THE ROLE OF SUPPLY CHAIN RESILIENCE IN SUPPLY CHAIN RECONFIGURATION: EVIDENCE FROM QATAR

Abstract

Supply chain resilience has emerged as a key attribute in wake of increased risk susceptibilities due to globalized operations. This dissertation aims to understand the role of supply chain resilience and reconfiguration in context of economic-political risk. A systematic mapping review was conducted to identify the gaps in contemporary literature on supply chain resilience and reconfiguration. Based on literature review, a model utilizing Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) is proposed to understand the relationships among the enablers of supply chain resilience to effectively mitigate the economic-political risk. The results of ISM model were utilized to propose a model, which empirically investigated the impact of supply chain resilience on supply chain reconfiguration considering the impact of key antecedents of supply chain resilience. Descriptive statistics, hypothesis testing and partial least squares modeling using data from the selected organizations in Qatar provided useful information about the recovery of supply chains following an economic-political risk event of blockade in Qatar. Risk management culture, agility, and collaboration significantly support supply chain resilience, which assist in supply chain reconfiguration. In this research, supply chain reconfiguration emerged as a key variable determining the ability of supply chains to adjust in the wake of risk events or in a dynamic business environment. To focus resources towards building supply chain reconfiguration capabilities a multi-criteria decision framework integrating Analytic Network Process (ANP) and Balanced Scorecard to prioritize the variables associated with supply chain reconfiguration was proposed in the research. The findings reported in the thesis improves the understanding of supply chain resilience and reconfiguration in a developing economy. It proposes models and framework to understand resilience and reconfiguration variables that would enable businesses to develop resilient supply chains to effectively mitigate risks and improve continuity of operations.