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Severe disruptions to maritime supply chains, including port closures, congestion and shortages in shipping capacity, have occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper’s purpose is to explore flexibility-based countermeasures that enable actors in maritime supply chains to mitigate the effects of disruptions with different characteristics.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with shipping lines, shippers, forwarders and ports. Data on the COVID-19 pandemic's effects and countermeasures were collected and compared with data regarding the 2016–2017 Gothenburg port conflict.

Spatial, capacity, service and temporal flexibility emerged as the primary countermeasures, whilst important characteristics of disruptions were geographical spread, duration, uncertainty, criticality, the element of surprise and intensity. Spatial flexibility was exercised in both disruptions by switching to alternative ports. During the COVID-19 pandemic, ensuring capacity flexibility included first removing and then adding vessels. Shipping lines exercising service flexibility prioritised certain cargo, which made the spot market uncertain and reduced flexibility for forwarders, importers and exporters that changed carriers or traffic modes. Experience with disruptions meant less surprise and better preparation for spatial flexibility.

Understanding how actors in maritime supply chains exercise flexibility-based countermeasures amid disruptions with different characteristics can support preparedness for coming disruptions.

Comparing flexibility-based measures in a pandemic versus port conflict provides insights into the important characteristics of disruptions and the relevance of mitigation strategies. The resilience of maritime supply chains, although underexamined compared with manufacturing supply chains, is essential for maintaining global supply chain flows.

The main aim of this study is to explore the appropriate factors in measuring COVID-19-induced supply chain disruptions and the impact of these disruptions on the economic vulnerability of small-scale farmers in Sri Lanka.

The findings revealed that most of the farmers have continued to cultivate even during the pandemic despite several challenges which affected their economic status. Therefore, it is concluded that COVID-19-induced transportation and demand disruptions exacerbated the economic vulnerability of small-scale farmers over the disruptions in supply and production.

The findings of this study are crucial for formulating novel policies to improve the sustainability of the Sri Lankan agricultural sector and alleviate the poverty level of Agri-communities in the countryside. As farming is a vital sector in the economy, increased attention ought to be given on facilitating farmers with government-encouraged loans or allowances for their financial stability. Further, the respective government authorities should develop programs for importing and distributing adequate quantities of fertilizers among all the farmers at controlled prices so that they can continue their operations without any interruption. Moreover, the government could engage in collaboratively work with private organizations to streamline the Agri-input supply process. There should be a government initiative for critical consideration of the issues of farming families and their continued motivation to engage in agriculture. Thus, farmers' livelihoods and agricultural prosperity could be upgraded through alternative Agri-inputs and marketing strategies, providing financial assistance, encouraging innovative technology, etc.

Despite the significance and vulnerability of the vegetable and fruit sector in Sri Lanka, there is a limitation in the empirical studies conducted on the supply chain disruptions caused by COVID-19 measures and their implications on the farmers' livelihood. Furthermore, previous empirical research has not employed adequate quantitative tools to analyze the situation or appropriate variables in evaluating COVID-19-induced disruptions. Hence, the current study explored the appropriate factors for measuring COVID-19-induced supply chain disruption using exploratory factor analysis. Then, the impact of those factors on the economic vulnerability of the small scale farmers was revealed through the ordinal logistics regression analysis.

Managing projects is an important part of operations management, but many projects fail. This study focuses on attribution processes of such disruption from the underrepresented perspective of the project manager. The authors consider two types of causes: the more frequently researched environmental uncertainty (i.e. uncontrollable events) and the scarcely researched uncertainty imposed by non-collaborative project sponsors (i.e. other-controllable events).

The authors test conceptual arguments grounded in attribution theory and the notion of psychological contracts in a scenario-based experiment among 325 practicing project managers.

The findings indicate that non-collaborative project sponsors negatively affect project managers' motivation, whereas uncontrollable disruptions leave hope to achieve positive future outcomes. This latter effect is further strengthened when project managers have an internal attribution style. They tend to blame the disruption on themselves and generally feel in control of achieving success even if they are not.

These socio-psychological insights nuance the economic idea that uncertainty reduces motivation per se in the context of project disruption appraisal. The authors contribute to the behavioral project management literature and general attribution theory and help guide the allocation of resources during the recovery of failed projects.

The article explores what forms of disruption are prioritized by top executives of large manufacturing companies in Finland and what strategies they consider appropriate for the management of disruptive threats and opportunities.

The empirical study was based on interviews with top executives in some of Finland's largest manufacturing companies.

Based on the data, we identify exploitative and explorative strategies in four dimensions that executives consider important in anticipating and responding to disruptions: internal development efforts, stance on new entrants, ecosystems and institutional change. Due to the presence of multiple potential disruptions, which often generate conflicting demands, executives have to consider them simultaneously and balance between them when making strategic decisions. They therefore do not necessarily have a specific response strategy, but their aim is to develop their companies' capabilities so that they are well-placed to face the future with confidence.

The findings indicate that the executives envision a disruption landscape that is more complex than typically described in the literature. In addition, it answers the call for a more systematic understanding of incumbents' response strategies by linking different disciplinary views with well-grounded empirical data.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the benefit of pre-emptive disruption management measures for assembly systems towards the target dimension adherence to delivery times.

The research was conducted by creating simulation models for typical assembly systems and measuring its varying throughput times due to changes in their disruption profiles. Due to the variability of assembly systems, key influence factors were investigated and used as a foundation for the simulation setup. Additionally, a disruption profile for each simulated process was developed, using the established disruption categories material, information and capacity. The categories are described by statistical distributions, defining the interval between the disruptions and the disruption duration. By a statistical experiment plan, the effect of a reduced disruption potential onto the throughput time was investigated.

Pre-emptive disruption management is beneficial, but its benefit depends on the operated assembly system and its organisation form, such as line or group assembly. Measures have on average a higher beneficial impact on group assemblies than on line assemblies. Furthermore, it was proven that the benefit, in form of better adherence to delivery times, per reduced disruption potential has a declining character and approximates a distinct maximum.

Characterising the benefit of pre-emptive disruption management measures enables managers to use this concept in their daily production to minimise overall costs. Despite the hardly predictable influence of pre-emptive disruption measures, these research results can be implemented into a heuristic for efficiently choosing these measures.

In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, this study investigates a variety of approaches to supply disruption risk management for achieving effective responses for resilience at the supply management subunit level (e.g. category of items). Drawing on the attention-based view of the firm, the authors model the attentional antecedents of supply resilience as (1) attentional perspectives and (2) attentional selection. Attentional perspectives focus on either supply risk sources or supply network recoverability, and both are hypothesised to have a direct positive association with supply resilience. Attentional selection is top down or bottom up when it comes to disruption detection, and these are hypothesised to moderate the association between disruption risk management perspectives and resilience.

Conducted at the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, this study employs a hierarchical regression analysis on a multicountry survey of 190 procurement professionals, each responding from the perspective of their own subunit area of supply responsibility.

Both attentional disruption risk management perspectives are needed to achieve supply resilience, and neither is superior in terms of achieving supply resilience. Both the efficiency of the top down and exposure to the unexpected with the bottom up are needed – to a balanced degree – for improved supply resilience.

The results encourage firms to purposefully develop their supply risk management practices, first, to include both perspectives and, second, to avoid biases in attentional selection for disruption detection. Ensuring a more balanced approach may allow firms to improve their supply resilience.

The results contribute to the understanding of the microfoundations that underpin firms' operational capabilities for supply risk and disruption management and possible attentional biases.

This study aims to test the impact of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic on large firms, with regard to a supply disruption, productivity, customer satisfaction and firm performance.

A cross-sectional survey design and stratified sampling technique were implemented for employee selection and data gathering. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to examine the data and model fitness, while the structural equation model was used for hypotheses testing.

The pandemic triggered supply disruptions, but did not significantly impact the productivity of manufacturing firms directly. However, supply disruption positively and significantly impacted productivity. Organisational productivity had no significant impact on customer satisfaction, however, when mediating the relationship between Covid-19 and customer satisfaction, it produces a positive indirect effect. Finally, Covid-19 and supply disruption when mediated by organisational productivity both had negative significant relationships on performance.

Having a unique model, it creates a trail for future researchers to explore further. Though customer satisfaction was expected to be affected by the pandemic, it is interesting to find out that customer satisfaction when mediated by organisational productivity was positively influenced.

Disruptions are inevitable, managers must balance the pursuit of customer satisfaction and productivity so that one does not erode the other. Emphasis must be channelled towards managing the productivity of the firm to maintain customer satisfaction during these uncertain times. Deliberate steps like manufacturing flexibility investments should be initiated.

The first study to examine Covid-19, supply disruption, customer satisfaction, organisational productivity and performance in the Nigerian manufacturing sector.

Catastrophic supply chain disruptions can significantly damage the operational and financial performance of firms. While a growing body of literature on supply network structures has studied what influences supply networks' vulnerability to supply chain disruptions and capability to recover from them, it remains unclear how supply network structures change after major supply chain disruptions. We aim to provide an understanding of how these changes occur.

Using a natural experiment approach and supply network data from Factset, this study investigates how firms' supply network structures change after experiencing the catastrophic supply chain disruptions caused by the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan. We capture post-earthquake supply network changes using the measures of degree centrality and ego network density.

The results of the analysis suggest that compared to unaffected firms, the affected firms experience changes in their supply network structures tending toward lower complexity measured by in-degree centrality, out-degree centrality and ego network density.

This study contributes to social network theory and the complex adaptive supply network literature by providing empirical evidence of structural changes in supply networks after catastrophic supply chain disruptions. A managerial contribution is made by providing a reflection on why these changes might be occurring and alert firms to the challenges of managing complexity in their supply networks.

This paper explores the interaction and impact of political disruptions on textile supply chain performance in Pakistan. A qualitative approach is adopted to explore the linkages and relationships between political disruptions and supply chain disruptions and performance. Semi-structured interviews were conducted at 25 different textile manufacturing firms. This study confirmed the prevalence of severe and variegated impacts of political disruptions on the textile supply chain. Supply chain disruption is found to be a key mediating factor that directly and indirectly affect supply chain performance through an increased production and delivery lead-time, transportation delays, interruptions of raw material supplies to plants and distributors and the restricted access to workplaces for suppliers and workers. The linkages are represented through vicious circles that illustrate the interactions and inter-relationships between disrupted supply chain and performance. This study provides empirical evidence to help government to formulate pertinent labour laws and industrial policy to mitigate political disruptions and minimise deleterious effects of supply chain disruption on production and distribution networks whilst respecting and protecting the democratic rights of people.

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has emerged as an unprecedented health crisis worldwide and heavily disrupted the healthcare supply chain. This study focuses on analysing the different types of disruptions occurring in personal protective equipment (PPE) supply chains during the COVID-19 pandemic and on proposing mitigation strategies that are fit to the global scale and many interdependencies that are characteristic for this pandemic. The authors construct a conceptual system dynamics model (SD) based on the literature and adjusted with the use of empirical data (interviews) to capture the complexity of a global supply chain and identify leverage points (mitigation strategies).

This research follows a mix-methods approach. First, the authors developed a conceptual framework based on four types of disruptions that usually occur during health emergencies (direct effect, policy, supply chain strategy, and behaviourally induced disruptions). Second, the authors collected and analysed data from interviews with experts in the PPE supply chain. Based on the interviews data, the authors developed a conceptual system dynamics (SD) model that allows to capture the complex and dynamic interplay between the elements of the global supply chain system, by highlighting key feedback loops, delays, and the way the mitigation strategies can impact on them. From this analysis, the authors developed four propositions for supply chain risk management (SCRM) in global health emergencies and four recommendations for the policy and decision makers.

The SD model highlights that without a combination of mitigation measures, it is impossible to overcome all disruptions. As such, a co-ordinated effort across the different countries and sectors that experience the disruptions is needed. The SD model also shows that there are important feedback loops, by which initial disruptions create delays and shortages that propagate through the supply chain network. If the co-ordinated mitigation measures are not implemented early at the onset of the pandemic, these disruptions will be persistent, creating potential shortages of PPE and other critical equipment at the onset of a pandemic – when they are most urgently needed.

This research enriches the understanding of the disruptions of PPE supply chains on the systems level and proposes mitigation strategies based on empirical data and the existing literature.