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Introduction
Due to the dynamism and complexity of the modern business environment, supply chain disruptions now represent salient risks to organizations ([36] World Economic Forum, 2008). For example, a fire in a Toyota brake supplier facility led directly to a two-week shutdown of 18 Toyota plants in Japan, and $195 million in lost revenues for the automaker ([94] Tomlin, 2006). Likewise, a key supplier failure to deliver two critical aircraft parts led to estimated losses of $2.6 billion for the Boeing Corporation ([5] Blackhurst et al. , 2005). Companies combat supply chain risk and disruptions by constructing resilient supply chains ([14] Christopher, 2005; [74] Ponomarov and Holcomb, 2009; [80] Sheffi and Rice, 2005), i.e. supply chains that have an adaptive capability to prepare for unexpected events, respond to disruptions, and recover from them by maintaining continuity of operations. Clearly, some organizations are able to exhibit higher levels of resilience at the time of disruptions ([16] Christopher and Peck, 2004). This research attempts to investigate some of the important antecedents of supply chain resilience (hereafter SCR). Specifically, the role of firm innovativeness is explored.
Based on both traditional and emergent literature, we theorize and test the hypothesis that innovative firms are better at managing supply chain disruptions. In the strategy literature, innovation is often posited as a critical enabler of firm competitiveness because firm innovativeness is strongly linked to creating market value ([12] Cho and Pucik, 2005), responding to uncertainty ([83] Stevens and Dimitriadis, 2004), and surviving volatile or lagging demand cycles ([33] Fisher, 1997). Given the importance of both innovativeness and resilience as competitive traits in dynamic and turbulent environments, it is somewhat surprising that the relationship between these two important constructs has not been adequately addressed in the existing literature. This research attempts to bridge this gap.
Moreover, the issue of formulating creative responses to supply chain disruptions deserves more attention ([7] Bode et al. , 2011). In addition, precisely how innovation leads to firms' achievement of competitive advantage still remains somewhat ambiguous in the literature. Given that a firm's ability to quickly respond to disruptions has long been described as critical to its long term survival and success ([10] Child, 1972), this research advances the body of knowledge by formulating an original...