Research Methods: Supply Chain Risk Management

This report provides an executive summary of research methods used to analyze risk management in the supply chain industry. It outlines the purpose of the research, which is to understand how firms cope with potential risks caused by supply chain disruptions. The report identifies three research qu...Read More

University of Manchester
Research Methods
Executive Summary

Understanding risks in complex supply chain
Introduction
In the past decades supply chain industry have witnessed remarkable growth in global trade, with
the aim to increase productivity, fulfil demands in emergent markets and lower cost. On the other
hand, natural disasters, accidents, terrorist attacks and volatility of the financial market have caused
enormous losses in supply chain and disruptions such as the ones experienced by Land Rover and
Ericsson, have shown that the unexpected risk occurring at the one point of the supply chain can
negatively affect other partners of the chain, when the process is not properly controlled (Tang,
2006). Thus, supply chains have become more uncertain and vulnerable as well as face new
challenges of identifying, evaluating and responding to risks by restructuring the supply chain.
Purpose of Research
The main purpose of this research is to analyse how firms are able to cope with the difficulties of
managing potential risks caused by disruption in the supply chain industry by identifying, evaluating
and mitigating them using appropriate tools and techniques. Thus, this research aims to address
three research questions to identify the types of risks, to understand the impact to firm’s
performance as well as find out the most appropriate tools and techniques of managing the risks in
the supply chain field in order to develop a conceptual model for organizations. The research
questions are as follows:
RQ1: what type of risks does supply chain field may experience?
RQ2: what is the impact to organization’s performance measures from experiencing risks?
RQ3: what kind of tools and techniques can be used in order to identify and analyse possible
risks?
Research Methods & Strategy
Generally, there are two major types of research methods that can be utilised for the
research and broadly known as ‘qualitative and quantitative’ methods (Saunders et., 2012).
In relation to the nature of the work and research topic area the qualitative research
methods was chosen in order to address the research questions and objectives respectively.
Moreover, secondary data collection method will be used through using case study strategy
and articles as the way of providing a clear picture of the research. Likewise, the research is
intended to test and compare hypothesis that will be stated in the dissertation research and
thus provide additional knowledge about the topic and allow readers to understand a basic
concept of supply chain risk management. Furthermore, Saunders et al. (2012) outlined
that there are two basic types of approaches that can used by researchers to design their
work. These are inductive and deductive approaches. Concretely, current research topic will
be emphasized on the inductive approach in order to develop further an existing theory and
identify new framework of interesting aspects for this research field.

Project Planning
The research topic will be thoroughly discussed and analysed by using relevant literature of supply
chain risk management field published in recent years to address the research questions and to test
hypothesis and provide a clear view of this topic area. In addition, the dissertation is planning to be
managed and finished within three month timescale. Lastly, it is expected to provide and explain the
major problem of risk management in the field of supply chain and their impact on organizational
performance as well as create a common framework in which the most suitable tools and techniques
can be utilised to identify and evaluate potential risks.

References:
Saunders, M., Lewis, P., & Thornhill, A. (2012). Research methods for business students. (6th
ed.). Harlow, England: Prentice Hall
Tang, C. (2006). Robust strategies for mitigating supply chain disruptions. International
Journal of Logistics, 9 (1), 33-45.