Purchasing challenges in times of COVID-19: resilience practices to mitigate disruptions in the health-care supply chain

Purpose This study aims to explore the interplay between supply chain collaboration and disruption and their joint impact on supply chain resilience. It also aims to identify the configurational conditions under which supply chain resilience is achieved, providing a holistic framework for enhancing supply chain management practices amidst disruptions. Design/methodology/approach This study uses a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to investigate the complex causal mechanisms linking supply chain collaboration and disruption with supply chain resilience. The research integrates three dimensions of collaboration with three dimensions of disruption, offering a comprehensive understanding of supply chain resilience factors. Findings This study reveals that supply chain resilience is not solely dependent on individual elements but is shaped by unique configurations of collaboration and disruption factors. Information sharing emerges as a core factor in high resilience, while the absence of supply and facility disruptions significantly influences resilience outcomes. The research highlights the importance of multiple paths leading to supply chain resilience and the asymmetrical impact of collaboration and disruption. Research limitations/implications The study acknowledges limitations due to data sourced exclusively from China and the use of static data, suggesting the need for cross-temporal and international samples to enhance broader applicability. Future research should consider dynamic temporal changes and diverse theoretical perspectives to comprehensively examine the factors influencing supply chain resilience. Practical implications The research underscores the critical role of information sharing in bolstering supply chain resilience and advises firms to prioritize it in their strategies. It also highlights the importance of mitigating supply and facility disruptions through supplier diversification and robust contingency planning, offering actionable insights for enhancing operational efficiency and risk management in supply chain management. Social implications This research has significant social implications, particularly in the context of global supply chain disruptions. By identifying key factors that enhance supply chain resilience, it can help businesses better prepare for and respond to crises, thereby reducing economic instability and social disruption. Improved resilience can lead to more stable employment, maintain the flow of essential goods and services and contribute to overall societal well-being during times of supply chain stress. Originality/value This study offers original insights by applying fsQCA to explore the multifaceted relationship between supply chain collaboration, disruption and resilience. Its value lies in revealing the complex causal configurations that lead to high or low levels of supply chain resilience, challenging traditional linear perspectives and providing a nuanced understanding that can guide both academic research and practical supply chain management strategies.

PurposeThis systematic literature review analyzes the academic literature to understand SC risk and resilience across different organizational sizes and industries. The academic literature has well discussed the causes of supply chain (SC) risk events, the impact of SC disruptions, and associated plans for SC resilience. However, the literature remains fragmented on the role of two fundamental elements in achieving SC resilience: the firm's size and the firm's industry as firms' contingent factors. Therefore, it is important to investigate and highlight SC resilience differences by size and industry type to establish more resilient firms.Design/methodology/approachBuilding upon the contingent resource-based view of the firm, the authors posit that organizational factors such as size and industry sector have important roles in developing organizational resilience capabilities. This systematic literature review and analysis is based on the structural and systematic analysis of high-ranked peer-reviewed journal papers from January 2000 to June 2021 collected through three global scientific databases (i.e. ProQuest, ScienceDirect, and Google Scholar) using relevant keywords.FindingsThis systematic literature review of 230 high-quality articles shows that SC risk events can be categorized into demand, supply, organizational, operational, environmental, and network/control risk events. This study suggests that the SC resilience plans developed by startups, small and mdium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and large organizations are not necessarily the same as those of large enterprises. While collaboration and networking and risk management are the most crucial resilience capabilities for all firms, applying lean and quality management principles and utilizing information technology are more crucial for SMEs. For large firms, knowledge management and contingency planning are more important.Originality/valueThis study provides a comprehensive review of the literature on SC resilience plans across different organizational sizes and industries, offering new insights into the nature and dynamics of startups', SMEs', and large enterprises' SC resilience in different industries. The study highlights the need for further investigation of SC risk and resilience for startups, SMEs, and different industries on a more detailed level using empirical data. This study’s findings have important implications for researchers and practitioners and guide the development of effective SC resilience strategies for different types of firms.

Building responsive and resilient supply chains: Lessons from the <scp>COVID</scp>‐19 disruption

Navigating Healthcare Supply Shortages During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cardiologist's Perspective.

Coronavirus Disease 2019 in 5 Neighboring Limited-Resource Countries: A Financial and Health Threat

PurposeThis study aims to analyse whether the presence of supply chain complexity (SCC) influences firms to improve their supply chain (SC) resilience and SC robustness capability. This study also examines an important paradox: whether investing in both exploitation and exploration practices is conflicting or complementary to enabling SC resilience and robustness in the presence of SCC.Design/methodology/approachThe authors used a survey-based approach to collect 242 useful responses from SC professionals of Pakistani firms, an important emerging economy context. The data were analysed with covariance-based structural equation modelling to statistically validate the model.FindingsThe analysis reveals several key findings: the presence of SCC has a direct, positive influence on SC resilience and SC robustness; while exploitation practices only partially mediate the nexus between SCC and SC resilience, they fully mediate the relationship between SCC and SC robustness; while exploration practices partially mediate the nexus between SCC and SC resilience, they do not mediate the relationship between SCC and SC robustness and SCC has a significant influence on SC resilience and SC robustness sequentially through exploitation and exploration (i.e. one after the other).Practical implicationsThese findings help to reconcile the exploitation versus exploration paradox in cultivating SC resilience and SC robustness in the presence of SCC. The findings assist SC managers in determining how to deploy their limited resources most effectively to enhance SC resilience and SC robustness while facing SCC.Originality/valueThe authors devise and empirically validate a unique framework that demonstrates how the presence of SCC works as a stimulus to build SC resilience and SC robustness.

Building resilience or maintaining robustness: Insights from relational view and information processing perspective

Reshaping healthcare supply chain using chain-of-things technology and key lessons experienced from COVID-19 pandemic

Resilience is a particularly important quality for supply chains in this turbulent environment. Resilience in the supply chain is the ability to retain, resume, and recover operations after an intense destructive incident. One of the strategic solutions for managing supply chain disruptions is to establish collaboration and strategic alliances in order to achieve competitive advantage. Therefore, given the increasing publication of articles in areas of strategic alliances and supply chain resilience, it is a good opportunity to review these articles, identify gaps in the current literature, demonstrate links between the two areas, and provide suggestions for future research. For these purposes, a bibliometric analysis has been performed on literature available on the Web of Science database. The distribution of articles based on year and country, influential journals, research areas, authors, affiliations, keywords, citations, and reference co-citation analysis are discussed. Results indicate that studies about strategic alliances, meant to increase resilience, are growing in areas such as “Management”, “Operations research”, “Management science”, and “Business”. Furthermore, the sources could be categorized into five clusters; namely “From knowledge concept to value creation”, “Internal and external relationships”, “Logistics and supply chain performance”, “Intellectual capital and strategic management”, and “Critical success factors and alliances”. This article can be useful for both practitioners and academics who explore the topic of strategic alliances and resilience in the supply chain, and also offers managers the opportunity to overcome supply chain disruptions and negative consequences of risks by becoming familiar with the key concepts of resilience. The persistence of businesses and supply chains is guaranteed through communicating with partners and even competitors in the light of alliance according to the findings of this research. Managers can pay attention to the integration of the supply chain to improve resilience and increase collaboration between suppliers and customers. Given the research results, strategic alliances can be noted in expanding organizational entrepreneurship and shaping strategic collaboration networks in light of strategic alliances.

During a pandemic like COVID-19, the country adopted a lockdown to minizine the spread of the pandemic which disrupted the global supply chain and supply chain resilience failed to minimize disruption. In this regard, this study aims to explore the resilience system among countries during a global disruption and the impact of supply chain disruption on supply chain resilience through misinformation/fake news, panic buying behavior, and inflation factors. For this purpose, the analytical study has been selected to predict the impact of supply chain disruption on supply chain resilience through misinformation/fake news, panic buying behavior, and inflation and propose a solution accordingly. The data from 89 countries are collected on various factors for the year 2020 and mediating analysis is selected to test the hypothesis through regression and correlation. They illustrate that there is a 46% correlation and 21% dependency between supply chain disruption and supply chain resilience through misinformation/fake news, panic buying behavior, supply chain disruption &amp; inflation. The criterion validity of convergence validity and Cronbach of homogeneity test are applied. It has been found that panic buying behavior &amp; supply chain disruption has a 71% strong correlation as compared to other factors and the reliability is 69% which is highly reliable and acceptable. In the end, it is concluded that strong coordination among countries will minimize global supply chain disruption through supply chain resilience for continuing supply chain activities and supply chain organizations &amp; mass media organizations coordination with each other for minimizing misinformation/fake news, panic buying behavior supply chain disruption, and inflation factors to improve supply chain resilience by using artificial intelligence technology.

Economic Shocks From the Novel COVID-19 Pandemic for Anesthesiologists and Their Practices.

Perioperative Cardiac Research Considerations During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Pandemic

Purpose This paper aims to investigate current trends in sustainability and resilience in supply chains post the COVID-19 pandemic. With an increase in the number of pandemic-led supply chain disruptions in the past years, supply chain resilience has become a necessity in almost all global supply chains. At the same time, supply chains are being mandated to meet the sustainable development goals by considering all three pillars of sustainability, that is, people, planet and profits. The challenge faced by most supply chains is to incorporate both sustainability and resilience in their supply chains since the two have some conflicting objectives. The review investigated research on the integration of sustainability and resilience in closed-loop supply chains (CLSCs). CLSCs have become an important circular business model that contributes greatly to environmental sustainability. The disruption of CLSCs affects not only business as usual (forward chain) but also environmental and net zero initiatives. For this reason, it is necessary to study their resilience. Design/methodology/approach When conducting the review, the systematic method was used. In the systematic method, a research question was defined and studies on the topic were located and screened based on their contents. At the end of the screening, 56 publications were found to be relevant to the topic at hand. A content analysis was carried on the selected publications to come up with research gaps, recommendations and managerial implications for the integration of sustainability and resilience in CLSCs. The review investigated the levels of decision-making where resilience and sustainability can be integrated in CLSCs, the interrelationships between sustainability and resilience from the perspective of CLSCs and other supply chain issues that can be integrated with resilience and sustainability in CLSCs. Findings For CLSCs, the integration of sustainability and resilience was carried out mostly in the strategic level (mostly network design focusing on facility location and allocation). Most studies investigated the two principles separately, although there is a growing increase in literature investigating both principles simultaneously. In CLSCs, resilience has been investigated as a tool for achieving sustainability, as most research focused on the impact of resilience on sustainability dimensions. In addition, sustainability and resilience cannot co-exist without some trade-offs. It was also discovered that sustainability and resilience can be combined with other principles such as robustness, responsiveness, efficiency and reliability among other principles to improve supply chain networks. Originality/value The paper focused on simultaneous consideration of resilience and sustainability in CLSCs specifically. It also explored other supply chain issues associated with sustainability and resilience in CLSCs. The aim of the paper was to reveal interrelationships between resilience and sustainability in closed-loop supply chains. It has not been clear as to the relationship between resilience and sustainability from a CLSC perspective.

Enablers of resilience in the healthcare supply chain: A case study of U.S healthcare industry during COVID-19 pandemic

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate the influence of supply and demand competence on supply chain (SC) resilience and its impact on a firm’s operational and relational performance. While the former competence refers to production and supply management-related activities, the latter refers to distribution and demand management-related activities. Within this framework, process compliance, i.e. how well SC management processes are internally executed by the firm’s employees, is observed as an enabler (moderator) on the relationship between SC competence and SC resilience. Further the model also explores the moderating influence of environmental uncertainty (EU) on the linkage between SC resilience and firm performance.Design/methodology/approachData were collected through a Web-based cross-sectional survey from SC professionals working in different industries at various designations. Further, the collected data were analyzed using partial least squares for hypotheses’ testing.FindingsThe findings suggest a positive influence of demand- and supply-side competences on SC resilience. Supply chain resilience was also found to have a positive influence on operational and relational performance. Further, process compliance was found to positively moderate the relationship between the competences and resilience. Lastly, the relationship between resilience and performance was found to gain momentum in the presence of EU.Research limitations/implicationData were collected from a single respondent per firm. Hence, future research should attempt to collect data from multiple respondents for increased generalization.Originality/valueThe study holds significance for academicians and practitioners, as it investigates the importance of supply- and demand-side competences on the development of SC resilience and its impact on performance. This investigation showed that building resilience in a SC is dependent on the degree to which firms are process-compliant. Further, it was empirically proved that resilience’s positive influence on performance increases more with the presence of uncertainties.