As the world was emerging from the negative economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, it was confronted by the Russian–Ukrainian conflict and its ensuing political crises and severe economic decisions, which affected not only the parties to the conflict but most of the world. A key harm to economic organizations has been renewed supply chain risks after the Covid-19 shock: many firms lost sources of supply—especially raw materials—from Russia and Eastern Europe and were forced to seek local or regional alternatives.

The immediate impact on supply chains was a sharp rise in commodity prices, notably gasoline and diesel. Firms worldwide found themselves compelled to locate alternative raw materials and labor sources to keep pace with demand. Efficio (December 2022) highlighted five main impacts on supply chains: (1) global commodity prices will continue rising; (2) search for alternative supply sources; (3) labor shortages; (4) production and import stoppages; and (5) risk management is no longer optional.

Given these disruptions, firms need greater transparency in planned transport, capacities, and alternative modes, and must build strategic relationships and join alliances to secure capacity. In a time of continual volatility, firms cannot rely on outdated information or single freight forwarders.

The conflict has escalated supply chain disruption and concerns over critical business services. Organizations must be proactive, anticipate scenario evolution, and assess alternative sources, production changes, and sourcing strategies to diversify supply chain inputs. Strategic supplier risk assessments and full evaluations of labor and inventory levels are essential to enable proactive (preventive) actions rather than reactive responses.

Supply management strategies and their underlying accounting and quantitative information require urgent change to face supply risks under emergencies such as Covid-19 and the Russian–Ukrainian war. Current supply chain cost management models are often short-term and functionally focused, prioritizing short-term cost reductions over long-term value. This narrow lens limits tracking and evaluating risks and thus impairs performance when dealing with supplier replacement, outsourcing, supplier refinancing, and inventory changes.

Firms should not focus solely on supply chain cost control during disruptions (pandemics, recessions, geopolitical shifts); rather, the interplay among resources and diverse communication networks should become a priority over mere cost-cutting.

Key question: What is the role and mechanism of management accounting in managing supply chain risks (e.g., pandemics, wars, economic sanctions, and other global crises), mitigating their negative effects, and creating added value to achieve competitive advantage?

Lindqvist & Gladh (2019) developed an AHP-based matrix tool using quality, people, delivery, cost variance, flexibility, and information risk to relate risk and cost across product flow paths in a case company. Generalizability was not tested.

Charifzadeh & Taschner (2020) defined risk as negative deviation from target owing to unexpected developments; management accounting provides risk information, and collaborative approaches across supply chain partners reduce overall vulnerability.

Thrane & Hald (2015) explored links between supply chain strategy and management accounting, highlighting strategic fit and the mediating role of supply chain relationship structure; misfit can harm performance and competitiveness.

Grant, Tayles, & Jamal (2019) found positive direct relationships between supply chain management practices (SCMP) and management accounting practices (MAP), and between both and supply chain performance; organizational performance was indirectly affected via supply chain performance.

Kovacevic & Atik (2020) noted few studies on sustainable supply chain management’s implications for management accounting, despite roles in costing sustainable products, assessing input cost/quality, supplier risk evaluation, cost models for sustainable production, and performance measurement (economic, environmental, social).

The study posits direct and indirect effects between management accounting practices and firm performance under elevated supply chain risk:

Measurement model: Items with low loadings were removed; IS and IQ merged into Information Management (IM); Customer Relationship reframed as Strategic Customer Relationship (SCR). All constructs met reliability and validity criteria (Hair et al., 2010).

Structural model results are shown in Tables 4 and 5.

Key interpretations:

Standalone SMAP and SCMAP, when used under high supply chain risk, did not directly improve firm performance; they must be integrated with SCRM-focused MAP (e.g., cost–benefit of mitigation, full chain mapping, collaborative contracting data, JIT–JIC switching, inventory opportunity-cost trade-offs, make-or-buy, supplier diversification teamwork). These practices realign known tools toward resilience objectives.

Indirect effects reveal that SCRM-oriented MAP enhance risk management performance and, through it, financial outcomes; non-financial outcomes improve indirectly via effective SCRMP.

Future research could test these relationships in other sectors or geographies, and under varying risk profiles, to validate generalizability and explore additional SCRM accounting mechanisms.