Similarities and contrasts of complexity, uncertainty, risks, and resilience in supply chains and temporary multi-organization projects

Validation of a New Project Resilience Scale in the IT Sector

From a project management perspective, coping with the negative consequences of disruptions is considered a great challenge. This article aims to present the concept of project resilience and to validate, through quantitative analysis, the indicators that were developed by Rahi et al. (2019) to assess its two key dimensions: awareness and adaptive capacity. As a result of this exploratory research, eight indicators composed of 29 items that measure IT project resilience were retained. Future research, as part of the scale development process, is needed to make the project resilience scale more robust and accurate.

Research agenda on turnaround strategies beyond systemic disruptions

Purpose

Since the Great Financial Crisis (GFC), the shocks are getting deeper and deeper on the economy, sectors and companies. In these years, turnaround strategies have evolved and contribute to improving the agility and audacity of managers. This article studies the change in the research agenda and in the academic discourse as systemic disruptions become widespread and provides evidence on collaboration networks and publication opportunities.

Design/methodology/approach

This research uses a comparative bibliometric analysis to understand the changes in the academic debate as of 2008. The core collection of Web of Science (WoS) is used and 198 articles on turnaround strategies published in journals indexed in Journal Citation Reports® (JCR) – Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) in areas like business, management, economics and finance during 1965–2022.

Findings

This research reveals an important intertemporal evolution between periods, both in the collaborative networks of researchers and in the journals that dominate the impact discourse. In addition, it provides evidence of the change in academic discourse, through the evolution of the topics of interest after the GFC. The results suggest publication opportunities around gaps not yet closed by the academic literature.

Practical implications

This article allows researchers to be guided in identifying gaps that have not yet been closed. In addition, this research has important managerial implications, since it guides and advises journal editors on new emerging issues.

Originality/value

This document offers a global vision on the subject of study and an understanding of the development of the discourse of the academy.

Human resource management (HRM) in the performance measurement and management (PMM) domain: a bibliometric review

Purpose

The literature highlights the key role of human resource management in developing effective organizational performance measurement and management. To understand the state of the art of this role, the paper reviews the literature on human resource management in the performance measurement and management domain.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper conducts a bibliometric literature review on 1,252 articles to identify the prevailing research trends and the conceptual structure of human resource management in the performance measurement and management domain.

Findings

The study highlights a growing number of publications and four themes related to human resource management in performance measurement and management. It also underlines the shift from static to the dynamic performance measurement and management systems within organization which is expected to be more suited to current and future contexts.

Practical implications

The paper highlights the need to manage the identified themes as strategic organizational assets and further develop the strategic dimension of human resource management practices leveraging on project management and information systems.

Originality/value

The paper goes beyond the traditional focus on performance appraisal of human resource management studies and assumes the challenge of connecting two research fields: human resource management and performance measurement and management.

An analytic network process model to prioritize supply chain risks in green residential megaprojects

Megaprojects and specifically ‘green’ construction of residential megaprojects can contain significant risks of failure. To design proper risk mitigation strategies, after identifying key risk factors, the next step is to conduct assessments that would facilitate the process of risk element prioritization. Risk assessment comprises the establishment of factor interrelation and discerning the indicators of importance. This research proposes a novel version of an integrated prioritization method and analyzes twelve all-inclusive key supply chain oriented risk factors identified in a previous study. Through a comprehensive literature review three criteria, impact, probability, and manageability are selected. Also, a fourth criterion namely influence rate is included in the model, based on the driving powers that can also be derived from the Interpretive Structural Modeling’s (ISM) assessment. Fundamentally, the calculations hinge on the Analytic Network Process (ANP) method which provides an assessment of the alternatives’ weights based on pairwise comparisons concerning the criteria specified. To enhance the accuracy of the perceptive judgments of the expert panelists, a bell-shaped fuzzy function is used to convert the verbal statements to crisp values. In addition, Row Sensitivity Analysis is administered to check the stability of the results and provide predictive scenarios. To validate the model, a case study, located in Iran, was conducted, where an expert panel consisting of four individuals made the pair-wise comparisons through an ANP questionnaire. Results indicate priority and sensitivity of the alternatives concerning criteria, for the case under study.

The Emergence Process of Construction Project Resilience: A Social Network Analysis Approach

For construction projects, resilience is the process of resisting and recovering from adversity. With the global economic and social environment constantly changing, improving the resilience of construction projects has become a research hotspot in the field of project management. On the basis of social capital theory, this study constructs a construction project organization resilience evaluation system from two dimensions of bonding and bridging social capitals. Then, a new theoretical framework is proposed: the network dynamic evaluation model of project resilience based on the resource conservation strategy. Using survey data of 247 construction engineering practitioners, this study considers the emergence of organization resilience in the three phases of adversity. The results reveal that when the construction project is hit by adversity, the investment capital will increase but decrease in the recovery phase. Protective capital demonstrates the opposite. However, both types of capital finally reach a higher level than before the adversity, thus forming an emergence curve of project resilience. This study helps to understand the emergence process of the construction project resilience, provides a feasible method to calculate the resilience and social capital of construction projects in different phases of disasters, and improves the risk response ability of construction projects.

A Fuzzy-Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis of Publications on the Fuzzy Sets Theory

The publication opportunities in science require knowing the existing gaps in the academic debate. In recent decades, scholars specializing in fuzzy theory and applied methodologies have experienced an unprecedented evolution of the field. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have shaped the way socio-technical transitions use fuzzy methodologies to solve environmental problems. This study conducts a systematic literature review of articles published in the Journal Citations Report on these specific fields. The Web of Science (Core Collection) was used and a database was assembled (N = 1956) that allowed the evaluation of the evolution of the research agenda and detecting high-impact publication opportunities. A model of analysis of successful strategies in academic influence is proposed. The model is tested with a configurational methodology through fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA). The conditions used are: number of authors, underlying interest of the researchers, standardized citations per year, age of the articles and link of the research with sustainability. The results are solid and inform five paths that ensure the success of academic publications in high-impact journals. The robustness of the model allows its extrapolation to other fields of research. The contribution of this article allows knowledge of the academic conversation and its research opportunities. In addition, it clarifies the different paths that guarantee high impact research articles. This article offers important recommendations for academics and journal editors, allowing them to guide and advise academic production in the scholarly debate of the future.

A Scientometric Analysis and Systematic Literature Review for Construction Project Complexity

The construction industry has been experiencing a rapid increase in complex projects for the last two decades. Simultaneously, project complexity has received more attention from academics and practitioners worldwide. Many studies suggest that perceiving complexity is critical for successful construction project management. This study investigates the current status and future trends in construction project complexity (CPC) literature from the Scopus database. This review systematically uses bibliometric and scientometric methods through co-occurrence and co-citation analysis. First, 644 academic documents were retrieved from the Scopus database. Then, co-occurrence and co-citation analysis were performed along with network visualization to examine research interconnections’ patterns. As a result, relevant keywords, productive authors, and important journals have been highlighted. The prominent research topics within the literature on construction project complexity focus on the following topics: identifying and measuring project complexity, schedule performance and cost estimation, system integration and dynamic capabilities, and risk assessment and uncertainty. Finally, the potential research directions are developing towards safety performance, organizational resilience, and integrated project delivery (IPD). The study still has a limitation. The review focuses only on the academic documents retrieved from the Scopus database, thus restricting the coverage of the reviewed literature relating to construction project complexity. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is the first study that provides a systematic review of the literature from the Scopus database on construction project complexity.

Research on the Resilient Evolutionary Game of Logistics Service Supply Chain with Government Participation

The resilient strategy of logistics service supply chains with government participation is not only an effective measure for manufacturers and integrators to lower the risks but also an important component of the modern risk management capability of government. From the perspective of risk society, this paper presupposes the existence of emergencies, embeds the “resilient ability” into the logistics service supply chain, establishes a tripartite evolutionary game model among the government, manufacturers, and integrators, and systematically analyzes the strategy selection process under the participation of the government. On this basis, through numerical experiments, this paper examines the supervision sensitivity with different policies on a micro level, investigates the impact incurred by the change in governmental reward and punishment degree, and further complements the research on the complexity of the strategy selection process in reality. The results show that in the short run, regardless of the reward and punishment measure the government chooses, the manufacturers and integrators will choose not to adopt and implement the resilient supply chain strategy, while, in the long run, increasing manufacturers’ initial supervision and implementing relevant reward and punishment measures can guide integrators to choose the strategy. Increasing government integrators’ reward degree and reducing costs can thus promote the enthusiasm of integrators in resilient logistics service supply chains.

Collective Mindfulness: The Key to Organizational Resilience in Megaprojects

The complexity, internal and external risks, and significant social impact of megaprojects make their organizational resilience particularly important. To survive potential adversities, megaproject organizational resilience depends on collective mindfulness. Drawing on an attention-based view, this study investigates the mechanisms of collective mindfulness for megaproject organizational resilience as a process that functions prior to, during, and after recovery from crises. The results from analyzing six embedded crisis events in two megaprojects indicate that collective mindfulness influences organizational resilience processes through the mechanisms of awareness allocation, emotional detachment, and attention alignment. The study's theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

A model to analyze the knowledge management risks in open innovation: proposition and application with the case of GOL Airlines

Purpose

This study aims to investigate the risks associated with managing the dispersed knowledge in inter-organizational arrangements for innovation. Specifically, it proposes a model to analyze the knowledge management risks in open innovation, applied in four steps.

Design/methodology/approach

Initially, the authors carried out a systematic literature review (SLR) on the concepts that connect knowledge management, inter-organizational arrangements for innovation and risks. The SLR results led to a complementary theoretical review on the conceptual elements in question. Based on the findings, the authors have developed a model to analyze the knowledge management risks in open innovation, which was validated by experts. It was then studied the case of GOL Airlines, a company that uses innovation to overcome the paradox between low-cost and full service in the commercial air transportation industry, considering the application and adjustment of the proposed model.

Findings

Open innovation is one of the inter-organizational arrangement types most applied in the context of innovation. Relations between agents are the primary sources of risks when managing the dispersed knowledge in these arrangements. The authors have found five main risks associated, namely, risk of the innovative effort does not reach the expected objective, risk of knowledge transfer being ineffective, risk of misappropriation of value, risk of dependency (lock-in) and risk of relations.

Practical implications

The practical implication is the proposition of a procedure for applying the model to analyze the knowledge management risks in open innovation, which makes it a prescriptive model for identifying risks. The proposed model is described in four steps, namely, to identify the agents in the environment of the value of open innovation; to identify the types of relations of each agent; to consider the barriers to knowledge management in innovation; and to assess the risks considering the possibilities derived from the agents, their relationships and the barriers. The model is applied in the GOL case and the results are presented.

Originality/value

First, it uses a novel approach to investigate open innovation while studying its risks. This approach considers the knowledge is dispersed and flows from one organization to another through a combination of relations inside the environment of value where the open innovation materializes. Second, it contributes to theory development by opening a research front that fuses four areas: risk management, knowledge management, innovation and inter-organizational arrangements. Third, this paper proposes a theoretical model and presents its operationalization. The study aims to make an impact beyond academia and uses a case study to illustrate the model application in a real and interesting open innovation project to support the business model at GOL Airlines.

A scenario-based robust time–cost tradeoff model to handle the effect of COVID-19 on supply chains project management

The COVID-19 pandemic outbreak deeply impressed supply chains in different aspects. In response to this unexpected situation, supply chain managers have decided to recover and reinforce their supply chains. Considering the expanse of these decisions, project management principle and tools seems inevitable to successfully manage the transformation from before pandemic to post-pandemic supply chains (SCs). In this study, the problem of time–cost tradeoff is extended to time, cost, and risk tradeoff. The risk factor is considered to convey the uncertainty arising from the COVID-19 pandemic situation. Since projects are affected by the level of pandemic expansion and different countries ruled out various quarantine policies (isolation, quarantine, social distancing, and lock-down), the tradeoff problem is influenced accordingly. Therefore, a scenario-based robust optimization model is proposed to deal with time, cost, and risk tradeoff problems to reflect the effects of the global pandemic of COVID-19 on managing projects in supply chains. In addition, various quarantine policies (isolation, quarantine, social distancing, and lock-down) as a prevalent response to the pandemic have been investigated separately. To illustrate the model, a real-world case study in the emerging economy of Iran is examined using the proposed approach. The results indicated that supply chain managers can use the designed model and approach as a tool for a flexible and adaptable decision-making framework dealing with a global pandemic such as COVID-19.

Mapping the evolution of research themes in business ethics: a co-word network analysis

Purpose

This paper aims to map the evolution of research in business ethics from 1991 to 2018. It aims to identify the major themes and how they have evolved. It also aims to identify gaps in the literature for recommending future research agenda.

Design/methodology/approach

This study uses co-word network analysis. Co-word network analysis is a bibliometric technique used to objectively identify research themes via article keywords. The study examines articles from 1991 to 2018, which is a span encompassing a greater number of articles than previous bibliometric studies in business ethics. This time span was split into four periods and major research themes were identified for each period to map the changes in research agendas in the business ethics discipline over time.

Findings

The findings point to increasing maturation of the discipline, a slight decline in ethical decision-making research, a rise in research at the intersection of leadership and ethics and exponential growth in studies on corporate social responsibility. Ethical issues in business-to-business contexts are understudied. Research in environmental disclosures and leadership is expected to grow in the future.

Originality/value

This is the first study in business ethics to use keywords for analyzing the evolution of a discipline. This study encompasses more articles than any other study in business ethics. Finally, this is the only study to use co-word network analysis to study business ethics literature.

Impact of Risk Attitude on Risk, Opportunity, and Performance Assessment of Construction Projects

This article explores the impact of risk attitude on the assessment of project uncertainty encompassing both risk and opportunity and expected project performance. A survey was conducted involving project risk management experts from the construction industry, and the data collected were analyzed using various statistical techniques. The findings reveal that the impact of risk attitude significantly varies across multiple dimensions of project uncertainty and project performance. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the association between risk attitude and project uncertainty and expected performance assessments has never been explored while capturing multiple dimensions of project uncertainty and performance.

Project Portfolio Construction Using Extreme Value Theory

Choosing proper projects has a great impact on organizational success. Firms have various factors for choosing projects based on their different objectives and strategies. The problem of optimization of projects’ risks and returns is among the most prevalent issues in project portfolio selection. In order to optimize and select proper projects, the amount of projects’ expected risks and returns must be evaluated correctly. Determining the relevant distribution is very important in achieving these expectations. In this research, various types of practical distributions were examined, and considering expected and realized risks, the effects of choosing the different distribution on estimation of risks on construction projects were studied.

Antecedents and consequences of supply chain resilience and reconfiguration: an empirical study in an emerging economy

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is twofold: to investigate the antecedents of resilience and to highlight the importance of resilience in achieving reconfiguration in supply chains.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper draws on literature on supply chain resilience and collects data from 253 companies in Qatar to understand the influence of the antecedents of supply chain resilience and the impact of resilience on reconfiguration using partial least squares structural equation modeling.

Findings

The findings show that antecedents like risk management culture, agility and collaboration positively affect the supply chain resilience. Further, the study establishes that companies can leverage their supply chain resilience to reconfigure supply chain in case of disruptions.

Practical implications

This study is important for supply chain managers in Qatar, as the country faced major disruption of supply chains in wake of the blockade imposed by its neighbors with which it had the only land route and maximum trade. The findings from this study should aid mangers in developing resilient supply chains.

Originality/value

This paper highlights the role of supply chain resilience in achieving reconfiguration. Further, novelty of the work reported in this paper lies in its context where supply chains recently faced actual disruptions.

A Conceptual Framework to Manage Resilience and Increase Sustainability in the Supply Chain

The challenges of global economies foster supply chains to have to increase their processes of collaboration and dependence between their nodes, generating an increase in the level of vulnerability to possible impacts and interruptions in their operations that may affect their sustainability. This has developed an emerging area of interest in supply chain management, considering resilience management as a strategic capability of companies, and causing an increase in this area of research. Additionally, supply chains should deal with the three dimensions of sustainability (economic, environmental, and social dimensions) by incorporating the three types of objectives in their strategy. Thus, there is a need to integrate both resilience and sustainability in supply chain management to increase competitiveness. In this paper, a systematic literature review is undertaken to analyze resilience management and its connection to increase supply chain sustainability. In the review, 232 articles published from 2000 to February 2020 in peer-reviewed journals in the Scopus and ScienceDirect databases are analyzed, classified, and synthesized. With the results, this paper develops a conceptual framework that integrates the fundamental elements for analyzing, measuring, and managing resilience to increase sustainability in the supply chain. Finally, conclusions, limitations, and future research lines are exposed.

A Coordinated Approach for Supply-Chain Tracking in the Liquefied Natural Gas Industry

With the increased size and complexity of liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects, supply-chain management has become a challenging process due to involvements of the remote location of the project site and the multiple stakeholders. The transparency and traceability of the supply-chain are critical as any surpluses or shortages of materials will put the project at risk. Currently, limited research has been conducted on LNG projects considering the total supply-chain perspective, which refers to all stages of materials tracking in off-site manufacturing, transportation, and site logistics. The purpose of this research is to propose a framework of a coordinated approach for supply-chain tracking in the LNG industry. Two focus group studies were organized to develop the proposed framework: One for LNG construction supply chain process development, and another for alternative tracking technologies selection. In addition, two experiments, namely off-site fabrication tracking and site logistics tracking, were conducted in a field to evaluate the feasibility of the proposed framework. Technology limitations were also discussed in terms of field implementation.

A framework for understanding managerial responses to supply chain complexity

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the nature of supply chain complexity and extend this with literature developed within the project domain. The authors use the lens of ambidexterity (the ability both to exploit and explore) to analyse responses to complexity, since this enables the authors to understand the application of known solutions in conjunction with innovative ones to resolve difficulties. This research also seeks to investigate how managers respond to supply chain complexities that can either be operationally deleterious or strategically beneficial.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors develop a descriptive framework based on the project management (PM) literature to understand response options to complexity, and then use interviews with supply chain managers in six organisations to examine the utility of this framework in practice. The authors ask the research question “How do managers in supply chains respond to complexities”?

Findings

The case study data show first that managers faced with structural, socio-political, or emergent supply chain complexities use a wide range of responses. Second, over a third of the instances of complexity coded were actually accommodated, rather than reduced, by the study firms, suggesting that adapting to supply chain complexity in certain instances may be strategically appropriate. Third, the lens of ambidexterity allows a more explicit assessment of whether existing PM solutions can be considered or if novel methods are required to address supply chain complexities.

Practical implications

The descriptive framework can aid managers in conceptualising and addressing supply chain complexity. Through exploiting current knowledge, managers can lessen the impact of complexity while exploring other innovative approaches to solve new problems and challenges that evolve from complexity growth driven by business strategy.

Originality/value

This study addresses a gap in the literature through the development of a framework which provides a structure on ways to address supply chain complexity. The authors evaluate an existing project complexity concept and demonstrate that it is both applicable and valuable in non-project, ongoing operations. The authors then extend it using the lens of ambidexterity, and develop a framework that can support practitioners in analysing and addressing both strategically necessary supply complexities, together with unwanted, negative complexities within the organisation and across the supply chain.

Research Focuses, Trends, and Major Findings on Project Complexity: A Bibliometric Network Analysis of 50 Years of Project Complexity Research

This article analyzes the project complexity research field using bibliometric analysis. The field evolved in three waves (prior to 1985, between 1990 and 2004, and after 2005) from several disconnected seminal works, to a more centralized discussion that began based on efforts to characterize and classify complex projects to focus on the developing models and frameworks that, considering aspects of uncertainty and dynamics, supported managers to adapt and manage their projects. The findings suggest that project complexity is defined by dimensions that include structural, uncertainty, novelty, dynamics, pace, social-political, and regulative. The findings also suggest that the focus is changing from project control to project adaptability, and it is necessary to develop capabilities to manage complex projects, not only in the organization or at the team level, but also through the project's supply chain.