Digital enablement, supply chain capabilities, and rethinking value in operations network : from blockchain-driven relational governance to platform ecosystems orchestration : a thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Management at Massey University, Albany, Auckland, New Zealand. EMBARGOED until 16 March 2028.

Abstract

Global operations are increasingly shaped by concurrent pressures to remain resilient amid disruption and to maintain legitimacy under responsibility-oriented governance expectations in the post-growth era. Recurrent disruptions have elevated supply chain resilience as a central capability for sustaining performance in volatile operating environments. A growth-oriented paradigm in performance evaluation has been increasingly challenged by rising ESG and stakeholder expectations for social responsibility and ethical accountability. Against this backdrop, this thesis reconceptualises digital enablement as a basis for rethinking value in operational networks by reconfiguring coordination, governance, and accountability logics across inter-organizational systems under uncertainty. This thesis develops and tests an integrative framework of digital enablement in operational networks, explaining how blockchain-enabled relational governance and platform ecosystem reshape orientation, cooperation and orchestration mechanisms, and in turn support supply chain resilience and social sustainability under uncertainty. This thesis comprises three connected empirical essays. Essay 1 investigates how blockchain enhances supply chain resilience and relationship performance through inter-organizational relationships. Drawing on the relational view and boundary object perspective, it theorizes that blockchain strengthens relational trust and network capabilities, which, in turn, improve supply chain resilience and ultimately relationship performance. The model is tested using structural equation modelling with survey data from 251 Chinese manufacturing firms. The results indicate that blockchain technology significantly enhances supply chain resilience and improves relationship performance by fostering relational trust and network capability among supply chain partners. However, inter-organizational systems adaptability was found to negatively moderate the relationship between supply chain resilience and relationship performance. Essay 2 extends the analysis from a specific technology to a platform ecosystem perspective. Building on the OCO (orientation, cooperation, orchestration) theory and contingency theory, it examines how platform ecosystem embeddedness improves supply chain resilience through agile responsiveness, and how this relationship is shaped by strategy aggressiveness and slack resources. Using fixed-effects models and panel data on Chinese A-share listed manufacturing firms from 2012 to 2023, the findings show that embeddedness significantly enhances resilience, with agile responsiveness serving as a mediating mechanism. Strategy aggressiveness amplifies the resilience benefits of ecosystem embeddedness, whereas slack resources exert an inverted-U-shaped moderating effect. Essay 3 examines how platform ecosystem embeddedness shapes social sustainability performance in operations. Drawing on the OCO theory and integrating stakeholder theory, it explores how platform-based collaboration can be translated into socially sustainable outcomes through multi-stakeholder alignment. Using the Chinese A-share listed firms panel dataset from 2012 to 2023, the results show that platform embeddedness significantly improves social sustainability performance. This essay also successfully shows that organizational inertia exhibits an inverted U-shaped moderating effect, while supply chain concentration and government-business relations exert negative and positive moderating effects, respectively. Collectively, this thesis reconceptualizes digital technologies as governance infrastructures, extends the OCO theory by specifying how platform ecosystem embeddedness is converted into adaptive and socially responsible outcomes, and advances responsible operations research by demonstrating when and how platform participation generates both resilience and social sustainability. In practice, the findings suggest managing digital initiatives as relationship and ecosystem-level governance programs, so that digital investments yield resilient collaboration and socially responsible performance under uncertainty.