terms of research on risk transmission mechanism,existing literature mainly focuses on the finance,social econ-omy,project construction and supply chain.Risk transmission theory is an emerging theory based on a com-plete theoretical system of risk identification,estimation,evaluation,and control.The risk transmission mechanism refers to the process of transmission of the risks within an economic sys-tem,including the generation,transmission and impact of the risks,etc.The risk transmission mechanism is complex and may cause chain reactions,thereby triggering systemic disruption.Current research methods of risk transmission mechanism mainly include complex network analysis,system dynamics,infectious disease models,and minimum spanning tree(MST),etc.Although there are no published articles on the transmission mechanism of cold chain risks,further development of the cold chain logistics industry will attract more atten-tion from the scholars.