Supply chain resilience: an adaptive cycle approach

Published date12 August 2020
Pages443-463
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/IJLM-01-2020-0019
Date12 August 2020
AuthorHenry Adobor
Subject MatterManagement science & operations,Logistics
Supply chain resilience:
an adaptive cycle approach
Henry Adobor
Department of Strategy and Entrepreneurship,
Quinnipiac University School of Business, Hamden, Connecticut, USA
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework for extending an understanding of
resilience in complex adaptive system (CAS) such as supply chains using the adaptive cycle framework. The
adaptive cycle framework may help explain change and the long term dynamics and resilience in supply chain
networks. Adaptive cycles assume that dynamic systems such as supply chain networks go through stages of
growth, development, collapse and reorientation. Adaptive cycles suggest that the resilience of a complex
adaptive system such as supply chains are not fixed but expand and contract over time and resilience requires
such systems to navigate each of the cyclesfour stages successfully.
Design/methodology/approach Thisresearch uses the adaptive cycle framework to explain supply chain
resilience (SCRES). It explores the phases of the adaptive cycle, its pathologies and key properties and links
these to competences and behaviors that are important for system and SCRES. The study develops a
conceptual framework linking adaptive cycles to SCRES. The goalis to extend dynamic theories of SCRES by
borrowing from the adaptive cycle framework. We review the literature on the adaptive cycle framework, its
properties and link these to SCRES.
Findings The key insight is that the adaptive cycle concept can broaden our understanding of SCRES
beyond focal scales, including cross-scale resilience. As a framework, the adaptive cycle can explain the
mechanisms that support or prevent resilience in supply chains. Adaptive cycles may also give us new insights
into the sort of competences required to avoid stagnation, promote system renewal as resilience expands and
contracts over time.
Research limitations/implications The adaptive cycle may move our discussion of resilience beyond
engineering and ecological resilience to include evolutionary resilience. While the first two presently dominates
our theorizing on SCRES, evolutionary resilience may be more insightful than both are. Adaptive cycles
capture the idea of change, adaptation and transformation and allow us to explore cross-scale resilience.
Practical implications Knowing how to prepare for and overcoming key pathologies associated with each
stage of the adaptive cycle can broaden our repertoire of strategies for managing SCRES across time. Human
agency is important for preventing systems from crossing critical thresholds into imminent collapse. More
importantly, disruptions may present an opportunity for innovation and renewal for building more resilience
supply chains.
Originality/value This research is one of the few studies that have applied the adaptive cycle concept to
SCRES and extends our understanding of the dynamic structure of SCRES
Keywords Supply chain resilience, Adaptive cycles, Complex adaptive systems, Pathologies, Supply chain
management
Paper type Conceptual paper
1. Introduction
Supply chain resilience (SCRES) has become a subject of sustained research in the supply
chain literature (e.g. Christopher and Peck, 2004;Tukamuhabwa et al., 2015;Chowdhury et al.,
2019). SCRES has been described as a tool for managing supply chain risk (Adobor and
McMullen, 2018) and disruptions (Pettit et al., 2010;Sheffi and Rice, 2005;Zsidisin and
Wagner, 2010). Normatively, firms have been encouraged to build resilient supply chains
(Wieland and Wallenburg, 2013;Blackhurst et al., 2011).
Ongoing research on SCRES has expanded our understanding of supply chain
management. Despite the research progress, there remain some gaps in our understanding
of supply chain dynamics and SCRES. First, our understanding of how supply chains
evolve and retain their integrity over time may just be beginning (Adobor and McMullen,
2018;Tukamuhabwa et al., 2015). Second, although the use of the complex adaptive system
Resilience in
supply chain
networks
443
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0957-4093.htm
Received 20 January 2020
Revised 22 April 2020
Accepted 15 June 2020
The International Journal of
Logistics Management
Vol. 31 No. 3, 2020
pp. 443-463
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0957-4093
DOI 10.1108/IJLM-01-2020-0019
(CAS) model to explain supply chain dynamics provides important knowledge on the
dynamic structure of supply chains and SCRES (e.g. Choi et al., 2001;Li et al., 2009;
Hearnshaw and Wilson, 2013) gaps remain in our understanding of system-level behavior
including issues of cross-scale and spatial dynamics in SCRES. Finally, there has been some
suggestion that the existing research on supply chain management would benefit from the
theoretical grounding of the field (Tukamuhabwa et al., 2015). We argue that one area that
can benefit from theoretical grounding is research on the dynamical conceptualization of
SCRES and this research attempts to fill some of that lacunae by using the adaptive cycle
concept.
We identify insights on SCRES by adopting the adaptive cycle framework from the
natural sciences (e.g. Holling, 1986;Gunderson and Holling, 2002) to explore SCRES.
Researchers in resilience theory and ecology have explored similar dynamics (Holling, 1986;
Gunderson and Holling, 2002) and we borrow from that literature to explore supply chain
dynamics in this paper. We explore how supply chain networks as CAS may maintain their
structural and functional integrity when faced with disruptions. According to Gunderson and
Holling (2002), adaptive cycles explain how systems recover and reorganize after
transformations, their capacity to adapt to changes and generate new beginnings.
As CAS, supply chains may mimic the evolutionary processes in adaptive cycles and help
explain how supply chain networks can maintain their structural and functional integrity
when confronted with unexpected disruptions. As a CAS, supply chains must have the
capacity for recovery after a disruption, adapt and transform in the face of disruptions
(Hohenstein et al., 2015). The value of adaptive cycles may be that they can provide insights
into the behavior of a system, including why a system changes and the properties supply
chains should have to retain their functional integrity even as they manage disruptions.
Organizational scientists have used the concept of adaptive cycles to understand such things
as organizational change (Linnenluecke and Griffiths, 2010) and organizational resilience
(Williams et al., 2019). Although supply chains mirror dynamical systems, few studies, to our
knowledge, have related adaptive cycles to SCRES (see Stone and Rahimifard, 2018 for a
notable exception). To derive greater knowledge on SCRES and to bridge some of the existing
gaps, the research poses and answers the following question.
RQ1. How can the concept of adaptive cycles extend our understanding of SCRES?
1.1 Organization of paper
The study develops a conceptual framework linking adaptive cycles to SCRES. The goal is to
extend dynamic theories of SCRES by borrowing from the adaptive cycle framework. We
review the literature on the adaptive cycle framework, its properties and link these to SCRES.
The paper is organized as follows to explore the issues. Section 1 presents the introduction.
Section 2 discusses supply chains as CAS. Section 3 introduces the adaptive cycle framework.
Section 4 presents the key elements of adaptive cycles: (1) key properties of adaptive cycles,
(2) major transition points in adaptive cycles, (3) panarchyor nested systems in adaptive
cycles and (4) pathologies of adaptive cycles. Section 4 relates the elements of adaptive cycles
to SCRES. Section 5 presents a discussion of the key issues that arise from the paper including
implications for theory, practice and study limitations.
2. Supply chains as complex adaptive systems
Christopher and Peck (2004, p. 2) define SCRES as the ability of a supply chain to return to its
original state or move to a new, more desirable state after a disturbance.Eltantawy (2016)
identified two forms of SCRES: engineering and ecological resilience. The third form of
resilience, evolutionary resilience, has also been applied to SCRES (Adobor and McMullen,
IJLM
31,3
444

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