Abstract
The growth of mobile workforces to support diversified resource extraction activities, compared to historically single-industry towns, represents a key change in rural and remote resource landscapes that has accelerated since the 1980s. Mobile workforces can present many opportunities to rural communities and economies. However, the capacity, viability and competitiveness of rural-based businesses to engage in supply chains serving mobile labour may be undermined by limited attention to how businesses manoeuvre downturns while maintaining a level of readiness to recover and scale-up in order to meet emerging mobile workforce needs. Drawing upon interviews with businesses in Fort St. John, British Columbia, Canada, our research uses the concept of resiliency to examine challenges and strategies associated with business capacity and agility to scale-up and scale-down in response to changing economic conditions associated with large-scale mobile workforces and related economic sectors. Our findings suggest that the capacity to scale-up and scale-down is shaped by capital, human resource and infrastructure strategies, inventory management and contract management strategies. Industry and state policies may also play a role supporting the conditions that will improve the agility, capacity and readiness of businesses operating in volatile resource-based economies.
Highlights
Resource-based regions are undergoing significant restructuring as they experience more fluid flows of capital and labour (Haslam McKenzie and Rowley, 2013)
Supply chain opportunities with mobile workforces and camps have been impacted by industry changes such as commodity price fluctuations, economic downturns, delays with liquefied natural gas pipeline projects (i.e. Trans Mountain and Coastal Gaslink), curtailments in the forest sector and cancellation of work (Financial Post, 2019; Lough, 2018); there has been rapid growth associated with the exploration and construction of large-scale industrial projects
To explore how businesses manoeuvred rapid changes to supply chains associated with large mobile workforces, our findings explore the challenges and responses in relation to eight key themes that emerged from the data, including communication, access to capital, insurance, land development, infrastructure, managing inventories, human resources and diversification
Summary
Resource-based regions are undergoing significant restructuring as they experience more fluid flows of capital and labour (Haslam McKenzie and Rowley, 2013). Globalization, industrial restructuring, labour shortages and competitive labour markets, improvements with transportation and communication, reduced senior government roles and evolving regulations in remote resource regions have been accelerating a shift towards the use of mobile workforces to support industrial projects in resource-based regions (Rolfe and Kinnear, 2013; Tonts, 2010). As resource development projects are mobilized, industry outsourcing with established global supply chain networks may exclude local businesses and communities from the economic benefits of largescale industrial development (Tonts et al, 2012). The capacity, viability and competitiveness of local businesses to engage in supply chains serving mobile workforces is further undermined by limited attention to how these businesses manoeuvre downturns in boom and bust cycles, while seeking to maintain a level of capacity and readiness to quickly scale-up and meet industry needs in volatile markets. The ability of rural-based businesses to engage in this type of economic activity has significant implications for rural local economies
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