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Top1. Introduction
The twenty first century has been characterized by rapid progress through various technologies (Aryal, 2018; Rowe et al., 2017). Technologies like artificial intelligence, blockchain, internet of things, big data analytics, 3D printing, cloud computing have evolved over the years and in the present-day context creating impact in society (Schniederjans et al., 2020; Cohen et al., 2019; Verma & Bhattacharyya, 2016). These emerging technologies were making the business systems and processes more productive, convenient and efficient for businesses (Schniederjans et al., 2020). These technologies had the potential to disrupt the industries with its features (Obal, 2017). However, in spite of the advantages that emerging technologies possessed, it had its elements of ambiguity or uncertainty associated (Rotolo, 2015). This was because some of the emerging technologies were still in the early stages and these were found to be a bit expensive and complex (Aryal, 2018). These technologies might take a while before it made a significant impact in the mass market (Tellis,2006). This made it challenging for the organisations and the managers to develop a clear roadmap for the sourcing and adoption of emerging technologies (Digital Business Strategies in Blockchain Ecosystems, 2020). In the era of globalisation, business environment had become very competitive (Bhattacharyya, Rangarajan & Vyas, 2012). Supply Chain Management (SCM) function in most organizations was gaining importance in the light of ever-increasing customer expectations coupled with shrinking product life cycles (Hervani et al., 2005). Emerging technologies have been providing promising scope for value addition in the supply chain functions of firms (Chen et al., 2015). It has been noted that improvements in SCM function were aiding firms to achieve sustainable competitive advantage, higher supply chain resilience and improved service to customers at reduced total costs (Segars et al., 1995). It had become the need of hour to upgrade the effectiveness of SCM functions by leveraging emerging technologies (Singh et al., 2019 ; Bhattacharyya, Laik & Jaiswal, 2020).
Indian economy has been one of the fastest growing economies amongst the developing nations in the world (Gorane 2017). However, the rate of technology adoption had been traditionally slow in India when compared to the developed nations of the world (Govindan et al., 2014). Many of Indian industries were government regulated till the 1990s. (Gurumurthy et al., 2013). Post liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation reforms of the 1990s, Indian business environment had undergone tectonic shift (Sahay & Mohan, 2003). In the past decade that is post 2010, the forces of globalisation have been increasing and it was putting pressure on Indian organisations to stay competitive (Sahay, 2000). This has been forcing Indian organisations to search for processes and technologies which could help the organisations to streamline its processes and improve efficiency (Sahay, 2000). Given this context, firm managers were often counting on emerging technologies adoption and implementation to stay competitive amidst the changing disruption in the business environment (Fawcett et al., 2018; Bhattacharyya & Verma, 2019). Managers had been confronting challenges to develop strategies to leverage the exciting opportunities created by the emerging technologies (Troy et al ., 2016 ; Srinivasan, 2008). Managers were required to simultaneously tackle the threats and risks posed by emerging technologies in the dramatically altering business environments (Bennett & Lemoine, 2014). Managers were also required to take another important decision regarding sourcing of emerging technologies (Fawcett et al., 2018). Various options available to the managers included- development of the capability in-house or going for collaborative arrangements at interfirm level (Schilling, 2019; Hagedoorn, 2002). Some of the often-applied collaboration arrangements were the formation of strategic alliances, joint ventures, licencing arrangements, outsourcing or going for collective research initiatives between firms (Schleimer & Faems, 2016; Schilling, 2019).