Resource Scarcity and Humanitarian Social Innovation: Observations from Hunger Relief in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Humanitarian social enterprises (HSEs) are facing mounting pressure to incorporate social innovation into their practice. This study thus identifies how HSEs leverage organizational capabilities toward developing social innovation. Specifically, it considers how resource scarcity and operating circumstances affect the capabilities used by HSEs for developing social innovation, using a longitudinal case study approach with qualitative data from 12 hunger-relief HSEs operating in the United States. Based on 59 interviews with 31 managers and directors and related documents, several propositions are posited. The findings suggest that resource availability (i.e., scarcity vs. abundance) leads some HSEs to focus on developing social innovation using their collaborative capabilities, while others leverage their absorptive capacity. Further, HSEs adjust their approach to developing social innovation based on whether they are operating in ordinary circumstances (i.e., before the COVID pandemic) or extraordinary ones (i.e., during the COVID pandemic). Interestingly, the findings suggest that the organizational capabilities used by HSEs are adjusted as these enterprises become more familiar with extraordinary operating circumstances. For example, at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, resource-scarce HSEs focused on parallel bricolage to develop social innovation. Subsequently, they focused on selective bricolage. The findings offer novel insights by relating the social innovation of social enterprises to crisis management. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10551-021-05014-9.

Leadership styles in supply chain disruptions: a multimethod evaluation based on practitioner insights

PurposeThe authors empirically determine the stages and leadership styles that enhance the effectiveness of firm response and recovery efforts during each stage.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use an inductive exploratory approach and mixed-method research design. Study 1 uses a combination of qualitative data gathered through two rounds of exploratory focus groups (26 managers and executives), Q-sorting (60 participants) and a confirmatory focus group (6 experts) to highlight how expert practitioners perceive the staged progression of a supply chain disruption. Study 2 uses responses from 90 experienced managers in an experimental vignette to determine the most effective leadership style during each stage.FindingsExpert practitioners are strongly partial to a two-staged disruption model that includes an early/response and late/recovery stage. They consider decisiveness to be the most effective style in the response stage. However, in the recovery stage, a style that combines decisiveness and task-centered leadership is perceived to be the most effective. Further, effective leadership hinges on applying distinct styles depending on the progression of events during supply chain disruptions.Originality/valueEmpirical evidence and validation of conceptual models on leadership behavior during crises are essentially nonexistent in the literature. This study is likely the first to pursue the subject of leadership during stages of crises and the first to offer empirical evidence thereof. Relatedly, the authors contribute to the growing research on crisis management, which is likely to receive even more attention as the frequency and size of crises facing organizations increase.

A typology of supply network resilience strategies: complex collaborations in a complex world

The COVID‐19 pandemic has illustrated the broad and diverse challenges that supply networks face in preparing for and adapting to significant supply and demand disruptions. While much has been written about resilience strategies, few consider resiliency from a network level perspective. In this essay, we explain a typology of resiliency strategies linked to different types of collaboration within and between supply networks. Existing literature focuses on two of these types, micro‐ and macro‐level supply network resilience. Micro‐level resilience occurs when buyers and suppliers coordinate directly on supply risk prevention and recovery. Macro‐level resilience occurs when corporations, including competitors, collaborate with institutions such as government or trade associations to manage or regulate longer‐term supply risks. This essay identifies a third type, meso‐level resilience. Meso‐level resilience emerges when multiple supply networks collaborate on short to medium‐term supply risks. These collaborations tend to be more opportunistic and ad hoc than micro or macro‐level collaborations, and we argue that they can be viewed as complex adaptive systems, exhibiting self‐organization and dynamism. We identify a number of novel characteristics of meso‐level resilience and discuss research implications.

Managing Supply Chains Beyond Covid-19: Preparing for the Next Global Mega-Disruption

Abstract The Covid-19 pandemic has forced supply chain management researchers and practitioners to question many of our firmly held assumptions about the discipline. Perhaps the most interesting question is, where does supply chain management go from here? This issue of the Journal of Supply Chain Management begins to answer that question via a combination of invited essays and a regular submission. We consider this issue as only a starting point, and we hope to see its impact on future research on mega-disruptions in supply chains.