In search of operational resilience: How and when improvisation matters
研究了供应链中断时企业如何通过即兴发挥提升运营韧性，发现创造性即兴发挥在高中断条件下效果显著，而自发性即兴发挥则无显著作用。
Abstract The need to improvise during supply chain disruptions to enhance operational resilience is ever more critical. Yet, managers appear to lack an understanding of how and when improvisation matters. We apply the conservation of resources theory to conceptualize how firms activate spontaneous and creative improvisation during supply chain disruptions and theorize how that relates to operational resilience in low and high supply chain disruption conditions. We test our arguments on primary data from a sample of 259 firms in Ghana. We find that creative improvisation has a positive relationship with operational resilience, and this relationship is stronger in high supply chain disruption conditions. Spontaneous improvisation, on the contrary, is unrelated to operational resilience in both low and high supply chain disruption conditions. These findings indicate that not all types of improvisation contribute to operational resilience, suggesting the need for a nuanced approach to theorizing and applying the improvisation concept in supply chains.