Building Resilient and Agile Supply Chains under Global Disruptions

Abstract

Certain global disruptions have become more frequent and severe, which has demonstrated the weaknesses of efficiency-based supply chains as well as the necessity of adaptive resilience. This paper evaluates the operationalization of resilience by supply chain in the context of disruption and explores the facilitating functions of digital transformation and leadership in a dynamic capabilities and viability-based framework. The study uses a mixed-method design that combines the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) and fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) based on a survey data set of senior supply chain managers. The findings of the PLS-SEM suggest that any disruption in the world has an adverse impact on the supply chain performance and that supply chain agility has a positive impact on resiliency and mediates the effects of disruption to some extent. The ability of agility to respond to disruptions is greatly enhanced by digital transformation and ameliorated by crisis-focused and transformational leadership, which alleviates the negative effect of disruptions on agility. The supplementary findings of the fsQCA indicate that there are several possible configurational routes to high supply chain resilience, showing that a single capability or strategy cannot be assumed to be enough in all situations. The combination of strategic redundancy together with agility, leadership, and digital maturity has become a survival strategy despite the underlying cost-resilience trade-offs. The work has made a contribution to the literature as it applied the dynamic capabilities theory to large-scale disruption settings and proposed a viability-oriented logic of resilience, which incorporates the aspects of agility, resilience, and sustainability. The results can be used by managers and policymakers to develop supply chains that can perform sustainably in volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environments.