Operationalising resilience in tropical agricultural value chains

Abstract

Purpose The analysis of the concept of resilience in supply chain management studies mostly focuses on the downstream side of the value chain and tacitly assumes an unlimited supply of raw materials. This assumption is unreasonable for agricultural value chains, as upstream disruptions clearly have a material impact on the availability of raw materials, and indeed, are a common source of supply problems. This paper aims to present a framework for the operationalisation of the concept of socioecological resilience in agricultural value chains that incorporates upstream activities. Design/methodology/approach A citation network analysis was adopted to review articles. A conceptual framework is then advanced to identify elements of resilience and indicators relevant to tropical agricultural value chains. Findings There are limited studies that assess resilience in the food chain context. Flexibility, collaboration, adaptability and resourcefulness are key elements for assessing resilience at the individual chain actor level. However, the paper argues that adaptability is the relevant element for the assessment of resilience at an aggregate food system level because it considers the alteration of a system’s state of resilience. Practical implications The proposed framework and propositions accommodate stakeholder interactions in the value chain and could serve as a tool to guide the assessment of resilience in agricultural value chains. Originality/value This paper is one of the few to extend resilience to cover the socioecological interaction aspects for supply chains that yield the raw materials needed for continuity in channel-wide value creation processes.

A Conceptual Framework to Manage Resilience and Increase Sustainability in the Supply Chain

“…Scopus database [24] 2000-2018 54 "supply chain resilience", "food chain resilience", "value chain resilience"…”

“…There is also a positive relationship between resilient strategies and sustainability. The information systems' interoperability characterized by visibility and effective information exchange for joint decision making [14,24] allows resilience to the disruptive events and adaptation to the new market structure. These strategies, although generating associated costs, generate a positive relationship, mainly with the social dimension of sustainability.…”

“…These previous articles focus their research on defining resilience and describing the principles that integrate resilience [4,24,[26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34], strategies to recover from disruptive events [1,30,33,35], and the qualitative and quantitative methods for measuring resilience [28,[36][37][38]. Eight out of sixteen papers reviewed [24,26,[30][31][32][33]37,38] developed a conceptual framework for resilience management. The analysis of the previous literature is presented in Table A1 of the Appendix A, and it is structured by search horizon (range), number of papers analyzed, keywords, databases consulted, and whether the article presents a proposal of a conceptual framework.…”

Resilient Strategies and Sustainability in Agri-Food Supply Chains in the Face of High-Risk Events

“…[35], [36], [38]- [41], [43]- [46] ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 10) Contingency plan and business reactivation; insurance and public-private strategic collaboration.…”

“…Considering the focal company, fortification strategies in supply chain design that allow for production flexibility and production rescheduling [37], [38], [40], [41] and that increase robustness by introducing production redundancy, excessive inventories and security stocks [42] are proposed. These strategies allow supporting the disruptive event and keeping the productive process adapted to the new reality.…”