Operational resilience is the most critical and fundamental part of organizational resilience. Operational resilience is a potential ability for an enterprise to maintain its existing structure or function and quickly recover from supply chain disruptions. Operational resilience depends on the effective balance between the operational stability and flexibility of the enterprise. In order to explore how enterprises can effectively match internal capabilities and external supply chain network resources to optimize operational resilience during the COVID-19 epidemic, associate professor Wang Haifeng and his collaborators in SBM have constructed a new research model. Using matching theory, a perspective of internal and external matching is proposed to explain the different matches between 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 the characteristics of flexibility and stability based on operational resilience.

Based on data from Chinese listed companies, this study utilizes methods such as difference in difference (DID) to empirically find that heterogeneity matching (such as matching internal flexibility with external stability, matching internal stability with external flexibility) has a complementary role in enhancing operational resilience, And the matching of homogeneity (such as the matching of internal flexibility and external flexibility, the matching of internal stability and external stability) has a substitute effect of weakening operational resilience.

In theory, research has enriched the resilience research of supply chain management, expanded the research scope of matching perspectives, and deepened the flexibility research of operational management. In management practice, the study suggests that in order to cope with the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic, when the product diversity of enterprises is strong, they should make more use of network centrality; When enterprises have high operational efficiency, utilizing network structure holes more is an effective way.

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)