Impact analysis of supplier relationship on supply chain resilience using biological cellular resilience theory

A supply chain resilience model is established based on the biological cellular resilience theory to analyze the impact of the supplier relationship on supply chain resilience. A scenario where the market demand is changed suddenly by some undesired events is considered. The results reveal that enhancing collaboration with a more resilient supplier can significantly improve supply chain resilience and reduce supply chain losses. It is also found that enhancing the supplier relationship can significantly benefit supply chain resilience if the collaborative intensity is relatively low, and it has less effect if supply chain members have already collaborated closely. Thus, enhancing the supplier relationship to a limited intensity is a relatively effective and economic method to strengthen supply chain resilience.

The impact of supply chain resilience on customer satisfaction and financial performance:A combination of contingency and configuration approaches

Supply chain resilience(SCR)refers to a supply chain's(SC's)ability to recover from disruptions timely and effectively.This study uses a combination of contingency and configuration approaches to examine the direct and contingent relationships between SCR dimensions(i.e.,internal,supplier,and customer resilience)and performance.It analyzes survey data collected from 206 Chinese manufacturers.The results show that the three SCR dimensions are positively related to customer satisfaction,whereas customer resilience has no direct contribution to financial performance.Internal resilience moderates the relationship between supplier resilience and performance(negative for customer satisfaction and positive for financial performance).A taxonomy for SCR was developed based on internal,supplier,and customer resilience,providing a holistic perspective for examining the performance discrepancies among four different SCR patterns:high externalleaning,high uniform,medium uniform,and low uniform.These findings offer insights for managers in building SCR from the crisis-management process.

How do digital technologies improve supply chain resilience in the COVID-19 pandemic?Evidence from Chinese manufacturing firms

Digital technologies (DTs) can assist businesses in coping with supply chain (SC) disruptions caused by unpredictability, such as pandemics. However, the current knowledge of the relationship between DTs and supply chain resilience (SCR) is insufficient. This study draws on information processing theory to develop a serial mediation model to address this deficiency. We analyze a sample set consisting of 264 Chinese manufacturers. The empirical results reveal that digital supply chain platforms (DSCPs), as well as supply chain traceability (SCT) and supply chain agility (SCA), fully mediate the favorable association between DTs and SCR. Specifically, the four significant indirect paths indicated that firms can improve SCR only if they use DTs to directly or indirectly improve SCT and SCA (through DSCPs). Our study contributes to the literature on resilience by examining the possible mechanism of mediation through which DTs influence SCR. The findings also offer essential insights for firms to modify their digital strategies and thrive in a turbulent environment.

Blockchain adoption or contingent sourcing? Advancing food supply chain resilience in the post-pandemic era

In the post-pandemic era, food supply chains and firms therein are facing unprecedented severe challenges, because once infection is detected, numerous products must be recalled or abandoned, and both suppliers and retailers in the supply chain suffer enormous loss. To survive under the pandemic, retailers have adopted different sourcing strategies, such as contingent sourcing, which, in turn, affect the upstream suppliers and hence the resilience of the whole supply chain. With the rapid development of digital technologies, retailers nowadays can utilize blockchain as a reliable and efficient way to reduce product risk and hence advance the resilience of food supply chains by improving product traceability and inspection accuracy, and making sourcing transparent. In this paper, we develop a game-theoretic model to investigate the interrelation between the retailer’s decisions on blockchain adoption and sourcing strategies. We consider that a retailer originally orders from a risky supplier while conducting an imperfect inspection to detect infected products before selling. The retailer may speculatively keep on ordering from the risky supplier or adopt contingent sourcing by ordering from an alternative safe supplier. The retailer also has an option to implement blockchain to improve the inspection accuracy and product traceability. We derive the optimal retail prices under different sourcing strategies with and without blockchain adoption and then analyze the incentives for sourcing strategy and blockchain adoption. Then, we identify the conditions of an all-win situation for food retailer, supplier, supply chain resilience, and consumers with/without government subsidy. Finally, we extend to consider the situation that some consumers have health-safety concerns and preferences for blockchain adoption.

Disruptive technologies for advancing supply chain resilience

Disruptive technologies provide a new paradigm for supply chain risk management and bring opportunities and challenges for the improvement of supply chain resilience(SCRes).This study summarizes the application cases of some disruptive technologies in the SCRes and analyzes the benefits and damages brought by disruptive technologies to the SCRes.The results show that disruptive technologies can provide the supply chain with flexibility,visibility,agility,and other capabilities at various stages of risk management.Hence,technology advancements greatly increase the level of the SCRes.Although disruptive technologies undermine the construction of SCRes,these damages can be eliminated through technology iteration or other disruptive technologies.Furthermore,disruptive technologies will provide better stability for the SCRes.The study also makes several suggestions for the use of disruptive technologies in the construction of the SCRes.

The effect of high-involvement human resource management practices on supply chain resilience and operational performance

Supply chain(SC)resilience is an increasingly important topic for practitioners and academics because it is a competitive weapon for firms to cope with sC disruptive risks.This study examines the impact of high-involvement human resource management practices on SC resilience from the ability-motivation-opportunity perspective.It also examines the relationship between the dimensions of sC resilience and operational performance.Based on data collected from 206 Chinese manufacturers,the proposed hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling.The results indicated that employee participation played the most powerful role in improving supplier,customer,and internal resilience.Moreover,employee skills only facilitate internal and customer resilience but have no significant impact on supplier resilience.By contrast,employee incentives do not influence the dimension of sC resilience.It was also found that both internal and customer resilience have positive effects on operational performance,while supplier resilience has no significant effect.The findings contribute to literature and practice.

Modeling of the resilient supply chain system from a perspective of production design changes

Building an effective resilient supply chain system (RSCS) is critical and necessary to reduce the risk of supply chain disruptions in unexpected scenarios such as COVID-19 pandemic and trade wars. To overcome the impact of insufficient raw material supply on the supply chain in mass disruption scenarios, this study proposes a novel RSCS considering product design changes (PDC). An RSCS domain model is first developed from the perspective of PDC based on a general conceptual framework, i.e., function-context-behavior-principle-state-structure (FCBPSS), which can portray complex systems under unpredictable situations. Specifically, the interaction among the structure, state and behavior of the infrastructure system and substance system is captured, and then a quantitative analysis of the change impact process is presented to evaluate the resilience of both the product and supply chain. Next, a case study is conducted to demonstrate the PDC strategy and to validate the feasibility and effectiveness of the RSCS domain model. The results show that the restructured RSCS based on the proposed strategy and model can remedy the huge losses caused by the unavailability of raw materials.