Managing Covid-19 pandemic and supply chain disruptions through employee attitude: A cross-country analysis based on the transtheoretical model

In this paper, we examine the attitudinal changes and processes regarding Covid-19 guidelines through the lens of the Transtheoretical Model (TTM) among 932 employees in organisations within the emerging markets of China and Qatar, and the implications for the management of operations and supply chain disruptions. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, and hierarchical multiple regression were conducted to validate our measures, confirm model fit, and verify the proposed hypotheses. Our findings reveal that attitude towards the guidelines differ between Chinese and Qatari samples, significantly stronger among the Chinese sample. The TTM dimensions explain a considerable amount of variance in attitude and self-efficacy. Self-efficacy further explains attitudinal changes. Firms should actively source and provide useful and accurate information about COVID 19, including pathological characteristics, propagation, prevention measures, and treatment. Besides, firms should promote the importance of following the guidelines, leaders should set examples, and encourage and empower employees to do so. With the right employee attitude and behavior, firms can manage pandemic-related disruptions within the organization and the supply chain.

Manufacturing and service supply chain resilience to the COVID-19 outbreak: Lessons learned from the automobile and airline industries.

There has been an increased interest among scholars to investigate supply chain resilience (SCRes) in manufacturing and service operations during emerging situations. Grounded in the SCRes theory, this study provides insights into the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on the automobile and airline supply chain. Both the short and long-term response strategies adopted by the two supply chains are assessed, using a combination of qualitative and quantitative techniques in three distinct phases. In phase one, we use a sequential mixed-method for resilience evaluation, integrating Time-to-Recovery (TTR) and Financial Impact (FI) analysis. In phase two, we conduct an empirical survey involving 145 firms to evaluate the short-term SCRes response strategies. In the third phase, we conduct semi-structured interviews with supply chain executives both from the automobile and airline industries to understand the long-term SCRes response strategies. Our findings indicate that: (i) the automobile industry perceived that the best strategies to mitigate risks related to COVID-19, were to develop localized supply sources and use advanced industry 4.0 (I4.0) technologies. (ii) The airline industry on the other hand, perceived that the immediate need was to get ready for business continuity challenges posed by COVID-19, by defining their operations both at the airports and within the flights. (iii) Importantly, both the sectors perceived Big Data Analytics (BDA) to play a significant role by providing real-time information on various supply chain activities to overcome the challenges posed by COVID-19. (iv) Cooperation among supply chain stakeholders is perceived, as needed to overcome the challenges of the pandemic, and to accelerate the use of digital technologies.