Purpose: This study aims to investigate the influence of supply chain (SC) complexity on the effectiveness of resilience capabilities in mitigating SC disruptions. Hypotheses about direct and moderating influences of complexity on resilience capabilities and performance change after disruption are built and quantitatively tested.Design/methodology/approach: Partial least square-based structural equation modelling with formative constructs was used as an overall approach. Secondary data on SC disruptions, related performance change and resilience practices were collected from multiple sources through a predefined procedure. The collected data were systematically encoded prior to performing statistical analysis.Findings: SC structural complexity is found to have a significant positive relation with performance improvement after disruption, along with resilience capability; it also positively moderates the resilience–performance link.Research limitations/implications: The SC complexity factors the authors considered in this study do not include dynamic forms because of the nature of data collected. Future research may attempt to include and test whether the results of this study also hold when additional complexity parameters are taken into account.Practical implications: Managers are often trying to reduce SC complexity. This study implies that some level of complexity is beneficial also for a better recovery of operational performance affected because of disruption. Resilience capabilities become more effective when leveraged on complexity in the SC.Originality/value: This is the first study to empirically investigate the influence of SC complexity on the resilience–performance link.

Purpose: – The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize a typology of supply-side resilience capabilities and empirically validates these capabilities and their constituent bundles of practices. Design/methodology/approach: – The study is primarily qualitative, employing the critical incident technique to collect data across 22 firms and seeking to validate how and why practice bundles form and relate to operations performance. It contains a frequency of occurrence analysis for the purpose of triangulation, a minor statistical part to provide some additional evidence of bundle formation and correlation between adoption of bundles of practices and recovered operations performance after upstream supply chain disruptions. Findings: – Four supply-side resilience capabilities are conceptualized along two dichotomous dimensions – “proactive/reactive” and “internal/external” – in a 2×2 matrix as proactive-internal, proactive-external, reactive-internal and reactive-external resilience capabilities. Empirical support for the conceptualized typology is found. Bundles of specific practices that can be associated with each capability are identified. Moreover, the study finds a relationship between these practice bundles and recovered operations performance. Research limitations/implications: – The statistical part is used just to provide some additional evidence through factor and regression analyses that these capabilities exist and do benefit adopting firms. Practical implications: – Specifies practices that lead to recovered operations performance in the event of supply disruptions. Originality/value: – Advances current theory by operationalizing resilience as a set of dynamic capabilities in terms of practice bundles that aid in recovering operations performance upon supply disruptions.

Purpose: – The purpose of this paper is to investigate synergy/trade-off relationship between lean and operational resilience paradigms upon disruption. Lean and resilience are operationalised with practice bundles and core functions, respectively. Design/methodology/approach: – The study uses the Bayesian inference approach to analyse systematically encoded data from firms that faced disruptions in their supply chain. The data were collected from publicly available sources, and encoded using predefined constructs prior to analysis. Findings: – Findings show that the synergetic relations between operational resilience and lean in mitigating performance losses outweigh the trade-off. Just-in-time/flow and total productive maintenance lean practices appear to be major sources for the trade-off; there is limited-synergy leveraged on the anticipative (sense) capability of operational resilience. Research limitations/implications: – The dependence on secondary data and small sample size are possible limitations. Future research may employ large-scale studies with the same encoding approach by combining both primary and secondary sources. Practical implications: – This study implies that companies need not abandon their lean implementation in order to be resilient against unanticipated disruptive circumstances. Most lean practices can be used to leverage agility to mitigate disruptions. Originality/value: – This is a first study to empirically compare synergy/trade-off between operational resilience and lean with reference to changes in operations performance upon disruption. It is also a first study to investigate sources of synergy/trade-off at lean practice bundles and resilience core functions level. This is a much more practical level compared to how previous studies have addressed the issue.

Complexity and dynamism are considered intrinsic features of engineer-to-order (ETO) business environment; it is, therefore, important to understand and manage them better. Based on empirical investigation into two case companies, this paper expands the existing literature on how and why complexity and dynamism context factors constitute not only external business environment issues but also subfactors within the boundary of the firm. It argues that most of the subfactors for complexity and dynamism identified for repetitive manufacturing are relevant for the high uncertainty capital goods manufacturing ETO with some exceptions such as short product life cycle and technological turbulence. A framework of configuration (on implementation of lean practices), and moderation (on the lean-operations performance relation) forms of influence from dynamism and complexity is proposed. Further arguments to be verified in future large-scale research include: (1) dynamism bears challenges, and complexity provides opportunities to foster implementation of relevant lean practices in ETO, (2) both complexity and dynamism positively mediate better operations performance and enriched value from implemented lean practices.

Purpose: Recent studies have argued that companies may actively implement practices to mitigate disruptions in their supply chain and reduce the extent of damage on performance. Other studies have shown that disruptions may propagate in supply chains, leading to consequences that are more negative and raising doubts on the effectiveness of mitigation strategies implemented downstream. This study investigates the influence of supply chain complexity on the two phenomena and their interplay, taking a focal company's perspective.Design/methodology/approach: A systematic procedure for data collection, encoding and aggregation based on incident data mainly from secondary sources was used. Multiple regression models were run to analyse direct and moderation effects involving resilience, distance of impact location from trigger point, and supply chain complexity on weighted performance change.Findings: Supply chain complexity is found to have positive moderation on the ripple effect of disruption. Resilience capability remains to have dominating direct positive effect in mitigating disruptions when supply chain complexity is taken into account.Research limitations/implications: This study extends the research discourse on supply chain resilience and disruption management with focus on the supply side. It demonstrates that, along with the severity of the disruption scenario, the ripple effect must also be considered when analyzing the benefits of resilience practices implemented by the focal company.Practical implications: Complexity in the supply chain can only help to smooth-out the rippling effects of a disruption, which go largely beyond supply-demand unbalances and lead time fluctuations. To mitigate it better, the focal company has to act proactively with adequate resilience practices, which also connects to the importance of better visibility across multiple supply chain tiers.Originality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study that empirically tests the benefits of resilience practices and the ripple effect of disruptions under the moderation role of supply chain complexity.