Guest editorial: Transforming operations, people and processes for a better world: towards a humanistic paradigm shift in operations and supply chain management?

According to the World Economic Forum (2024, 2025), the most critical global risks today arise from geopolitical conflict, climate change, technological disruption and social fragmentation. These risks are interconnected and produce systemic vulnerabilities that challenge the traditional models of operations and supply chain management (SCM). Management systems designed for stable environments fail under conditions of complexity and uncertainty. They need to be adaptive and aligned with both organizational decision logics and the external environmental, particularly in contexts characterized by uncertainty and ambiguity (Alexander et al., 2018). In light of the current context, it is imperative that we, as operations and SCM researchers, actively engage in comprehending and addressing these issues to rebuild trust, long-term resilience and prosperity for humanity.