This dissertation consists of three papers related to firms' resiliency to supply chain disruptions. The first paper seeks to evaluate the effects of supply chain disruptions on firms' performance by using a recent dataset of supply chain disruptions. To this end, we analyzed operating and stock market performances of over 300 firms that experienced a supply chain disruption during 2005 to the end of 2014. The results show that supply chain disruptions are still associated with a significant decrease in operating income, return on sales, return on assets, sales, and a negative performance in total assets. Supply chain disruptions are also associated with a significant negative abnormal stock return on the day of the supply chain disruption announcements. These results are in line with previous findings in the literature. In the second paper, in order to provide a more detailed characterization of negative impacts of disruptions on firms' performance, we develop three complementary measures of system loss: the initial loss due to the disruption, the maximum loss, and the total loss over time. Then, we utilize the contingent resource-based view to evaluate the moderating effects of operational slack and operational scope on the relationship between the severity of supply chain disruptions and the three complementary measures of system loss. We find that maintaining certain aspects of operational slack and broadening business scope can affect these different measures of loss in different ways, although these effects are contingent on the disruptions' severity. The third paper examines relationships between the origin of supply chain disruptions, firms' past experience, and the negative impacts of supply chain disruptions on firms' performance. This third study shows that the impact of external and internal supply chain disruptions on firms' performance can be different when firms do and do not have past experience with similar events. For example, the results show that past experience significantly decreases initial loss, recovery time, and total loss over time experienced by firms after internal disruptions, although past experience may not decrease initial loss, recovery time, and total loss over time in the case of external disruptions. / Ph. D. / Supply chain disruptions occur frequently in today’s complex and interdependent business environment. The Kumamoto earthquakes, Hanjin Shipping’s bankruptcy, and Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, are just a few events that led to major supply chain disruptions in the U.S. and other parts of the world in 2016 and 2017 alone. In this dissertation, we first use a recent dataset of supply chain disruptions to evaluate the effects of supply chain disruptions on firms' performance. The results show that supply chain disruptions are still associated with significant negative impacts on firms’ performance as they have been shown to be in previous studies of earlier datasets. Next, we provide a broader assessment of supply chain disruptions’ impacts on firms’ performance. To accomplish this, we specifically consider the negative impacts with respect to three complementary metrics borrowed from the systems resilience literature: the initial loss, the maximum loss, and the total loss over time. The initial loss and maximum loss metrics evaluate different characteristics of the magnitude of a disruption’s impact on a firm’s performance, whereas total loss over time gives a broader measure of the overall effect of that disruption on that firm, over time. By adopting a more comprehensive view of firms’ performance through the use of such systems resilience concepts, we develop new and expanded inferences about how and when maintaining operational slack and broadening operational scope can benefit firms by helping to reduce the negative impacts of disruptions. Finally, we study the relationships between the negative impacts of supply chain disruptions on firms’ performance, the origin of supply chain disruptions, and firms’ prior experience. The results show that the impact of internal and external supply chain disruptions on firms’ performance can be different when firms do and do not have past experience with similar events. In particular, the results show that past experience significantly decreases initial loss, recovery time, and total loss over time experienced by firms after internal disruptions. However, past experience may not decrease initial loss, recovery time, and total loss over time in the case of external disruptions.

Supply chain disruptions are detrimental to the performance of companies due to the associated loss of profitability and reduced sustainability. In 2016, organizations lost at least $1.2 million in a single supply chain disruption. Guided by the contingency theory of fit, the purpose of this exploratory multiple case study was to explore the strategies agribusiness managers use to prevent and mitigate the effects of disruptions in the agro-food supply chains. A total of 5 purposefully-selected agribusiness managers from Harare, Zimbabwe participated in semistructured interviews. Participants were senior agribusiness managers who implemented successful strategies for preventing and mitigating the effects of disruptions in agro-food supply chains. Three themes emerged from the thematic analysis of interview data and review of organizational documents: collaboration among supply chain partners, business continuity management, and the use of a multiple supplier base. Agribusiness managers must first understand the sources of disruption risk, assess the impact of the risk, and then select an appropriate strategy based on the level of uncertainty and risk. By managing the risks effectively, managers can improve the performance and competitiveness of their businesses. The implications for positive social change may include a reduction in supply chain costs, provision of better services and products to consumers, and lower prices of agro-food products to consumers which could lead to an improvement in the lives of consumers.

Essay 1: Expectation-Driven House Prices, Debt Default and Inflation Dynamics We contribute to the literature on dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models with housing collateral by including shocks to house price expectations. We also incorporate endogenous mortgage defaults that are rarely included in DSGE models with housing collateral. We use this model to study the effects of variations in house price expectations on macroeconomic dynamics and their implications for monetary policy. Model simulations show that an increase in expected future house prices leads to a decline in mortgage default rate and interest rates on household and business loans, whereas it leads to an increase in house prices, housing demand, household debt, business debt, bank leverage ratio and economic activity. In contrast to previous studies, we find that inflation is low during a house price boom. Finally, we show that monetary policy that takes into account household credit growth reduces the volatility of output and dampens a rise in housing demand, household debt and bank leverage ratio that enhances financial stability. However, a central bank that reacts to household credit growth increases the volatility of inflation. / Essay 2: House Price Expectations, Boom-Bust Cycles and Implications for Monetary Policy This essay examines the role of household expectations about future house prices and their implications for boom-bust cycles and monetary policy. Our findings are as follows. First, waves of optimism and pessimism about future house prices generate boom-bust cycles in house prices, financial activities (household debt, business debt, bank leverage, interest rates on household and business loans) and the real economy (housing demand, consumption, employment, investment and output). Second, we find that inflation declines during a house price boom and increases during a house price burst. Third, we find that monetary policy that reacts to household credit growth reduces the magnitude of boom-bust cycles and improves household welfare. Fourth, we find that the case for taking into account household credit growth becomes stronger in an economy in which the bank capital to asset ratio requirement is low, interest rates on loans and deposits adjust immediately to changes in the policy rate, or the household sector is highly indebted. / Essay 3: Credit Disruptions and the Spillover Effects between the Household and Business Sectors This essay examines the effects of credit supply disruptions in a New Keynesian DSGE model with housing collateral and working capital channels. A tightening of business credit conditions creates negative spillovers from the business sector to the household sector through labor income and housing collateral channels. A tightening of household credit conditions has negative spillover effects on the business sector via the housing collateral channel. We find that spillovers are more sensitive to changes in leverage where the shock occurs. A negative business credit shock creates upward pressure on inflation, whereas a negative household credit shock creates downward pressure on inflation. The working capital channel magnifies the response of inflation to a business credit shock, whereas it dampens the response of inflation to a household credit shock.

Perturbações na malha aérea ocorrem em todo o mundo e afetam econômica e operacionalmente as empresas aéreas. Em 2016, os gastos que essas perturbações causaram às empresas aéreas e aos seus clientes giraram em torno de US$60 bilhões, cerca de 8% da receita de todas as empresas aéreas do mundo. Este trabalho apresenta uma Heurística Matemática Híbrida, envolvendo otimização por programação inteira mista, para resolver o Problema da Recuperação da Malha Aérea de uma empresa, em até vinte minutos, para uso do Centro de Controle Operacional (CCO) da empresa aérea. A solução consiste em uma nova programação de voos que minimiza os custos da alteração da malha aérea e atenda as restrições impostas por um cenário de múltiplas perturbações, quais sejam: atrasos, cancelamentos de voos, fechamento ou redução de capacidade aeroportuária e manutenções não-programadas. Além da heurística, apresenta-se também um modelo de fluxo em rede com programação inteira para resolver de forma exata o Problema da Recuperação da Malha. Esse modelo obteve resultados em instância de até 500 voos, para todo tipo perturbação, em tempo de execução razoável, exceto para as instâncias em que a capacidade aeroportuária estava muito comprometida. A heurística matemática híbrida apresentou resultados com diferenças de até 5% com relação ao ótimo para as instâncias com até 6000 voos, independentemente do nível de perturbação imposta à malha aérea, com tempo de execução que permite o seu uso prático. / Schedule disruptions occurs worldwide and affect economically and operationally the airlines. In 2016, disruptions cost airlines and their customers around $60 billion, or about 8% of worldwide airline revenue. In this thesis, a Hybrid Math-Heuristic including a mixed-integer linear optimization is presented. It is aimed at assisting airlines to solve the Aircraft Recovery Problem through their Operations Control Centers (OCC) in up to twenty minutes. The solution consists in a new changed schedule that minimizes the cost of changes and deals with constraints related to a scenario with multiple disruptions: delays, flight cancelations, closures or airport capacity reduction and non-scheduled maintenance. Besides the heuristic, a network flow integer programming model is presented to provide exact solutions to the Aircraft Recovery Problem. The Exact Model achieved optimal results for instances with up to 500 flights subjected to all kinds of disruptions in reasonably times, except for instances with highly constrained airport capacity. The Hybrid Math-Heuristic achieved results with maximum optimal GAP of up to 5% for instances with up to 6.000 flights, no matter the level of the imposed disruption, with time of execution that permits its use in practice.

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The study of network-service disruptions caused by large-scale disturbances has mainly focused on assessing network damage; however, network-disruption responses, i.e., how the disruptions occur depending on social organizations, weather, and power resources, have been studied little. The goal of this research is to study the responses of network-service disruptions caused by large-scale disturbances with respect to (1) temporal and logical network, and (2) external factors such as weather and power resources, using real and publicly available heterogeneous data that are composed of network measurements, user inputs, organizations, geographic locations, weather, and power outage reports. Network-service disruptions at the subnet level caused by Hurricanes Katrina in 2005 and Ike in 2008 are used as the case studies. The analysis of network-disruption responses with respect to temporal and logical network shows that subnets became unreachable dependently within organization, cross organization, and cross autonomous system. Thus, temporal dependence also illustrates the characteristics of logical dependence. In addition, subnet unreachability is analyzed with respect to the external factors. It is found that subnet unreachability and the storm are weakly correlated. The weak correlation motivates us to search for root causes and discover that the majority of subnet unreachability reportedly occurred because of power outages or lack of power generators. Using the power outage data, it is found that subnet unreachability and power outages are strongly correlated.

The climate and ecological emergency (CEE) is depicted as far in space and time to the (yet) unaffected human through politics not acting according to it as well as media not doing the topic justice. No experiences or experiences only through media depiction are created which the human bases its reality on. This is not only problematic but also mediates a distorted reality of not being and feeling affected by the CEE. (Climate) activism can be seen as a counter-perspective of politics. Extinction Rebellion (XR) – a decentralized movement – mostly aims for polarization, actions in the physical space, and disruptions. Decentral XR groups practice close-making of the CEE through different strategies and affect-mediations in the public space. Nevertheless, like most climate activist actions, it also deals with the dilemma of media depictions. The reach of the action within the public space as an affect-mediation is lesser than the reach through the media translation. If most humans are negatively affected through the media reach, what happens if affect-mediations are executed in the coded infrastructure(s) that surrounds the humans? As human entanglements with the coded infrastructure(s) can be seen as a body-mind-life extension, I aim with this work to intervene in it. By proposing to seed digitally induced disruptions as affect-mediations in the human entanglements with coded infrastructures(s) surrounding them, the work is aiming to practice close-making and enhance the notion of feeling affected. The approach was explored by mapping out the coded infrastructure(s) of the author, making it public through two workshops as well as setting up affect-mediation prototypes. By empowering local (XR) activist groups to explore and generate disruptive ideas based on my proposal, the research question emerged: How can local activist (Extinction Rebellion) groups be empowered to create affect-mediations and therefore affecting bodily experiences with the CEE through executing digitally induced disruptions to support their local demands? While conceptualizing a platform for XR as the Design Project – incorporating and digitally translating the workshop as well as other elements – the concept aims to host a collective pool of digitally induced disruption actions and approaches.

The invasion of Ukraine during early 2022 resulted in significant disruptions for supply chains globally. With massive delays and resource shortages, many companies have found a need to rethink their approach to resilience to not be as affected by future disruptions of similar proportions. These companies did not have much time to prepare for the Ukraine conflict as the effects of the disruptions caused by the Covid19 pandemic could still be felt. In the midst of these disruptions there is also a large ongoing shift toward more sustainable practices that aim to reduce waste and streamline operations. Balancing between these sustainable practices and efficient resilience measures is a difficult task as there are many ways the two can clash. Through a case study on the Swedish automotive industry the disruptions caused by the Covid pandemic and Ukraine conflict were looked into as well as what resilience measures were being implemented in response. The effects that both the disruptions and resilience measures had on the sustainable practices of the companies were explored in addition. The study collected data through semi-structured interviews to gather first-hand insights into the relevant supply chains. Based on the conducted research, the study presents three primary findings. Firstly, there is a rising trend in the Swedish automotive industry to rethink current resilience strategies and become more proactive. This is new as the previous approach has been primarily reliant on reactive resilience measures. The first step in this transition focuses on supply chain mapping and visualization to become more knowledgeable about one's supply chain. With the newfound information, the companies are planning to put in efforts where they are most effective with measures like dual sourcing and buffer stocks are critical points in the chain. Secondly, the study presents a transition towards local supply chains as a means to connect resilience and sustainability for enhanced benefits to both areas. With shorter transport routes, there is less risk for disruptions and lower emissions. Moving sourcing to Europe also enables better transparency and promises better working conditions as a result of local labor laws. Local sourcing further provides stability by minimizing the effects disrupting events in other parts of the world have on the supply chain. Thirdly, the concept of product redesign is presented as an alternative resilience measure. When supply of materials becomes scarce and bottlenecks arise, adapting products to what is available can offer flexible companies with a new reactive measure of resilience. This measure offers a unique way of optimizing resource usage while minimizing the impact of a disruption. As companies become more aware of potential future disruptions, the redesign of products based on perceived future availability of materials can also serve as a proactive resilience measure. / Invasionen av Ukraina våren 2022 resulterade i betydande störningar för värdekedjor globalt. Med storskaliga förseningar och resursbrist var många företag tvungna att tänka om deras inställning till resiliens för att inte bli påverkade i samma utsträckning av framtida störningar av samma storlek. Dessa företag hade inte mycket tid till att förbereda sig för Ukrainakonfliktens effekter eftersom Covidpandemins påverkan fortfarande kändes. Samtidigt som detta sker pågår även en stor omställning till mer hållbara metoder med minskat avfall och optimerade verksamheter som mål. Balansen mellan hållbarhet och resiliens är svår att hitta då det finns många sätt de två kan krocka. Genom en fallstudie på den svenska fordonsindustrin studerades störningarna som Covidpandemin och Ukrainakonflikten gett upphov till samt de resiliensåtgärder som implementerades som svar. Utöver det utforskades effekterna av så väl störningarna som resiliensåtgärderna hade på företagens hållbarhetsarbete. Studien samlade in data genom intervjuer för att få förstahandsinformation om de relevanta värdekedjorna. Baserat på studien kunde tre slutsatser presteras. För det första, det finns en stigande trend inom den svenska fordonsindustrin att tänka om nuvarande resiliensstrategier för att bli mer proaktiva. Detta är nytt då det tidigare hållningssättet var att främst förlita sig på reaktiva resiliensåtgärder. Det första steget i denna omställning fokuserar på att kartlägga och visualisera värdekedjan för att få mer kännedom om den. Med den nyfunna kunskapen planerar företag att agera där det får störst effekt med åtgärder såsom utökad lagerhållning och utökning med alternativa leverantörer. För det andra, studien presenterar en övergång till mer lokala värdekedjor som ett sätt att binda samman resiliens och hållbarhet för stärkt effekt inom båda områdena. Med kortare transportsträckor finns en lägre risk för störningar och även lägre utsläpp. En övergång till försörjning av europeiska varor möjliggör bättre transparens och arbetsförhållanden till följd av lokala lagar. Lokala inköp bidrar till ytterligare stabilitet genom att minimera effekterna störningar i andra delar av världen har på den egna värdekedjan. För det tredje, omdesign av produkter presenteras som ett koncept för en alternativ resiliensåtgärd. När tillgång till material sinar och flaskhalsar uppstår kan flexibla företag genom att anpassa sina produkter till vad som finns tillgängligt finna en reaktiv resiliensåtgärd. Denna metod erbjuder ett unikt sätt att optimera resursanvändningen samtidigt som störningens effekt minimeras. Allt som företag blir mer medvetna om potentiella framtida störningar kan omdesign av produkter baserat på uppskattad framtida tillgänglighet av material utgöra en proaktiv resiliensåtgärd.

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Yes / Purpose Medicine shortages have a detrimental impact on stakeholders in the pharmaceutical supply chain (PSC). Existing studies suggest that building resilience strategies can mitigate the effects of these shortages. As such, this research aims to examine whether resilience strategies can reduce the impact of medicine shortages in the United Kingdom's (UK) PSC. Design/methodology/approach A sequential mixed-methods approach that involved qualitative and quantitative research enquiry was employed in this study. The data were collected using semi-structured interviews with 23 key UK PSC actors at the qualitative stage. During the quantitative phase, 106 respondents completed the survey questionnaires. The data were analysed using partial least square-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). Findings The results revealed that reactive and proactive elements of resilience strategies helped tackle medicine shortages. Reactive strategies increased relational issues such as behavioural uncertainty, whilst proactive strategies mitigated them. Practical implications The findings suggest that PSC managers and decision-makers can benefit from adopting structural flexibility and proactive strategies, which are cost-effective measures to tackle medicine shortages. Also engaging in strategic alliances as a proactive strategy mitigates relational issues that may arise in a complex supply chain (SC). Originality/value This study is the first to provide empirical evidence of the impact of resilience strategies in mitigating medicine shortages in the UK's PSC.