Operational resilience is the most critical and fundamental part of organizational resilience. Operational resilience is the potential ability of an organization to maintain existing structures or functions in its operations and to recover quickly from supply chain disruptions. Operational resilience depends on an effective balance of an organization's operational stability and operational flexibility. To explore the research question of how firms can effectively match internal capabilities with external supply chain network resources to optimize operational resilience during a new crown epidemic, Associate Professor Haifeng Wang and his co-workers constructed a new research model. Using matching theory, the study proposes an internal-external matching perspective based on the flexibility and stability characteristics of operational resilience to explain the different matching of internal flexibility (i.e., product diversity)/internal stability (i.e., operational efficiency) and external flexibility (i.e., network structure hole)/external stability (i.e., network centrality).
Based on data from Chinese listed firms, the study uses methods such as difference-in-difference (DID) to empirically find that heterogeneous matches (e.g., matching internal flexibility with external stability and matching internal stability with external flexibility) have complementary effects in enhancing operational resilience, while homogeneous matches (e.g., matching internal flexibility with external flexibility and matching internal stability and external stability) have the alternative effect of weakening operational resilience.
Theoretically, the study enriches the study of resilience in supply chain management, expands the scope of matching perspective, and deepens the study of flexibility in operation management. In management practice, the study suggests that in order to cope with the impact brought by the new crown epidemic, more network centrality should be utilized when firms have a high product diversity, while more network structure holes are an effective way when firms have a high operational efficiency.
Yuan Li#*, Xincheng Wang#, Tianyu Gong#, & Haifeng Wang#*. 2022. Breaking out of the pandemic: How can firms match internal competence with external resources to shape operational resilience? Journal of Operations Management, in press. (doi: 10.1002/joom.1176)
