Operationalizing resilience through collaboration: the case of Sri Lankan tea supply chain during Covid-19

This paper investigates the impact of subcomponents of collaboration: information sharing, connectivity, coordination, integration, and visibility on the tea supply chain resilience of Sri Lanka during the Covid-19 pandemic. This research was carried out with mixed methods. The quantitative approach adopted a systematic random sampling technique to determine the sample size (n = 137), whereas the qualitative study used the purposive sampling technique to determine the sample size (n = 6). Self-administered questionnaires were distributed to tea supply chain professionals and structured interviews were conducted to collect data for the qualitative approach of the study. This study found that all the subcomponents of collaboration positively impacted on tea supply chain resilience during the Covid-19. Moreover, connectivity and coordination have the highest positive impact on tea supply chain resilience while the other three sub-components: information sharing, integration and visibility have significant but relatively less positive impact on supply chain resilience. Thus, tea exporting companies must prioritise, take action steps for enhancing connectivity and coordination when formulating supply chain strategies to enable supply chain resilience. The study being one of the latest empirical studies taking Sri Lankan tea supply chain as a case study, contributes to the knowledge having identified the impact of sub-components of collaboration on tea supply chain resilience during Covid-19. Sri Lanka is one of the most vulnerable middle-income countries and its economy suffered severely during the Covid-19 outbreak. The findings will be supportive in making tea supply chains much stronger, providing a robust contribution to the country’s GDP as part of Sri Lanka’s national efforts in economic rebuilding.