Artificial Intelligence, Firm Resilience to Supply Chain Disruptions, and Firm Performance

Abstract

In today’s uncertain and disruptive environment, every firm in the supply chain is susceptible to disruptions that may require high levels of firm resilience. We argue that recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) may help. This paper expands our understanding of the role of AI in shaping firm resilience to supply chain disruptions and, in turn, enhancing firm performance. In doing so, we conceptualize AI use as a dynamic information processing capability—consisting of three dimensions: coordinating/integration, learning, and strategic competitive response capability—as an antecedent of firm resilience to supply chain disruptions, and firm resilience as a mediation factor that links AI use and firm performance. By analyzing the data gathered using a two-stage survey from 107 companies in Europe, we found AI use has a direct impact on firm resilience, and firm resilience fully mediates the relationship between AI use and firm performance. The findings of this study contribute to IT and supply chain literature.