Impact of supply chain robustness and resilience on firm Impact of supply chain robustness and resilience on firm performance: A perspective of Pakistan textile industry performance: A perspective of Pakistan textile industry

This study investigates the impact of supply chain resilience and robustness on ﬁrm performance and also examines the signiﬁcance of supply chain risk management (SCRM) in minimizing the consequences of disruptions on supply chain performance in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Data was gathered using convenience sampling technique through a survey from management staﬀ (n=409) working in textile companies operating in Pakistan. Using SPSS software for data analysis, thisstudy proposes a mediation model where risk management practices are proposed as a mediator between supply chain resilience, robustness and ﬁrm performance. The ﬁndings highlight that supply chain resilience and robustness have positive signiﬁcant eﬀect on ﬁrm performance. The results also revealed that supply chain risk management mediates the relationships between supply chain resilience, robustness and ﬁrm performance. The ﬁndings show that managers should focus more on improving supply chain risk management operations and prioritize their SC resilience and robustness competencies for better ﬁrm performance. Furthermore, this is among the few quantitative studies dealing with supply chain risk management procedures, SC resilience and robustness in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. The research limitations have been identiﬁed and suggestions for future research have been provided.


Introduction
Supply chain risks are primarily divided into operational and disruptive risks according to numerous authors in past studies (Ivanov et al 2018;Xu et al 2020).The operational risks are related to common disruptions in supply chain (SC) activities, which include lead-time and order variations, while the disruption risks are primarily related to incidents that occur seldom but have severe consequences (Kinra et al 2020).In terms of duration (long-term), extreme uncertainty, and dissemination of unforeseen consequences, epidemic breakouts are a unique type of supply chain risk (Ivanov 2020).During the recent decade, research on the epidemic's consequences on the supply chain has emerged (Natarajarathinam et al 2009;Scott and Rutner 2019) revealing wide range of risks to the enterprises' existence.Similarly, studies have shown that disruptions produced by unusual events like a pandemic can jeopardize resilience and robustness of a supply chain as well (Kumar and Chandra 2010;Le Hoa Vo and Thiel 2011).
Moreover, SC networks are extremely vulnerable due to internal interruption, for instance, financial turmoil, challenges caused by the decline of main consumers, emerging technologies, and quality of infrastructure, all of which have a detrimental impact on the market as a whole, and these types of events can likely to negatively impact the industries' potential for further development.According to (El Baz and Ruel (2021)), the SC's performance relies on the businesses' resilience and robustness to handle difficulties from their internal as well as external settings.The capacity of SC to restore its capability to operate effectively after a disruptive event is referred to as SC resilience and robustness.Being SC resilient and robust positively impacts the business's operations and performance, especially when firms face unexpected risks and events (Hendijani and Norouzi (2023)).
Existing investigation on SC resilience has mostly focused on mature markets and well-developed nations (Tukamuhabwa et al (2015)).Unfortunately, recent research indicates that SC resilience breakdowns have the most negative impact on underdeveloped and developing nations (Lopes et al (2022)), and a few studies explored the impact of supply chain resilience components on SC performance (Chowdhury et al (2023); Juan et al (2022)), and firm performance (Abeysekara et al 2019), 2019) and highlighted the importance of SC resilience in a firms development.However, these studies are limited to the specific regions and have not explored the effect of SC robustness on overall firm performance.
These studies suggested conducting the investigation in different regions for a better understanding of SC resilience and robustness in a complex environment.Furthermore, after a thorough examination of the theoretical literature currently in circulation, it was also discovered that SC resilience and robustness relationship with firm performance is limited in terms of theoretical arguments and the context of Pakistans manufacturing industry.The argumentative theories on the relationship between SC resilience and robustness and firm performance via SC risk management have not been presented by different authors (Alshahrani and Salam 2022; Siagian et al 2021)in recent times.They have instead emphasized hypotheses about SC resilience, robustness and business performance in terms of production and marketing/sales.In order to improve overall company/firm Impact of Supply Chain Robustness and Resilience.. performance, this study will bridge the theoretical gap by describing how SC resilience should address weaknesses and how businesses should create robust models using SC risk management.This will not only serve as an example for professionals but will also advance academic understanding of supply chain dynamics.
The Coronavirus epidemic has recently had an impact on the performance of several global supply chains.COVID-19 disrupted the world economy and paralyzed major industries (Araz et al 2020;Ivanov 2020).After the Covid-19 pandemic attack, supply chain vulnerabilities were exposed.Although Covid-19 pandemic attack disturbed supply chains globally, its impact on a developing country like Pakistan was worse specifically in the mainstream textile industry where performance was negatively impacted across upstream to the downstream process.This pandemic attack brought up a dire need to reformulate supply chains to make them resilient and robust to sustain risks to downgraded performance.
Therefore, the main objective of this study is to explore the effect of supply chain risk management in mitigating the disruption in supply chain resilience and robustness and also identify the impact of SC resilience and robustness on firm performance.The textile industry of Pakistan was selected for this study since it is one of the largest local industries and is interlinked with worldwide supply chains involving import and exports all over the world.Pakistan is the eighth highest exporter of textile products all across Asia and third biggest purchaser of cotton so it is worthwhile to research the textile industry and to evaluate the implication of supply chain resilience and robustness to counter risks.
The significant contributions of this study are manifold.First, we respond to directions for future work suggested by numerous experts for further quantitative research on supply chain risk management in the context of COVID-19 (Ivanov 2020;Ivanov and Dolgui 2020).Secondly, in terms of textile firm performance, the research findings are expected to provide a better understanding of supply chain risk management in improving resilience and robustness.When engaging in management activities for increasing firm performance within textile companies, management will be able to modify procedures and enforce strategies to minimize losses due to disruptions.The study also will help SC managers better grasp how to assess the merits of various initiatives related to SC resilience and robustness and how to apply such initiatives in a complicated business model to reduce unanticipated hazards brought on by substandard SC networks that affect the companys performance.
2 Literature review 2.1 Supply chain Resilience and Firm Performance SC resilience is the capacity to respond to an unexpected disturbing impact and after that reestablish operation to normal (Rice and Caniato 2003).Resilience A.Munir, A. Hanif and N. Afzal refers to a multi-dimensional and multi-disciplinary idea that starts from brainstorming and is then applied to the Supply chain (Pettit et al 2010;Ponomarov and Holcomb 2009).SC Resilience is the capacity in which a firm is to bounce back from troublesome circumstances.Supply chain resilience characterizes the systems flexible capability to persevere brief troublesome occasions (Soni et al 2014).Supply chain resilience diminishes the probability of negative interruption impacts on the performance of firms and operations.
Supply chains are then ready to quickly distinguish the event of a disturbance, and quickly recover and even improve their earlier presentation level through suitable items and recovering techniques (Hosseini et al 2019).There are vital irregularities between these SC Resilience events which can destroy the overall SC system (Jüttner and Maklan 2011).Frequently, SC reliability components are among different sources and these sources help to make a better environment to work.SC Resilience is characterized as a one-dimensional design through its creators (Ambulkar et al 2015).Multiple scholars have discussed that quality can be accomplished fundamentally through flexibility as well as vigorous (Wieland and Wallenburg 2012).
On the other hand, a firm performance can be defined as an organizations ability to meet both its market-oriented and financial objectives.Many organizations use financial indicators to assess their performance and compare it to that of other companies in the market.Good company performance is often viewed as a competitive advantage over the competition in the market.This has been supported by prior research which has used both financial and market-related factors to assess business success (Kannan and Tan 2005).
However, on behalf of a well-founded company, the supply chain ought to be agile, versatile, and adjusted (Lee 2002).Meanwhile, the resilient competence reflects suitable ability progresses and rebuilding assets in businesses, which upraise a contention that should accomplish over entire supply network resilience practices.Typically resilient competencies are a design of cooperative, united exercises and key schedules over which partnerships can alter polishes to accomplish unused asset setups and support and pick up an economic benefit (Teece et al 1997).Overall supply chain adaptability makes a contrasting influence in a firm to execute in a way that results in clients advantage, financial benefits, and overall growth.A resilient environment can only help to deal with unwanted pandemics.Otherwise, the performance of the firm can never be stable.Hence, we propose the following hypothesis: Hypothesis 1: Supply Chain Resilience has a significant positive effect on firm performance.

Supply chain Robustness and Firm Performance
Supply chain robustness is defined as a dynamic approach implemented by a business ahead of time to enable a supply chain for resisting change while maintaining acceptable performance (Nair and Vidal 2011).The term supply chain robustness refers to the level at which the supply chain can perform its tasks 94 Business Review: (2023) 18(1):91-106 https://ir.iba.edu.pk/businessreview/vol18/iss1/5DOI: 10. 54784/1990-6587.1502Published by iRepository, June 2023 Impact of Supply Chain Robustness and Resilience.. while being damaged.Over the years, robustness has been observed to turn into a central necessity at each level of the creation order from the cycle/machine level, through the framework and undertaking levels, up to the level of supply chains and organizations.SC robustness is observed as a dynamic methodology to manage uncertainties, disorders, or disturbances (Ivanov and Dolgui 2020;Simchi-Levi et al 2018).A major method to expand the robustness of producing frameworks is basically to dispense in time areas.However, another assembly of approaches depends on various things like strong, responsive, prescient responsive, proactive, agile and supply chain performance regarding cost, quality, and robustness (Kannan and Tan 2005).Furthermore, robustness is a symbol that describes the agility/flexibility retained as an option to open up a wide range of possibilities for later choices (Khorasani 2018).However, agility is not necessary only for making SC resilient but also for making SC robust, agile processes are needed in the internal environment of an organization.It also aims to cope with outside disturbances that nearly always happen and to rapidly and adaptably meets immediate needs (Shafiq and Soratana 2019; Zhang and Wang 2011).Due to agility/flexibility, SC robustness tackles most of the problems which can affect a firms processes to develop a specific product (Jain et al 1991).According to (Charles et al 2010; Gligor et al 2019), unpredictable requirements, supply-demand imbalances, and other disturbances have an adverse effect on the SC's capacity to function without a high degree of agility and flexibility.
Agility can boost company productivity and agility is considered the best solution for dealing with low-likelihood and high impact risks conditions (Shafiq and Soratana 2019; Swafford et al 2008).On the other hand, supply chain development conclusions can be seen as requiring interchange between bigger versus smaller consumers to the objective of enhancing the organizations moderate reaction.Robust project competency deals with the possibility to improve satisfactory items to widen object sections, circumstances, and situations with prices balanced by determined and expected corporation benefits (Bettis and Hitt 1995).The advancement of a robust supply network expands the capacities of a firm prompts improved firm performance (El Baz and Ruel 2021).Hence, we propose the following hypothesis: Hypothesis 2: Supply chain Robustness has a significant positive effect on firm performance.

Mediating Role of Risk Management Practices between Supply Chain
Resilience and Firm Performance.
Risk management is defined as the process of reducing risk exposure and lowering the likelihood of an accident (Barrot et al 2019).Risk management is important in effectively identifying the sources of SC hazards and influencing the outcomes of subsequent forms in SCRM (El Baz and Ruel 2021.Supply side risks have a significant influence on organizational performance, particularly when it comes to not fulfilling the essential production and sales targets.This Business Review: ( 2023 is due to risk events disrupting operations and business functions, resulting in poor performance (Kt and Sarmah 2021).For example, the catastrophic event at a supplier site could cause delays in supplying goods to producers, affecting final customers and resulting in additional costs to ensure targeted delivery and customer satisfaction (Fiksel and Fiksel 2015).Unforeseen risk occurrence is widely believed to have a significant impact on any industry's worldwide supply chain, resulting in a fall in firm performance (Gunessee et al 2018;Wagner and Neshat 2010).Generally, SC risk management has been a useful method for dealing with difficult situations that are immediately identifiable (Zineb et al 2017).Continuous inspection & tracking of risks improves the supply networks, allow them to deal with uncertainty, and improve the firm performance (Barrot et al 2019).So, basically, SC risk management reduces the disruptions in SC resilience for the purpose of firm performance enhancement.Hence, we propose the following hypothesis: Hypothesis 3: Risk management practices will mediate the link between SC resilience and firm performance.

Mediating Role of Risk Management Practices between Supply Chain
Robustness and Firm Performance SCRM is described as the execution of techniques to manage both ordinary and exceptional risks throughout the supply chain, based on continuous risk analysis, with the purpose of decreasing vulnerability and assuring consistency (Wieland and Wallenburg 2012).Several authors show a relationship between SCRM and SC robustness in businesses (Bode et al 2011;DuHadway et al 2019).Firms must implement methods like SCRM to reduce SC susceptibility in order to build SC resilience, which includes screening for risks and coping with them before they occur (Azadegan et al 2013;Tang 2006).Firms that evaluate their network to uncover vulnerabilities can also tolerate disruptions better and recover more quickly (Ivanov and Sokolov 2013).Firms that understand how to assess dangers from their SC environment might improve their responsiveness to SC disruptions by developing proactive capabilities (Blackhurst et al 2011;Bode et al 2011;DuHadway et al 2019).
Basically, SC risk management plays an important part in identifying, managing risks and making SC robust.Utilizing and rearranging resources becomes essential for recovering from interruption and maintaining performance.As a result, in a disruptive circumstance such as the COVID-19 epidemic, enterprises' reconfiguration and deployment of resources/capabilities via SCRM assist them in coping with disruption repercussions and maintaining SC robustness.Hence, we propose the following hypothesis: Hypothesis 4: Risk management Practices will mediate the link between SC robustness and firm performance.Based upon the above review of the literature, the research model based upon the identified variables is proposed in Figure 1.
The structural framework used in this study is depicted in Figure 1 and is in line with the findings of the literature.SC resilience and robustness represent the independent variables, the dependent variable is the firm performance with mediator SC risk management.As a result of ongoing economic challenges, businesses constantly rely on a complex network of international associates to deliver goods and services in the appropriate quantity, just at the perfect time, and in the right location, that is the reason why corporations need a robust and resilient network to distribute their goods in any pandemic situation.Existing literature shows that firms' resilience is their capacity to resume regular production after market turmoil within a certain amount of time (Nikookar and Yanadori 2022).
At the same time, a robust network is also necessary for the maximization of production and overall operating performance.Robust means being prepared for change before it occurs (Ji et al 2020;Wieland and Wallenburg 2012).For the whole supply chain network of every firm, SC robustness and resilience are essential.However, SC risk management also serves as a bridge between the SC network and overall performance and is crucial for dealing with difficult situations that can be seen right away (Zineb et al 2017)).In light of the aforementioned arguments, we therefore presented the model.

Research Methodology
This study employed a cross-sectional design using a survey questionnaire to investigate the relationship between supply chain resilience/robustness and firm performance in the textile industry of Pakistan with the mediating role of risk management practices.Ethical considerations were also considered, and the survey participants were informed about the study's purpose and confidentiality.Informed consent was obtained from all participants before completing the survey questionnaire.

Data Collection
The textile industry is one of Pakistan's fastest growing industries and contributes to national economy.This research study's population consisted of employees from textile sector and the unit of analysis was management staff working in textile manufacturing companies in Pakistan.Data was collected using convenience sampling technique through questionnaires.A Google form was prepared to collect data which was electronically distributed to concerned professionals.The responders were requested to take part and provide data for our study.The cover letter made it clear that the research was being done for scholarly purposes.A total of 450 responses were received back out of which 409 were usable since the rest had issues like incomplete and unengaged responses.
Hence the final sample size of the study was 409 was the final sample size.

Research Instrument
A 5-point Likert scale was used (1= strongly disagree, 5= strongly agree) to measure variables.For SC Robustness 4-item scale of (Golgeci and Y. Ponomarov 2013; Wieland and Wallenburg 2012) was used.One sample item is Without adaptations being necessary, our supply chain performs well over a wide variety of possible scenarios.And the Cronbach alpha reliability of this scale was 0.73.
For SC resilience 4-item scale of (Golgeci and Y. Ponomarov 2013; Wieland and Wallenburg 2012) was used.One sample item is We can cope with changes brought by the supply chain disruption.And the Cronbach alpha reliability of this scale was 0.75.For risk management 6-item scale of (Chowdhury and Quaddus 20177) was used.One sample item is In the course of our risk analysis for all suppliers and SC partners, we select applicable observation fields for supply risks.And the Cronbach alpha reliability of this scale was 0.76.For firm performance 5-item scale of (Klein 1998) was used.One sample is Value-added per employee in our company is well above the industry average.And the Cronbach alpha reliability of this scale was 0.81.

Analysis Techniques
SPSS software and Hayes Process macro were used for data analysis.Various steps like data exploration, analysis for outliers and missing values, descriptive statistics, reliability of scale, regression analysis and mediation modeling were performed on the collected data.

Results
Demographic information for the collected sample is provided in Impact of Supply Chain Robustness and Resilience.. agers and executives are responsible for looking at all the activities related to the supply chain and job experience also indicated that employees who have experience of more than 5 years are responsible for the supply chain management.The values of mean, standard deviation, and correlation are presented in Table 2. Descriptive statistics, reliability statistics (Cronbach alpha) and VIF values are provided in Table 2.All values indicate that the scale is reliable and there were no issues related to multicollinearity in the study variables.The correlation matrix is provided in Table 3.All correlation values were statistically significant and there were no issues related to multicollinearity as already established.The result of the four hypotheses is presented in Table 4.The direct effect indicated that SC resilience (effect= .36,p< .05)and SC robustness (effect .426,p < .05)have a positive significant link with firm performance, so H1 and H2 were supported.H3 and H4 were also supported where risk management acts as a mediator between SC resilience, robustness and firm performance.The indirect effect of both SC resilience and SC robustness revealed that risk management successfully mitigates the disruptions in the supply chain and enhance the firm performance.SC risk management significantly mediated the relationship between Sc resilience and firm performance (effect .284,p<.05).SC risk management also significantly mediated the relationship between SC robustness and firm performance (effect = .277,p<.05).

Discussion
The outcome of this study revealed that SC resilience significantly influences firm performance.SC resilience refers to a company's ability to recover from adversity.SC resilient refers to a system's adaptive ability to tolerate transitory disruptions (Soni et al 2014).Organizations should assess potential hazards and weaknesses that can affect their business ahead of time so that they can assess their sensitivity level to manage interruptions (Pettit et al 2010).SC must be agile, adaptable, and aligned (3As) in order for a company to obtain a competitive advantage (Ivanov 2020).The SC management proposes that everyone focus on building a resilient SC because disruptions and disasters can happen at any time and everyone must be prepared to deal with them.According to the finding, initiatives should include a resilience element for increased performance.Resilience is a constant factor in increasing profitability and decreasing vulnerabilities (Barrot et al 2019).
The second outcome of this study indicated that SC robustness significantly influences firm performance.The more SC robust, the firm performance will increase.The ability to handle processes during a pandemic is referred to as robustness (Brandon-Jones et al 2014) Impact of Supply Chain Robustness and Resilience.. has a significant impact on a firm's overall performance.The notion of robust design was developed in order to reduce the effects of interruptions during the manufacturing process.It is noted that robustness is always essential in dealing with the disruption caused by any situation (Klibi et al 2010,?;Wieland and Wallenburg 2012).According to the H2 result, firms must concentrate on the SC in order to improve overall performance in day-to-day situations or during pandemic attacks.SCRM involvement in absorbing interruption consequences and increasing SC resilience and robustness was investigated in this study.The result revealed that SC risk management fully mediates the relationship of both SC resilience and SC robustness with firm performance.Resilience is vital in supply chain risk management since it entails addressing issues that begin with a lack of hazard management expertise (Scholten and Schilder 2015;Wieland and Wallenburg 2012).Although there has been a lot of focus on measures to improve supply network adaptability (Tukamuhabwa et al 2015), Resilience is also seen as a dynamic attribute in a framework with self-organizational levels (Mackay et al 2020).
During Covid-19, it was found that risk management is a key factor for every enterprise and that it has a significant impact on making an SC robust, allowing it to handle all of the disruptions that may occur during any uncertain pandemic.Risk management is frequently described as an iterative process, with risk documentation, computation, treatment, and monitoring/communication all being included (Barrot et al 2019;El Baz and Ruel 2021).The findings show that risk management helps in the creation of a robust and resilient environment.The implementation of a robust risk management system could improve the firm's image and shareholder value (Klibi et al 2010).SC risk management supports organizations and increases shareholder value by reducing pricing variance, lowering out-of-pocket expenses, and increasing efficiency (Bohnert et al 2019).According to findings, SCRM successfully mediates the relationship between SC robustness and SC resilience, which effectively improves the textile industry's performance.

Data and analysis 7 Conclusion
Risk management is essential for enterprises and supply chains to deal with global disruptive challenges.The Covid-19 pandemic attack exposed a wide range of vulnerabilities in businesses.A large number of studies have previously been conducted to polish procedures to improve firm performance.Furthermore, numerous studies have been conducted to make a supply chain robust, and resilient but after this pandemic, a study to make the supply chain strong is urgently required.In comparison, this research study uses both resilient and robust supply chain characteristics to improve firm performance.This pandemic demonstrates the critical need for having a resilient and robust SC to counter Business Review: (2023) 18(1):91-106 disruptions and risk.Research demonstrated that the supply chain should be resilient to deal with any pandemic threats and disruptions, with no direct negative impact on the organization's performance.The result of the second hypothesis demonstrated that the supply chain must be robust to sustain and assure a healthy firm performance.
The findings also demonstrated that risk management is the key to a better supply chain.It also aids in improving the overall performance of the firm.This factor is especially important when comparing results to previous work in sustainable supply chain management to analyses because the examined relationships have not been empirically addressed in previous investigations.Finally, it was proven that effective hazard management procedures significantly mediated both the resilience and robustness of a supply chain.It can be inferred that risk management is important in general, not just when it comes to maintainability, and that these methods increase firm overall performance.Textile firms need to employ governance and monitoring mechanisms to mitigate risks in the supply chain besides identifying measures and improving processes to establish resilience and flexibility across the supply chain.All concerned stakeholders involved in the supply chain should meet periodically to identify new risks in the supply chain and enforce mitigation techniques.

Operational Implications
The study aimed to find solutions to difficulties in the Pakistani textile industry.The supply chain of the local textile industry has been severely harmed as a result of the pandemic attack in every performance metric.The local industry may be able to learn how to follow the proper practices to make their firm's performance lucrative as a result of this research.Local businesses will have to learn and adopt new ways to enable resilient supply chains to sustain operations.Any disruptions in operations due to supply chain issues can be overcome by adopting suggested actions of this research study.Risks in supply chains often lead to significant operational disruptions and corresponding financial losses.Supply chain managers need to develop robust risk management strategies that focus on proactive planning, monitoring, and mitigation.This includes identifying potential risks, developing contingency plans, and continuously monitoring and updating risk management processes.Additionally, collaboration and communication across stakeholders, including suppliers, customers, and internal departments is essential for a coordinated response to disruptive events.

Theoretical Implications
This study adds to the body of knowledge and fills gaps in the scant literature on the subject.This study is the first of its type to establish and investigate SC resilience breakdowns which have a detrimental effect on business performance in developing nations.This study emphasizes upon SC resilience, robustness https://ir.iba.edu.pk/businessreview/vol18/iss1/5DOI: 10. 54784/1990-6587.1502Published by iRepository, June 2023 Impact of Supply Chain Robustness and Resilience.. and business performance in textile industry.It bridges the theoretical gap by describing how SC resilience address weaknesses and how businesses create robust models using SC risk management.

Limitations and Future Research
Our study, like any other has limitations that provide opportunities for future research.First, our study uses a cross-sectional approach and focuses on the context of Pakistani textile enterprises.Hence, a direction for future research could be studies undertaken in other countries having different work culture and operating environments.Secondly, we only collected data at one point in time and did not use longitudinal data needed to investigate causality over a longer period.As a result, undertaking a longitudinal study may provide important insights into the connection between SCRM, disruption impacts, SC resilience, and robustness in the long term.Third, we employed SC risk management as mediating variable.Another research recommendation for future is to use other variables like firm size, certification in quality management systems etc. as moderating variables.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Table 2 :
Descriptive Statistics and Reliability Analysis

Table 4 .
Results of Mediation Analysis