Digital supply chain management in the COVID-19 crisis: An asset orchestration perspective

Fei Ye, Ke Liu, Lixu Li, Kee Hung Lai, Yuanzhu Zhan, Ajay Kumar

Research output: Journal article publicationJournal articleAcademic researchpeer-review

123 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Although many firms are actively deploying various digital technology (DT) assets across their supply chains to mitigate the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on operations, whether these DT assets are truly helpful remains unclear. To disentangle this puzzle, we investigate whether firms that have higher levels of DT asset deployment achieve better supply chain performance in the COVID-19 crisis than firms with lower levels. From an asset orchestration perspective, we focus on two dimensions of DT asset deployment: breadth and depth, which reflect the scope and scale of DT assets, respectively. The empirical results from 175 Chinese firms that have deployed DT assets to varying degrees reveal that both the breadth and the depth of DT asset deployment show positive relationships with supply chain visibility. In contrast, the depth but not the breadth of DT asset deployment poses a positive relationship with supply chain agility. Most importantly, high levels of supply chain visibility and supply chain agility were prerequisites for excellent supply chain performance in the COVID-19 crisis. We contribute to the digital supply chain management literature by uncovering the mechanism through which DT asset deployment generates impacts on supply chain performance from an asset orchestration perspective. Our study also assists firms in improving their digital transformation strategies to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

Original languageEnglish
Article number108396
JournalInternational Journal of Production Economics
Volume245
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Mar 2022

Keywords

  • Asset orchestration
  • COVID-19
  • Digital technology assets
  • Supply chain agility
  • Supply chain performance
  • Supply chain visibility

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Business,Management and Accounting
  • Economics and Econometrics
  • Management Science and Operations Research
  • Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Digital supply chain management in the COVID-19 crisis: An asset orchestration perspective'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this