Attention-Based Drivers, Operational Resilience, and Operational Efficiency: Model Development and Empirical Analysis
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2019
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
KNUST
Abstract
Developing knowledge of drivers and outcomes of operational resilience is important for building resilient societies as societal welfare depends on the sustenance of business operations. However, such knowledge will not only be incomplete but also misleading if the operational resilience construct remains ambiguous. This study first develops the conceptual domain of operational resilience, and second combines insights from the attention-based view of the firm, the contingency theory, and the resource-based view to propose a model to investigate how attention to threats, uniquely, and in interaction with strategic mission rigidity and disruption orientation, affect operational resilience and how operational resilience affects operational efficiency. The proposed conceptual model is tested on survey data from 259 firms in a major Sub-Sahara African economy - Ghana. The measurement and the structural parts of the model are analysed using confirmatory factor analysis and three-stage least squares estimator respectively. Results support the arguments that operational resilience consists of two distinct theoretical components: disruption absorption and recoverability; and that attention to threats positively relates to operational resilience. Additional analysis, however, shows that there is a limit to the operational resilience benefit of attention to threats: extreme levels of attention to threats are associated with low levels of operational resilience. Further results support the arguments that strategic mission rigidity and disruption orientation negatively and positively moderate the attention to threats-operational resilience relationship respectively and that operational resilience is positively related to operational efficiency. The study demonstrates that contingency-based models can be useful for investigating the drivers and outcomes of operational resilience. A key practical implication from the study is that managers' ability to match emphasis on attention to threats with relevant attention structures may boost operational resilience, and accordingly operational efficiency
Description
A Doctoral Thesis Submitted to the Department of Supply Chain and Information Systems, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology School of Business, in Partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the Award of Doctor of Philosophy in Logistics and Supply Chain Management