Scaling up and scaling down supply chains in volatile resource-based economies

Abstract

The growth of mobile workforces to support diversified resource extraction activities, compared to historically single-industry towns, represents a key change in rural and remote resource landscapes that has accelerated since the 1980s. Mobile workforces can present many opportunities to rural communities and economies. However, the capacity, viability and competitiveness of rural-based businesses to engage in supply chains serving mobile labour may be undermined by limited attention to how businesses manoeuvre downturns while maintaining a level of readiness to recover and scale-up in order to meet emerging mobile workforce needs. Drawing upon interviews with businesses in Fort St. John, British Columbia, Canada, our research uses the concept of resiliency to examine challenges and strategies associated with business capacity and agility to scale-up and scale-down in response to changing economic conditions associated with large-scale mobile workforces and related economic sectors. Our findings suggest that the capacity to scale-up and scale-down is shaped by capital, human resource and infrastructure strategies, inventory management and contract management strategies. Industry and state policies may also play a role supporting the conditions that will improve the agility, capacity and readiness of businesses operating in volatile resource-based economies.

Municipal entrepreneurialism: Can it help to mobilize resource‐dependent small communities away from path dependency?

“…Staples theory describes the dependency of an economy on the export of raw natural resources and the demands and prices that are set in countries equipped with more advanced manufacturing infrastructure (Halseth et al, 2014). In this context, resource-based communities become price takers, bound to the demands of global markets that may expand or curtail extraction activities and impact supply chains in resource producing rural regions (Ryser et al, 2020). Second, dependence on staples exports associated with fluctuating global markets creates 'truncated development' as industry consolidates its control over a supply of resources and takes advantage of more fluid flows of capital and labour.…”

Challenges and potential of monotowns: a systematic literature review

“…Keeling (2010) Cases from diverse geographical locations, including Canada, Russia, the United States, and Italy, provide a global perspective on single-industry towns. Key themes emerge, such as the importance of understanding historical traditions (Solecki, 1996), the dynamics surrounding mobile workforces (Ryser et al, 2020), the impact of branding strategies on company and community identities (Scott & Bennett, 2015), and the potential consequences for urban inequality and insecurity (Stuvøy & Shirobokova, 2022). This cluster, through its varied perspectives, underscores the necessity for adaptability and resilience in single-industry towns facing economic, social, and environmental changes.…”