Article publication date: 10 December 2021

Purpose

COVID-19 once again showed the importance of building resilience in supply chains. Extant research on supply chain resilience management has successfully identified a set of organizational antecedents that contribute to supply chain resilience. However, little is known about the mechanisms by which these antecedents are developed within a firm. Drawing on the dynamic managerial capabilities theory, the current study aims to investigate the critical role that supply chain managers play in developing the organizational antecedents. Specifically, this study shows that supply chain managers’ social capital, human capital and cognition are instrumental to the development of three organizational supply chain resilience antecedents: visibility, responsiveness and flexibility, which subsequently enhance the firm’s supply chain resilience.

The authors employ survey data collected from 598 manufacturing firms in Australia, and Hayes and Preacher’s (2014) parallel multiple mediator model to empirically test the hypotheses.

Findings

The findings of the study establish that supply chain managers’ social capital, human capital and cognition indeed have implications for developing supply chain resilience. Furthermore, the mediators through which managers’ social capital, human capital and cognition improve supply chain resilience are identified in the current study.

Originality/value

The study contributes to the extant literature on supply chain resilience, investigating the role that supply chain managers play in developing the resilience of their firm.

Towards Resilient Supply Chain Structures | SpringerLink

Disruptions pose a significant threat to supply chains, as their impact may have devastating consequences. As a result, the research in supply chain resilience has increased immensely over the last years. This article focuses on the supply chain structure and investigates how resilience depends on it. Research was conducted to identify the vulnerabilities the supply chain structure is exposed to and the strategies that exist to counteract these vulnerabilities and increase supply chain resilience. Findings show that vulnerabilities are manifold and that there is no strategy that in itself leads to supply chain resilience. It is especially crucial first to examine the supply chain structure, identify the specific vulnerabilities to the supply chain and subsequently choose an appropriate strategy.