Navigating together through seas of uncertainties: an extended inter-organizational view of supply chains

• Ano de defesa: 2021
• Autor(a) principal: Freitas, Kenyth Alves de
• Orientador(a): Paiva, Ely Laureano, Flynn, Barbara Bechler
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: eng
• Palavras-chave em Português: Incerteza; Relações interorganizacionais; Colaboração; Ambiente externo
• Palavras-chave em Inglês: Uncertainty; Inter-organizational relationships; Collaboration; External environment
• Link de acesso: https://hdl.handle.net/10438/31189

Supply chains from different industries have expanded their activities worldwide in the last decades, seeking low-cost sourcing and supplying products to new markets. As their operations enlarged distinct continents and countries, additional and growing threats emerged from those environments affecting supply chain performance. In other words, the same process that led supply chains to global expansion also raised uncertainties, risks, and disruptions for companies. However, the external environment could not see only as a source of threats. Government institutions, cross-sector partners, competitors, and society possess resources that could be employed in inter-organizational responses beyond supply chain boundaries. This dissertation focuses on understanding how companies respond to external threats and, simultaneously, enhance other agents in the environment in collaborative efforts. Therefore, I question: How do companies and their supply chains interact with the environment under uncertainty? This dissertation investigates the influence of the external environment as a source of threats and, simultaneously, support for supply chains under uncertainty. I approached this dynamic through three essays focusing on understanding the dynamic between supply chains and the external environment under institutional uncertainties, cargo theft risks, and disruptions from the Coronavirus [COVID-19] pandemic, respectively. Those essays reveal that companies developed mechanisms to respond to threats, enhance inter-organizational support in collaborative responses, and improve their knowledge to operate under uncertainty. I contribute to the Operations and Supply Chain Management literature by exploring the dynamic between supply chains and their environment from different theoretical lenses and levels of threats.