Supply chain auditing is defined by Castka, Searcy and Mohr (2020:2) as ‘a set of processes and tools designed to assess, verify, and improve compliance, risk exposure, and performance across the supply chain, increasingly supported by digital technologies’. Jarah, Jarrah and Al-Zaqeba (2022) highlight that contemporary SCA has evolved beyond its traditional scope of financial oversight to include a multidimensional approach that spans operational, environmental, social and governance (ESG) assessments, supplier compliance verification, and operational efficiency evaluations. Studies indicate a dynamic shift towards a more comprehensive and technology-enabled audit regime. For instance, Lombardi et al. (2022) emphasise that blockchain-enabled audits reduce information asymmetries and enhance the credibility of sustainability disclosures. Similarly, Manupati et al. (2020) concludes that blockchain technology has a huge potential for supply chains such as enhancing tracking ability for a multitude of performance metrics, including lead times, transportation, distribution, and storage. Adopting blockchain technology in supply chains will ‘increase the veracity, granularity, and timeliness of audit insights’ (Castka et al. 2020:5).

Supply chain performance (SCP) is typically measured through multiple dimensions: efficiency, responsiveness, resilience, sustainability, and cost-effectiveness (Mahadevan, Elias & Samaranayake 2023; Rusli et al. 2025). Nazarian and Khan (2024:2 2) describe SCP as ‘the systematic measurement and evaluation of how efficiently and effectively a supply chain operates’. The SCP is typically assessed through financial and non-financial metrics, including the return on assets, product quality, order lead time, responsiveness to market demands, cost management, carbon emissions, operational efficiency and sustainability practices. The theoretical grounding of SCP analysis is frequently drawn from the resource-based view (RBV) and transaction cost economics (TCE) frameworks. Under the RBV posited by Barney (1991), SCA capabilities constitute valuable, rare, inimitable, and non-substitutable (VRIN) resources that enhance firms’ competitive advantage by improving transparency, risk management, and decision-making (Nandi et al. 2020; Rehman et al. 2024). From a TCE perspective coined by Williamson (1981), it is inferred that supply chain audits reduce transaction costs by reducing information asymmetries, opportunism, and enhancing contractual clarity, particularly in highly uncertain environments (Cuypers et al. 2021). Therefore, both frameworks support the view that SCA is a strategic tool for improving overall performance.

A growing body of empirical literature indicates a positive relationship between SCA and SCP, highlighting that SCA plays both a diagnostic and transformative role in enhancing SCP. Diagnostic audits help to identify inefficiencies and risk areas, triggering continuous improvement initiatives (Mwendwa & Nteere 2025). Kummari (2025) asserts that well-structured audit systems facilitate performance optimisation by uncovering process inefficiencies in procurement and logistics operations and enable business model innovation. Ul-Hameed et al. (2019) concluded that integrating audits with strategic leadership significantly improved productivity and profitability in organisations based in the United Kingdom (UK). Likewise, in Indonesia, Hidayat et al. (2020) found that auditor commitment and management support were positively correlated with performance outcomes such as agility and integration. Similarly, Nikoofal and Gümüş (2020) concluded that supply chain audits were instrumental in mitigating information asymmetries between buyers and suppliers, facilitating the development of customised contracts and enhancing supply chain reliability.

Furthermore, emerging practices such as shared auditing have improved supply chain coordination and information flow. Su et al. (2024) reported that employing familiar auditors across supply chain partners enhanced transparency, reduced demand variability, and increased profitability. However, Ha, Shang and Wang (2023) cautioned that the value of shared auditing systems depends on mutual trust, data-sharing protocols, and confidentiality safeguards. In addition, sector and region-specific studies further confirm the impact of auditing on SCP. Jarah et al. (2022) established that internal audits in the shipping sector improved supply chain risk management, compliance, and operational efficiency. Moreover, organisations’ global adoption of 4IR technologies has revolutionised SCA practices. Studies show that blockchain and AI improve the timeliness, accuracy, and verifiability of supplier data, especially in areas related to sustainability, ethical compliance, and sharing of audit data across supply chain partners (Castka et al. 2020; Nwariaku et al. 2024). Similarly, Manupati et al. (2020) found that a blockchain-based approach is good for monitoring supply chain performance and can facilitate efficient and effective flow of data across the supply chain while ensuring the security of the system. Furthermore, literature highlights multitier supplier auditing, an emerging area in SCM aiming to ensure compliance beyond first-tier suppliers. Rashid (2025) found that multitier audits increased overall supply chain visibility, reliability, and alignment with sustainability goals, but were also resource-intensive, operationally complex and prone to coordination failures and inconsistent methodologies. Hence, while SCA improves SCP, challenges remain.

To ensure methodological rigour and maximise the breadth and depth of scholarly coverage, the study adopted a dual-database search strategy incorporating both the Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus. The rationale for this dual-database approach is based on the complementary strengths of these databases and addresses well-documented limitations associated with single-source bibliometric studies, aligning with contemporary best practices in systematic literature reviews (Gusenbauer & Haddaway 2020; Pranckutė 2021; Singh et al. 2021).

The Web of Science database is widely recognised for its comprehensive coverage, high-quality metadata, and curated indexing of peer-reviewed academic journals. The Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) and Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) ensure that interdisciplinary research relevant to SCA, management, operations, and economics is thoroughly represented. The WoS offers superior consistency in citation indexing, providing reliable and reproducible bibliometric analysis (Naveed et al. 2025). Its rigorous quality filters and established citation tracking mechanisms make it an indispensable foundation for bibliometric research. While the WoS provides extensive coverage of high-impact journals and maintains rigorous indexing standards (Mongeon & Paul-Hus 2016), Scopus offers the world’s largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature, with particularly robust coverage in interdisciplinary fields including SCM, operations research, and logistics (Baas et al. 2020). Recent empirical studies have demonstrated that Scopus’s broader indexing scope captures approximately 15% – 25% more journals than WoS in business and management disciplines, with especially strong representation in emerging research areas and regional publications (Nageye et al. 2024; Naveed et al. 2025).

Therefore, by integrating both databases, the study mitigates the risk of systematic bias introduced by reliance on a single indexing system. Recent methodological research has shown that different databases exhibit varying coverage patterns across disciplines and publication types, and dual-database searches significantly increase recall rates while minimising publication bias in systematic reviews (Lim, Kumar, & Donthu 2024; Nageye et al. 2024). The complementary approach thereby enhances the completeness, representativeness, and generalisability of the study’s findings while aligning with state-of-the-art bibliometric practice. It also improved representation of emerging research trends, a crucial for bibliometric studies examining contemporary developments (Donthu et al. 2021; Maryadi et al. 2025).

The dual database approach improves interdisciplinary coverage as SCA research increasingly intersects with other scientific domains, and Scopus’s superior coverage of engineering and technology journals ensures more complete representation of interdisciplinary research at these intersections relevant to SCA, management, operations, and economics (Li et al. 2025). Lastly, the integration aligns with contemporary bibliometric standards as recent bibliometric methodological guidelines explicitly recommend multidatabase approaches to enhance the validity, completeness, and replicability of science mapping studies and to substantially improve the robustness of bibliometric findings (Lim et al. 2024).

A carefully constructed search strategy was employed to identify relevant publications and maximise relevance and comprehensiveness while maintaining conceptual focus. Search strings were developed iteratively through consultation with domain experts and preliminary exploratory searches, following best practices outlined in recent bibliometric methodology literature (Lim et al. 2024; Maryadi et al. 2025). Search terms were applied to the entire article record, including titles, abstracts, keywords, and cited references to ensure comprehensive retrieval. The keywords used included ‘supply chain audit*’, ‘supply chain compliance’, ‘supply chain assurance’, and ‘supply chain performance’. Boolean operators (AND, OR) and database-specific filters (document type, language, subject area) were applied to refine and focus the results. The following Boolean search string was consistently applied across both databases: TS = (‘supply chain audit’ OR ‘supply chain assurance’ OR ‘supply chain compliance’ OR ‘supplier audit’ OR ‘vendor audit*’ OR ‘procurement audit*’ OR ‘supply chain evaluation’ OR ‘supply chain inspection’ OR ‘supply chain monitoring’) AND TS = (‘supply chain performance’ OR ‘operational performance’ OR ‘logistics performance’ OR ‘supply chain efficiency’ OR ‘supply chain effectiveness’ OR ‘supply chain risk management’)**.

The search was executed on 06 June 2025 to ensure inclusion of the most recent publications. To effectively capture the historical evolution and emerging developments within the SCA–SCP domain, publications from 01 January 2000 to 06 June 2025 were considered. This 25-year window coverage provides a longitudinal perspective on the development of the SCA and SCP fields. Identical search parameters and filters were systematically applied to both WoS and Scopus platforms to ensure consistency and comparability, following harmonisation protocols recommended by Nageye et al. (2024). Database-specific filters (e.g. document type, language, subject area) were applied to refine and focus on the results while maintaining equivalence across platforms.

To effectively capture the historical evolution and emerging developments within the SCA–SCP domain, rigorous and transparent selection criteria were established a priori, consistent with contemporary systematic review guidelines (Lim et al. 2024). Only peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and conference proceedings written in English providing explicit theoretical and empirical insights to the SCA–SCP nexus, were included, in the study. Excluded materials comprised grey literature, editorial notes, non-peer-reviewed materials, book reviews, non-English documents, and articles without sufficient metadata for bibliometric processing. Additionally, records with insufficient essential metadata, such as publication year, author information, or keywords, were corrected through manual verification or excluded from analysis. In addition, documents outside the defined scope of supply chain auditing and performance and duplicate records identified across databases were also excluded. The exclusion criteria ensured compatibility with bibliometric algorithms that rely on complete metadata fields for accurate co-citation, co-word, and bibliographic coupling analyses, as emphasised by Lim et al. (2024) in their comprehensive guidelines for bibliometric data cleaning and synthesis.

The systematic selection process followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) 2020 guidelines (Page et al. 2021) and was conducted in four distinct phases: identification, screening, eligibility assessment, and final inclusion. Two independent reviewers conducted the screening process, with disagreements resolved through discussion with a third reviewer to ensure inter-rater reliability (Cohen’s Kappa (κ) = 0.89, indicating strong agreement). The complete article selection process is documented in Table 1, ensuring full methodological transparency and replicability.

The study’s data pre-processing, analysis, and visualisation were conducted using the Bibliometrix package together with the graphical interface Biblioshiny in R, an open-source programming environment for statistical computing. Bibliometrix provides a comprehensive framework for performing co-citation analysis, co-word analysis, author collaboration networks, thematic mapping, and historiographic mapping. The tool’s transparency, adaptability, and rigorous statistical capabilities make it the preferred platform for contemporary bibliometric research (Li et al. 2025; Maryadi et al. 2025), ensuring both analytical sophistication and replicability of findings.

The integrity of bibliometric findings inherently depends on input data quality (Lim et al. 2024). Recent methodological literature highlights that poorly curated data can distort centrality measures, misrepresent thematic clusters, and compromise trend analyses (Donthu et al. 2021). Consequently, this study adopted a multistage data cleansing protocol to optimise the subsequent analyses’ robustness, duplication, and scientific validity. By ensuring a highly consistent dataset, this study positions itself to offer reliable macro-level insights into the evolution, structure, and scholarly influence of supply chain auditing and performance. Following the initial data retrieval from the WoS and Scopus databases, the study followed the PRISMA-guided systematic data cleansing process to ensure the bibliometric dataset’s accuracy, consistency, and analytical relevance, and to optimise the robustness, consistency, and scientific validity of subsequent analyses (Donthu et al. 2021; Lim et al. 2024; Nageye et al. 2024).

The first stage involved removing duplicate records, which can result from overlapping indexing, for instance, conference articles later published as journal articles. Duplicate detection was executed using DOI-based filtering and title similarity checks. The study retained only the most comprehensive and peer-reviewed version of each document, aligning with quality assurance practices observed in prior bibliometric research (Horvatinovic et al. 2023). Thereafter, the study standardised author and affiliation names, which were manually verified and standardised using disambiguation protocols embedded in the Bibliometrix package, complemented by manual curation when necessary. This step was essential to accurately construct co-authorship and institutional collaboration networks, which is consistent with a study performed by Aria and Cuccurullo (2021).

After data pre-processing, the study proceeded to an analytical procedure following three steps. Firstly, the study analysed publication trends, the most productive authors, and the most highly cited researchers (Maryadi et al. 2025). Secondly, the study employed science mapping, which involved generating co-authorship networks, keyword co-occurrence maps, and thematic clusters, which is in accordance with the findings of Donthu et al. (2021). Finally, thematic trend analysis was used to identify research fronts and historical shifts in focus within the literature.

Ethical clearance to conduct this study was obtained from the Department of Business Management Research Ethics Committee at the University of Johannesburg (No. 25SOM/BM94).

Table 2 shows the main information about the initial dataset extracted from the WoS and Scopus databases containing articles dealing with SCA and SCP. Table 2 displays a range of information. For instance, a total of 24 010 documents were published between 2000 and 2025, with an annual growth rate of 13.15%, from 3976 sources and 42 901 authors across the globe. Most of these documents are articles; 8931, of which 8638 are articles and 293 are early-access articles, constituting 87.9% of all documents identified.

Figure 1 presents the annual scientific production of documents on the SCA and SCP. The first articles on SCA and SCP were published in 2000. After that, there was a slight increase in research output between 2001 and 2004, with slight decreases in 2005 and 2007. From 2008 to 2014, there was a marked increase in annual SCA and SCP publications from 370 to 998, with another slight decrease occurring in 2015, with 770 documents. Since 2018, the number of documents published on SCA and SCP, and available in the WoS and Scopus databases, has been kept above 1300 annually, with a peak of 2935 documents in 2024. At first sight, it might appear as if there is a marked decline in publications for 2025. However, this is not the case as Figure 1 displays the WoS and Scopus databases’ publications as of 06 June 2025; this is a mid-year census, and the annual total is subject to change.

Figure 2 illustrates the distribution of the top 10 most relevant sources of SCA and SCP in the WoS and Scopus databases. The Sustainability Journal leads with 1549 publications, as expected given its core focus on various aspects of sustainability research, including environmental, social, and economic dimensions, typical of SCA and SCP issues. The International Journal of Production Economics comes in second with 1427 documents. The International Journal of Production (1406), followed by the Journal of Cleaner Production (1370), International Journal of Operations and Production Management (1273), Benchmarking - An International Journal (1159), and Computers & Industrial Engineering, ranks tenth with 509 publications.

Table 1-A1 (Online Appendix 1) displays the source growth on SCA and SCP published in the WoS and Scopus databases. Sustainability, the International Journal of Production Economics, the International Journal of Production Research, the Journal of Cleaner Production and the International Journal of Operations and Production Management were the five journals with the most significant growth between 2000 and 2025. As of 6 June 2025, the journals had published 65 % (15 607) of the 24 010 articles, book chapters, and early access reported in Table 1. The International Journal of Production Economics led with 5213 publications (33.40%), followed by the International Journal of Production Research with 4557 publications (29.20%), the International Journal of Operations and Production Management had 3592 documents (23.16%), while the Journal of Cleaner Production and Sustainability had 1740 (11.15%) and 482 publications (3.09%), respectively.

Table 3 presents the top 20 authors on SCA and SCP ranked by the number of articles published in the WoS and Scopus databases. The data reveal that Garza-Reyes is ranked first with 258 articles, followed by Kumar, A. with 78 articles, Kumar, V. with 66 articles, and Antony is fourth with 56 articles. The authors ranked from fifth onwards each published fewer than 40 articles.

The rankings of the top 20 globally cited documents, as identified from the WoS and Scopus databases, are presented in Table 1-A2 (Online Appendix 1). The data reveal that Shah and Ward (2003) occupy the first position with 2657 citations, followed by Tang (2006) with 2414 citations. Ivanov and Dolgui rank third with 1721 citations, while Ivanov, Dolgui, and Sokolov hold the fourth position with 1627 citations. Green et al. (2012) are ranked fifth with 1482 citations. The remaining articles each accumulated fewer than 1300 citations.

The top 10 most relevant institutions in SCA and SCP, as published in the WoS and Scopus database, are presented in Figure 3. The University of Derby has the highest number of articles (342 documents), closely followed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (211 documents). Jointly in third position are the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and the Indian Institute of Technology System, each contributing 209 articles. Notably, the 10 most prominent affiliations in the SCA and SCP domains identified in the WoS and Scopus databases originate from countries such as the United States (US), India, China, Hong Kong, and the UK. These economies rely heavily on the efficient functioning of complex supply chains for exports, manufacturing, and trade competitiveness. Consequently, the developed countries place particular value on SCA and SCP, as their growth, competitiveness, and stability are closely tied to supply chain efficiency, transparency, resilience, and innovation.

Table 4 shows the 10 countries most highly cited in SCA–SCP research as indexed in the WoS and Scopus databases. The data indicate that the US leads with 88 345 citations, followed by China with 52 046 citations. The UK ranks third (32 926), followed by Germany (18 488) and India (14 839). The remaining five countries on the list have a citation count below 10 000.

A bibliometric coupling was employed to illustrate the distribution of the top 10 cited countries’ overall scientific production in SCA and SCP research within the WoS and Scopus databases. As shown in Figure 4, research institutions in China are the most significant contributors, with 7178 scientific publications. The US ranks second with 5211 publications, while the UK holds third with 2424 publications. India and Brazil occupy the fourth and fifth positions, with 2045 and 1039 publications, respectively. Each of the bottom five countries on the extracted list had fewer than 900 relevant publications: Australia (862), South Korea (813), Spain (749), Germany (741), and Canada (680).

The analysis of literature indexed in the WoS and Scopus databases reveals critical insights into the thematic focus of research within the domains of SCA and SCP. Table 5 and Figure 5 present the most frequently used keywords by authors and Wordcloud in this field, shedding light on prevailing scholarly interests and conceptual emphases. Notably, ‘performance’ emerges as the most dominant keyword, with 1796 occurrences, underscoring the centrality of performance outcomes in contemporary supply chain discourse. This prominence reflects a growing recognition of the crucial role that systematic auditing plays in enhancing the efficiency, accountability, and strategic alignment of supply chains. The second most recurrent keyword, ‘impact’ (1711 occurrences), further reinforces the outcome-oriented nature of current research, suggesting a widespread focus on quantifying the effects of audits, interventions, and operational strategies on supply chain effectiveness. Next, are keywords ‘management’ (1669 occurrences), ‘supply chain’ (1534 occurrences), and ‘model’ (1201 occurrences), indicating sustained interest in the development of theoretical and empirical frameworks to enhance overall SCP through audit mechanisms.

The top five most frequent keywords delineate dominant research trajectories within the SCA–SCP nexus, emphasising performance measurement, managerial implications, and modelling approaches. Surprisingly, however, foundational terms such as ‘supply chain management’ (839 occurrences) and ‘financial performance’ (545 occurrences) only occupy the eighth and fifteenth positions, respectively. This divergence suggests a possible fragmentation or under-theorisation of the broader conceptual architecture within which SCA and SCP operate. This points to a notable gap in the literature where more integrative or systemic explorations may be warranted. Therefore, while SCA’s operational and performance dimensions are well-explored, the strategic, holistic view of supply chain systems as audit-driven ecosystems remains underdeveloped.

Figure 5 displays the co-citation network derived from the integrated WoS and Scopus datasets. A co-citation occurs when two documents, authors, or journals are cited together in other later publications, helping to understand the intellectual structure of a research field (Aria & Cuccurullo 2017; Batistič & Van der Laken 2019). In a co-citation network, the nodes represent entities such as documents, authors, or journals. The edges, or links, between these nodes indicate how frequently two items are cited together within the scholarly literature. For instance, foundational works by Fornell (1981), Hair (2010), and Flynn, Huo and Zhao (2010) demonstrate strong co-citation relationships across both databases. The size of each node reflects its citation frequency, meaning the more often an item is cited, the larger its corresponding node appears in the network. Similarly, the thickness of the edges denotes the strength of the co-citation relationships, with thicker lines indicating a higher co-citation frequency between two items (Flynn et al. 2010; Fornell 1981; Hair 2010). The integration of WoS and Scopus data enhances the robustness of these network metrics by capturing a broader spectrum of citation patterns across disciplinary boundaries and publication outlets.

The co-citation analysis led to four clusters typically distinguished by different colours (see Figure 6), as shown in Table 6. These clusters represent the distinct research themes, intellectual communities, or schools of thought within the broader SCA and SCP fields. Cluster 1 (red) is anchored by Fornell (1981), who exhibits the highest betweenness centrality (14.942) within this cluster, indicating a bridging role between methodological approaches to performance measurement. Cluster 2 (blue) is dominated by Eisenhardt (1989), with a betweenness centrality of 34.329, reflecting seminal contributions to theory-building methodologies that have influenced supply chain research frameworks. Cluster 3 (green) features Kleindorfer and Saad (2005) as the most central figure (betweenness centrality: 37.337), emphasising risk management and disruption mitigation perspectives. Cluster 4 (purple) is led by Braunscheidel and Suresh (2009), demonstrating exceptional centrality (151.048), which positions this work as a critical connector between supply chain agility, risk mitigation, and performance outcomes.

Therefore, the dual-database approach revealed that while core theoretical foundations remain consistent across WoS and Scopus, Scopus contributed approximately 38.9% unique citations (4536 documents) that enriched the network’s peripheral connections, particularly in emerging interdisciplinary areas such as digital assurance and ESG compliance.

The co-occurrence network presented in Figure 7 illustrates the underlying thematic structure of the SCA–SCP literature based on keyword relationships extracted from the integrated WoS and Scopus datasets. The analysis reveals a clear division into two primary yet interconnected clusters, each reflecting a distinct area of scholarly focus. The first cluster, shown in red and situated on the bottom-left side of the network, emphasises management and performance-oriented themes. It is characterised by keywords such as ‘management’, ‘performance’, ‘framework’, ‘model’, ‘sustainability’, and ‘optimisation’. This cluster reflects research on supply chain operations’ strategic and managerial dimensions. Studies within this domain often explore the design of frameworks and models to enhance performance, with a particular interest in sustainability and decision-support mechanisms. From an auditing perspective, this indicates that SCA is frequently approached as a component of broader performance management systems that inform strategic decision-making and aim to improve overall supply chain effectiveness.

The second cluster, displayed in blue and positioned towards the top-right of the network, is centred on operational and technical performance. Dominant keywords in this cluster include ‘operational performance’, ‘supply chain management’, ‘integration’, ‘logistics performance’, and ‘information technology’. This thematic area focuses on the practical and measurable outcomes of SCA, such as improvements in efficiency, logistics, and system integration, often supported by technological tools. Research in this cluster highlights the role of auditing in enhancing operational capabilities through data-driven and IT-enabled mechanisms. Critical bridging terms connect these clusters, most notably ‘impact’ and ‘supply chain management’. The keyword ‘impact’ serves as a conceptual nexus, suggesting that SCA is evaluated both for its influence on strategic management practices and operational effectiveness. Additionally, ‘supply chain management’ functions as a unifying theme, anchoring both clusters and highlighting the integrated nature of auditing across functional levels.

The dual-database methodology revealed that Scopus contributed 30 601 author keywords compared to WoS’ more controlled vocabulary, resulting in a 24.2% increase in unique terminological combinations. This enrichment particularly manifested in emerging areas such as ‘digital assurance’, which appears 47% more frequently in Scopus, ‘ESG compliance’ (+38%), and ‘multi-tier governance’ (+52%). The enhanced network density (0.342 combined compared to 0.287 for WoS-only) demonstrates that integrating both databases captures a more nuanced representation of thematic interconnections within the field. The network structure therefore underscores a dual yet interrelated research focus – the strategic formulation of auditing frameworks and technical implementation of auditing practices for measurable performance enhancement. The presence of robust bridging terms indicates an emerging holistic perspective where SCA increasingly functions as a tool supporting both managerial decision-making and operational excellence.

Figure 8 and Table 7 illustrate the principal patterns of international collaborative research on SCA and SCP in the WoS and Scopus databases. The dual-database approach provides a more comprehensive mapping of global research networks by capturing collaborations that may be indexed in one database but not the other, thereby reducing geographic and institutional bias inherent in single-database analyses. The collaboration map highlights that the most robust transnational research partnerships are anchored by institutions in China, the US, and the UK, which serve as primary hubs for international knowledge exchange. Specifically, Chinese researchers had the highest number of collaborative publications with the US (403), the UK (259), Australia (107), Pakistan (83), and Canada (76). Scholars from the UK most frequently engaged in joint research with counterparts in India (237articles), Australia (114 publications), and Brazil (63 documents). Similarly, researchers from the US had strong collaborative ties with colleagues in the UK (140), Canada (121), India (97), and Germany (86). Despite these increasing international collaborations, the bibliometric analysis revealed that they are still concentrated among top-tier institutions in predominantly technologically developed economies. A comparatively limited global research collaboration on the SCA and SCP domains involving African countries exists. For instance, scholars from China, the US, and the UK, collaborating with counterparts in South Africa, published 46 articles (22, 15, and 9, respectively) during the period under study. Moreover, even fewer collaborations were observed between African countries, with the highest publications being two articles between South Africa and Nigeria.

Despite comprehensive coverage through WoS and Scopus databases, the exclusion of grey literature, industry reports, practitioner publications, and non-English research may introduce residual publication bias, and may have excluded relevant literature indexed in other scholarly databases such as PubMed and Google Scholar, as well as industry-specific or grey literature. The rapidly evolving nature of SCA means that the most recent publications, particularly those published in early 2025 may experience indexing lags. Nevertheless, the search execution date, 06 June 2025 maximises temporal currency while acknowledging this inherent constraint of bibliometric databases. As SCA continues to evolve, primarily through the adoption of 4IR technologies, some of the trends identified may shift in future.

Considering the foregoing, this study presents several important implications. Firstly, it demonstrates that SCA should be understood not merely as a compliance-oriented process, but as a value-creating mechanism capable of enhancing overall SCP. The study further proposes a framework that enables a deeper understanding of the SCA–SCP nexus. In addition, the bibliometric analysis yields both theoretical and practical contributions. From a theoretical perspective, the study consolidates and clarifies the fragmented body of literature spanning auditing, SCM, performance management, and strategic management. Practically, it provides a foundation for the development of evidence-based frameworks that can inform supply chain practitioners and policymakers.

In this regard, the study assists managers in recognising SCA as a critical governance tool for strengthening compliance and transparency, while simultaneously advancing SCP. Moreover, it encourages managers to move beyond viewing SCA solely as a mechanism of control, positioning it instead as an operational and strategic lever for improving SCP. From a policy perspective, policymakers may utilise regulatory and incentive-based instruments to promote the adoption and effective implementation of SCA. Such initiatives can support firms in achieving their ESG objectives, thereby contributing to national progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals.

Future bibliometric studies could adopt a multisource approach incorporating Science Direct, ProQuest, and practitioner-oriented sources, including audit firm white papers and industry reports. This perspective would expand the disciplinary and practical relevance of the findings and help mitigate potential selection bias. Future studies could also employ longitudinal and real-time tracking as SCA practices are increasingly shaped by regulatory, technological, and geopolitical shifts. This study was conducted on a static time frame, as of 06 June 2025, as it is subject to change from ongoing developments in dynamic fields of SCA and SCP. Therefore, longitudinal analyses incorporating real-time data feeds or rolling bibliometric updates could provide richer insights into the evolution of audit-enabled performance strategies. Lastly, this study highlights a significant gap in theoretical integration across supply chain auditing and performance literature. Consequently, future research could involve interdisciplinary theorisation and methodological innovation to develop hybrid conceptual models drawing from institutional theory, dynamic capabilities, and cyber-physical systems. Methodologically, combining bibliometric mapping with text mining, topic modelling, or machine learning could further enhance the analytical richness of future studies.