Organizational Resilience to Supply Chain Risks During the COVID‐19 Pandemic

Abstract

This paper aims to establish a link between aggregate organizational resilience capabilities and managerial risk perception aspects during a major global crisis. We argue that a multi-theory perspective, dynamic capability at an organizational level and enactment theory at a managerial level allow us to better understand how the sensemaking process within managerial risk perception assists organizational resilience. We draw from in-depth interviews with 40 managers across the UK's food industry, which has been able to display resilience during the pandemic. In sensing supply chain risks (SCRs), managers within both authority-based and consensus-based organizational structures utilize risk-capture heuristics and enact actions related to effective communications, albeit at different information costs. In seizing, we found that managers adhere to distinct heuristics that are idiosyncratic to their organizational structures. Through limited horizontal communication channels, authority-based structures adhere to rudimentary how-to heuristics, whereas consensus-based structures use obtainable how-to heuristics. We contribute to the organizational resilience and dynamic capabilities literature by identifying assessment as an additional step prior to transforming, which depicts a retention process to inform future judgements. Our study presents a novel framework of organizational resilience to SCRs during equivocal environments, by providing a nuanced understanding of the construction of dynamic capabilities through sensemaking.

Disrupting Management Research? Critical Reflections on British Journal of Management COVID‐19 Research and an Agenda for the Future

“…, 2022 ; Sahasranamam and Soundararajan, 2022 ; Wulandhari et al. , 2022 ). The other seven studies use quantitative approaches including experiments or quasi‐experiments (Kakarika et al.…”

“…For example, Wulandhari et al. ( 2022 ) examine the role of managerial risk perceptions and organizational resilience among firms in the food sector, one area of the economy heavily affected by COVID‐19. One of the principal novelties of Wulandhari et al.…”

“…Other studies examining how organizations responded to COVID-19 encompassed a broader range of organizational types. For example, Wulandhari et al (2022) examine the role of managerial risk perceptions and organizational resilience among firms in the food sector, one area of the economy heavily affected by COVID-19. One of the principal novelties of Wulandhari et al's study is the emphasis in their findings on the importance of pre-existing organizational structures and modes of decision-making for the processes of sensing emergent threats and developing responses to them.…”

“…These studies are much more varied in respect of their methods, as might be expected given the longer window of time available to collect and analyse pandemic-specific data. Seven out of the 14 are wholly or primarily qualitative in approach (Adisa et al, 2022;Ashman et al, 2022;Branicki, Kalfa and Brammer, 2022;Nayani et al, 2022;Puthusserry et al, 2022;Sahasranamam and Soundararajan, 2022;Wulandhari et al, 2022). The other seven studies use quantitative approaches including experiments or quasiexperiments (Kakarika et al, 2022;Papagiannidis et al, 2022), secondary financial databases (Ataullah, Le and Wood, 2022;Ghobadian et al, 2022;Li, Trinh and Elnahass, 2022), and survey data (Calabrese, Cowling and Liu, 2022;Liu, Shahab and Hoque, 2022).…”

Food fraud and mitigating strategies of UK food supply chain during COVID-19

“…Our findings reflected Moran et al (2020) and Mitchell et al (2020) that despite significant disruptions, the UK food system has remarkable adaptive capacity. Building trust and having open, effective communications ( Sharma et al, 2022 ; Wulandhari et al, 2022 ) with suppliers and stakeholders ( Kazancoglu et al, 2021 ) contributed to organisational resilience during the pandemic. Being risk aware and responsive, having the IT capabilities and flexibility were some of the enablers of resilience in food supply chains ( Kazancoglu et al, 2021 ).…”