Roles of Mobilized Controls and Environmental Uncertainty on Supply Chain Resilience: An Empirical Study From Dynamic-Capabilities-View and Levers-of-Control Perspectives

Abstract

COVID-19 creates big challanges to supply chain management. This article empirically examines the impact of management control systems (MCS) on managing supply chain resilience (SCR) to enhance organizational competitiveness under environmental uncertainty. Drawing on the dynamic capabilities view (DCV) theory and levers of control (LoC) framework, an industrial survey was conducted. Analyses performed on the collected data from 405 manufacturing firms reveal that the effects of MCS on SCR and organizational competitiveness depend on the nature and use of mobilized controls. Different from conventional wisdom, the study suggests that belief, boundary, and interactive systems enable firms to achieve SCR and these systems have positive effects on organizational competitiveness through SCR. Moreover, interestingly, diagnostic systems seem to play no role in strengthening SCR and organizational competitiveness. The study thus argues that firms should employ the enabling characteristics of belief and interactive systems, along with the controlling features of boundary systems to manage SCR and ultimately be more organizational-competitive. The research also uncovers that environmental uncertainty positively moderates the indirect effects of MCS on organizational competitiveness through SCR. Indeed, the study indicates that firms evolving in highly uncertain and dynamic environments tend to increase the use of different MCS to generate detailed information that is essential to strengthen SCR. Overall, this theory-based empirical research provides novel insights regarding how MCS would contribute to improving SCR and organizational competitiveness, especially under disruptions such as COVID-19.