ABSTRACT
Organizations in recent times are increasingly investing in building supply chain resilience following disruptions due to natural disasters, geo-political crises, and pandemics. A lack of government support has exacerbated the disruption to supply chains in some regions of the world. The positive influence of digitalization on social inclusion, government accountability, and creating a more open environment is well understood. Despite this, different countries have shown varying degrees of digital responsiveness during the pandemic as they attempted to deal with the effects of various COVID strains. The influence of government policies on the supply chain has not been examined in the literature so far and, hence, to address this research gap, we examine the interaction effect of government support effectiveness i.e., tax credits, interest deferral, digital investment, soft loans on dynamic capabilities i.e., digital adaptabilities and digital agilities and on supply chain resilience, using a multi-method approach. To understand how digital adaptability and agility improve supply chain resilience, we conducted 13 semi-structured interviews. Additionally, we pretested our measurement instrument using qualitative semi-structured interviews to validate our hypothesized relationships. We collected data at a specific point of time using a survey-based instrument (N = 203) to address our research questions. Based on data analyses of both the qualitative and survey-based data, our findings indicate that digital adaptability is an important driver of digital agility. Furthermore, the results indicate that government effectiveness is crucial to enhancing supply chain resilience by enhancing digital adaptability and agility. Our research makes some useful contributions to the dynamic capability view by enhancing theoretical understanding, of the role of government in building digital capabilities in uncertain times, to improve supply chain resilience. It also bridges the research gaps between macro and micro perspectives, as identified by management scholars. Lastly, we noted the weaknesses and limitations in the study and therefore we have offered multiple research directions forward, that could help researchers to further develop our current work. © 2023 The Authors
ABSTRACT
Purpose: The COVID-19 crisis has created enormous strain in global supply chains. The disruption has caused severe shortages of critical items, including personal protective equipment (e.g. face masks), ventilators and diagnostics. The failure of the industry to meet the sudden demand for these necessary items has caused a severe humanitarian crisis. These situations, resulting from the COVID-19, crisis have led to the informal growth of frugal innovation in sustainable global supply chains. This paper aims to provide a detailed overview of drivers of frugal-oriented sustainable global supply chains, following lessons acquired from emerging countries’ attempts to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. Design/methodology/approach: The authors used a focused group approach to identify the drivers and this paper further validated them using existing literature published in international peer-reviewed journals and reports. The authors adopted total interpretive structural modeling (TISM) to analyze the complex relationships among identified drivers. Findings: The authors present a theoretical framework to explain how the drivers are interlinked. This paper has developed the framework through a synthesis of the TISM modeling and Matrice d’impacts croisés multiplication appliquée á un classment analysis. This paper observed that government financial support, policies and regulations, under the mediating effect of leadership and the moderating effect of national culture and international rules and regulations, has a significant effect on the adoption of emerging technology, volunteering initiatives and values and ethics. Further, emerging technology, volunteering initiative and values and ethics have a significant effect on supply chain talent and frugal engineering. These results provide some useful theoretical insights that may help in further investigating the role of frugal innovations in other contexts. Originality/value: The authors find that outcomes of the methodical contributions and the resulting managerial insights can be categorized into four levels. Industry and researchers alike can use the study to develop the decision-support systems guiding frugal-oriented sustainable global supply chains amid the COVID-19 pandemic and in recovering them thereafter. Suggestions for future research directions are offered and discussed. © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited.