Dynamic capabilities for supply chain resilience: a meta-review

The research on supply chain resilience (SCRES) has gained momentum after organizations have experienced more frequent and severe disruptions, especially with COVID-19 and the Russia/Ukraine conflict. Due to its potential for new practices and capability building, SCRES requires dynamic capabilities (DC) to enable an organization to prepare for, counter, and recuperate from disruptions leading to performance improvements and competitive advantage.

The present literature study seeks to enrich the theoretical debate on DC in SCRES, contributing to an advanced understanding of SCRES. Therefore, a meta-review of 83 peer-reviewed literature reviews has been conducted. Based on qualitative content analysis and abductive reasoning, relevant constructs are synthesized to facilitate theory-building for SCRES DC into a comprehensive framework.

The analysis reveals that SCRES has developed into an independent research area. Thus, resilience capabilities must be considered bundles of practices, evolving from different areas beyond supply chain risk management (SCRM). Most recent literature reviews on SCRES address more than one practice bundle applying SCRES DC as antecedents of new DC when organizational structures become more mature, leading to path dependencies when building business capabilities.

Aggregating extant literature on SCRES into a theoretical framework, the study contributes to a better understanding of the relationships between DC and SCRES practices while offering potential avenues for future research. It enriches DC theory by extending its microfoundations towards a holding/buffering dimension, which particularly accounts for the stability-based view of SCRES.