Determinants of Value Chain Resilience in Southern African Agricultural Commodity Markets

Proceedings of The 5th International Conference on Business, Management and Finance

Year: 2022

DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.33422/5th.icbmf.2022.08.60

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Determinants of Value Chain Resilience in Southern African Agricultural Commodity Markets

Arthur Mapanga, PhD

ABSTRACT: 

The Covid-19 pandemic has shown the importance of building resilient value chains.  However, building such value chains remain enigmatic for managers owing to the eclectic and disparate literature on the determinants of value chain resilience. This study sought to build a unified framework for understanding the determinants of value chain by exploring and testing the systemic determinants that characterising resilient agricultural commodity value chains in the Southern African region. A questionnaire survey was carried out with a sample of 238 supply chain practitioners working along the primary agricultural commodity value chains in six countries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. The findings indicate robust chain relationships, strategic orientation, strategic alignment, heterogeneity, chain champions, dynamic intermediaries, trust, commitment, technological integration, collective action regimes and internal competition are important determinants for value chain resilience. In addition, incumbent firms’ ability to anticipate, adapt, respond, recover, and learn are significant capabilities to achieve resilient commodity value chains. Since innumerable disruptions are pervasive in the agricultural commodity value chains in developing countries, identification of the systemic determinants for value chain resilience provides the foundation upon which value chain improvement programmes and thus more sustainable and competitive primary agricultural commodity value chains can be devised and implemented.

keywords: systemic determinants, sustainable competitive advantages, resilient value chains, resilience, agricultural commodity value chains, strategic alignment, heterogeneity, trust, intermediaries .