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The literature has generally examined supply chain disruptions and mitigation, assuming that resilience capabilities are universal. This assumption undermines the productivity and competitiveness of manufacturing firms in developing economies due to differences in contextual attributes and challenges. In this study, we advance the current knowledge in the literature and explore context-driven disruptions in developing economies to provide a foundational step for disruption-mitigation fit to enhance operational efficiency and business continuity.

This study adopts a qualitative multi-case study approach and explores the operational environment of manufacturing firms in developing economies to unpack context-driven disruptions and strategies for managing disruptions. An in-depth exploratory multiple case study of 8 manufacturing firms was conducted using semi-structured interviews with 31 key informants across the case firms.

Findings indicate that manufacturing firms in developing economies face operational disruptions and challenges specific to their business environment, contrasting with those experienced in developed countries and documented in the literature. This contrast suggests that mitigation strategies designed for disruptions in developed economies may prove ineffective in addressing emergent and context-driven disruptions in developing countries.

Since this paper is based on an in-depth single case study, its findings may not be empirically generalisable to other sectors and countries beyond Africa.

Considering the interconnectivity of global supply chains, this study highlights the need for firms and managers in developed economies to be cognisant of context-specific disruptions affecting firms in developing economies. The study provides valuable insights into how manufacturing firms can build resilience by embedding context-specific planning practices into their strategic supply chain agenda.

With Africa’s lack of production contribution to the global manufacturing value-added, this study underscores the need for manufacturing firms in developing economies to be proactive, pragmatic, and strategic in devising planning consistent with their operations and the dynamic business environment.

This paper provides evidence based quantification of both “actual” disruption of industries as well as a measure of disruption “hype”. The data cover a seven-year period from 2012 to 2018 across 12 industries. The authors’ complemented the research with a survey of 2000 business executives. Whereas there has been some measures of disruption in the past, no research to the authors’ knowledge has been conducted that measure both actual disruption and disruption hype.

The current fascination with disruption hides an awkward truth, we assume it is happening, but do we really know for sure? Disruption is rarely defined and almost never measured. Equally, the influence of the hype around disruption is hard to gauge. The authors do not know to what extent hype is driving management action. This is worrisome as the disruption “noise level” can lead to unhealthy collective thinking and bad business decision-making. Some rigour is required. To craft winning strategies, executives should take a more evidence-based approach for managing disruption.

The authors’ failed to find evidence of any correlation between the hype around an industry disruption and actual disruption within that industry. So the important conclusion for executives is “do not believe the hype”. We found some surprising differences by industry between actual disruption and the hype by industry.

Disruption is one of the most talked about subject in the field of strategy, yet there is little quantification. With this research, the authors’ aim is to advance the fact-based understanding of disruption. Disruption hype is never measured but has a strong influence on executives. The authors have quantified hype using online, search, social media and survey sources. Much more is needed to be able to measure hype more accurately.

The authors’ recommend a set of practical guidelines for executives to support fact-based strategy formulation: analysis of actual disruption, scenario planning and strategic responses.

The “noise” around industry disruption is so high that it is assumed to happen. Much of what is written is quasi-fake news. The authors need to rebalance the debate with fact-based analysis.

To authors’ knowledge, there has never been any fact-based analysis of both actual and hype disruption levels.

In this digital age and risk society, this study aims to explore innovative strategies for E-retailers during supply chain disruptions to construct a more resilient supply chain system.

Various game theoretical models are constructed to analyze four supply chain scenarios. Meanwhile, sufficient numerical analysis was conducted to observe the impact of key parameters on supply chain strategies.

Multiple crucial factors exert a comprehensive influence on E-retailers’ decisions on sourcing and pricing, leading to the diversity and complexity of decision-making conditions. First, with the increased probability of disruption, the purchase quantities of the E-retailer from different suppliers are not in a linear changing pattern, and the total purchase quantity is allocated variably between different suppliers. Second, the variation in disruption severity (partial or complete) results in the shift of decisions between single-sourcing and dual-sourcing. Responsive pricing is conducive to increasing the purchase quantity and profits under partial disruption; its advantages are diminished when completely disrupted. Third, higher commission rates usually have a detrimental impact on profit, whereas responsive pricing may mitigate this impact.

Unlike the previous single perspective, this study innovatively explores strategies from the hybrid perspective of sourcing and pricing. By extracting two key factors (disruption probability and severity), it realizes the scientific characterization of supply chain disruptions. These achievements boost theoretical innovation. Concentrating on E-retailers, it avoids the generalization of conclusions and enhances the application value.

Supply chain disruptions are a significant risk to businesses in a global marketplace because they make it more challenging for suppliers to effectively transport goods and services to customers. Therefore, it is essential to comprehend how these disruptions affect the retail food supply chain during pandemics and explore how digitalization might help to mitigate these issues in the future.

A hybrid systematic review and analysis was conducted by retrieving data set from the scopus database using strong keyword search strategy. Later a content analysis was also done to gain more insights on the proposed research.

The results show that there are several possibilities enabling optimal scenario planning supply chain disruptions and mitigation. In this area, digitalization improves customer satisfaction and logistical efficiency, particularly in transportation and network optimization. In order to cope with uncertainty and grasp significant enhancements proactive strategies and collaboration that are guided by scenario planning and digitalization assist in developing robust supply chains that are sufficiently adaptable to adapt to shifting market conditions.

The study is limited to research papers indexed in Scopus from 2015 to 2023 with a more comprehensive review of retail food supply chain disruptions.

This research provides practical insights for retail food supply chain managers, highlighting the importance of digital maturity and scenario planning by leveraging digital tools and proactive strategies to improve logistical efficiency.

This study helps in building resilient supply chains ensures the reliable availability, and food security of essential goods, particularly during crises.

This research uniquely links digitalization and scenario planning to managing supply chain disruptions, highlighting how digital tools and strategic planning enhance resilience and adaptability in the retail food supply chain.

Prefabricated construction has been rapidly developing and intensifying the reliance on the supply chain. The pandemic of COVID-19 induced severe disruptions to the supply chain operation and thus attracted the research attention on the supply chain resilience (SCR) under various events. Assessing the resilience of the prefabricated construction supply chain (PCSC) is essential for surviving the shifting disruptive attacks and ensuring consistent, reliable operation. Based on the ripple effect and supply chain performance (SCP), this study aims to develop an assessment model for SCR of PCSC.

Having identified the roles and material flows among stakeholders, a PCSC network is established. Utilizing the ripple effect model, it develops an assessment framework tailored for PCSCs, which then evolves into a comprehensive assessment model for evaluating the SCR by integrating the disruptive influence and the pre-and post-disruption SCP. Case study is then applied to validate the model.

Using SCP metrics and disruptive influence assessment as basic dimensions, the SCR can be assessed and expressed through a vector formula. Operating costs and asset utilization can effectively reflect changes in resilience, paying attention to their real-time changes can provide a better judgment of the current stage of disruptions.

The assessment model of SCR accounts for the ripple effect within prefabricated construction, offering a thorough understanding of how disruptions impact the entire supply chain network. Additionally, this model introduces a novel approach to evaluating SCR in reverse by leveraging SCP metrics instead of direct measurement, thereby minimizing potential biases.

With global attention on the increasing disruptions in primary maritime chokepoints, such as the Suez Canal Blockage incident that happened in March 2021, it has come to our realization that disruptions in maritime chokepoints may be detrimental to all maritime stakeholders. This research project aims to study and verify the factors of disruptions and their implications on maritime chokepoints from the industrial players’ perspective. Information contained in this report should interest maritime professionals from fleet ownership and management, and commercial freight owners of the tramp and liner shipping.

This research project uses questionnaire surveys and semi-structured interviews to collect primary data targeted at professionals and industrial players from the maritime industry. Qualitative and quantitative assessments are applied in data analysis. Secondary information via credible industry and news reports, research papers and other related literature and materials are gathered to support and add on to the analysis in the discussion section.

Our literature review has categorized maritime chokepoint disruptions into (1) chokepoint risk, (2) maritime security and (3) ship loss risk. The information and data from primary research not only complemented our research and affirmed that chokepoint risk as the primary concern for our interviewed maritime professionals, but at the same time covered the research gap for the lack of information in those new emerging chokepoint disruption factors, for example increased vessel size, cyber-security and the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings from the primary and secondary research reflected the implications of chokepoint disruptions as economic losses from operations and market loss. Although primary research reflected slight effectiveness in combating emergencies faced by maritime chokepoint disruptions through proactive strategies, they still serve the merit in raising awareness for the maritime industry. Nevertheless, the findings highlighted the importance of having reactive strategies to engage in volatility faced during such disruptive events.

This empirical research study provides fresh insights into the new emerging factors of maritime chokepoint disruptions and their implications via the perspective from the industrial players in the maritime industry.

With the changing landscape of the globalised business world, business-to-business supply chains face a turbulent ocean of disruptions. Such is the effect that supply chains are disrupted to the point of failure, supply is halted and its adverse effect is seen on the consumer. While previous literature has extensively studied risk and resilience through mathematical modelling, this study aims to envision a novel supply chain model that integrates blockchain to support visibility and recovery resilience strategies.

The stochastic bi-objective (cost and shortage utility) optimisation-based mixed-integer linear programming model integrates blockchain through a binary variable, which activates at a particular threshold risk-averse level of the decision-maker.

Firstly, visibility is improved, as identified by the average reduction of penalties by 36% over the different scenarios. Secondly, the average sum of shortages over different scenarios is consequently reduced by 36% as the recovery of primary suppliers improves. Thirdly, the feeling of shortage unfairness between distributors is significantly reduced by applying blockchain. Fourthly, unreliable direct suppliers resume their supply due to the availability of timely information through blockchain. Lastly, reliance on backup suppliers is reduced as direct suppliers recover conveniently.

The findings indicate that blockchain can enhance visibility and recovery even under high-impact disruption conditions. Furthermore, the study introduces a unique metric for measuring visibility, i.e. penalty costs (lower penalty costs indicate higher visibility and vice versa). The study also improves upon shortages and recoveries reported in prior literature by 6%. Finally, blockchain application caters to the literature on shortage unfairness by significantly reducing the feeling of shortage unfairness among distributors.

This study establishes blockchain as a pro-resilience technology. It advocates that organisations focus on investing in blockchain to enhance their visibility and recovery, as it effectively reduces absolute shortages and feelings of shortage unfairness while improving recovery and visibility.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is a unique supply chain model study that integrates a technology such as blockchain directly as a binary variable in the model constraint equations while also focusing on resilience strategies, costs, risk aversion and shortage unfairness.

Geopolitical disruptions significantly impact the management of temporary healthcare supply chains (HSCs). Common across geopolitical disruptions is the interruption to the flow of supplies, calling for organizations to reconfigure their existing supply chains or set up temporary ones. We theoretically and empirically investigate how temporary HSCs are designed to ensure a resilient flow of vital healthcare products during a geopolitical disruption.

We investigated two different temporary HSCs – potable water and blood products – that experienced geopolitical disruptions. We purposefully sampled HSCs in deployed medical care where healthcare providers operate in resource-austere, politically volatile environments and timing and access to specialist expertise, medical equipment and medicines are critical. We built on rich datasets, including archival data, 12 expert workshops and 41 interviews.

The nature of temporary HSCs (e.g. urgency of demand and time-limited need) and product characteristics (e.g. perishability and strict storage conditions) lead to complexity in designing resilience for temporary HSCs. In contrast to permanent supply chains, temporary HSCs have limited flexibility and redundancy. Collaboration and agility are predominant strategies for enhancing resilience for temporary HSCs.

The study uncovers an urgent need for radical changes in how managers and policymakers responsible for HSC address resilience. During geopolitical disruptions, managers and policymakers need to review healthcare regulations across nations and prioritize by activating high levels of information- and knowledge-sharing between nations.

This study addresses an underresearched area of investigation by theoretically combining and empirically investigating the supply chain strategies employed by organizations to build up resilience in temporary HSCs.