The application of social network analysis to study supply chain resilience : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Supply Chain Management at Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Date
2019
DOI
Open Access Location
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Massey University
Rights
The Author
Abstract
The purpose of this research was to assess the applicability of social network analysis for studying supply chain resilience. Supply chain resilience contains various attributes related to the supply chain ability to prepare, react, recover and grow in the face of a disturbance. The study aimed at exploring which social network analysis tools and techniques can be appropriate to evaluate a range of supply chain resilience attributes. The thesis delivers an empirical study of agricultural supply chain network in a rural area in New Zealand. Thirty-nine businesses were interviewed regarding their supply chain relationships and their organizational attributes. In addition to these 39 central actors, 283 secondary nodes were identified as their suppliers and customers, forming a supply chain network of 322 members for the research analysis. UCINET software was then used to model the network characteristics from three levels; holistic network, group level cliques and individual nodes. Visualization via graph theory and simulations were also utilized to obtain meaningful findings. This study presents the findings of how to use social network analysis as a comprehensive approach to model supply chain resilience. Interconnectedness, network structure and actor criticality can be modelled for five resilience attributes: adaptation, robustness, agility, visibility and anticipation. For each association between network properties and resilience attributes, different analysis tools are proposed, included in three categories: graph theory, analytics and simulations. The thesis proposes a comprehensive framework of which social network analysis tools can be appropriate to analyze which network properties and to evaluate which attributes of supply chain resilience. The work has therefore extended the study of supply chain resilience and the contexts in which social network analysis is applicable. Practically, it contributes to building a resilient supply chain which can be initiated by evaluating the current status via social network analyses. Therefore, this research is useful to various stakeholders such as academic researchers, business managers and policymakers.
Description
Keywords
Citation