Firms’ strategic responses to rising uncertainty amid ongoing geopolitical tensions: The synergistic mediating role of network capability and innovation ambidexterity
研究了地缘政治紧张时期企业如何通过发展网络能力和创新双元性来增强供应链韧性，发现网络能力是关键中介，而创新双元性单独中介不显著，但两者存在序列中介路径。
• Challenges conventional perspectives on supply chain uncertainty and firm-level strategic response. • Explores how firms develop network capabilities and innovation ambidexterity to enhance resilience. • Shows how firms build supply chain resilience dynamically through layered, strategic responses. • Network capabilities enable innovation ambidexterity, jointly enhancing adaptability and resilience. With our study, we aimed to enrich the discourse on supply chain disruptions by exploring the strategic responses of firms to supply chain uncertainty (SCUn) that enhance supply chain resilience (SCRes). Drawing on the dynamic capabilities view (DCV), we investigated whether and how firms utilise uncertainty amid geopolitical turmoil as a catalyst to enhance SCRes. This contrasts with the predominant focus found in the existing literature on the detrimental impacts of uncertainty amid rising geopolitical tensions. Using survey data drawn from 242 firms across multiple industries in Pakistan, we employed structural equation modelling (SEM) to test our proposed model, introducing network capabilities (NCs) and innovation ambidexterity (IA) as mediators to elucidate their differential roles in the SCUn-SCRes relationship. Our findings reveal that SCUn triggers strategic responses aimed at building SCRes, with NCs emerging as a significant mediator that enhances SCRes. However, IA has an insignificant mediating effect. Notably, our study uncovers a sequential mediation pathway from NCs to IA, highlighting the dynamic interplay between these capabilities in translating SCUn into enhanced SCRes amid global crises. Our study provides actionable insights for logistics and supply chain managers who navigate uncertain environments amid geopolitical tensions, emphasizing the importance of NCs in driving IA towards achieving SCRes. Our research, which makes a novel contribution by going beyond the conventional perspectives on SCUn and SCRes, advances a new stream of literature on how SCUn influences SCRes through the mediating roles of NCs and IA.