Impact of festival season on supply chain disruptions in Bangladesh: challenges and strategies

Md Faisul Alam

Modern Supply Chain Research and Applications, 2026, 1-16

Abstract: PurposeFestival seasons in Bangladesh generate predictable yet severe supply chain disruptions driven by demand surges, labour shortages and logistics congestion. While disruption research predominantly focuses on unexpected crises, recurrent culturally embedded disruptions remain underexplored. This study investigates how festival season pressures affect supply chain performance, modelling disruptions as a mediating mechanism and mitigation strategies as moderating capabilities.Design/methodology/approachA quantitative, cross-sectional survey collected data from 384 supply chain professionals across apparel, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), retail, logistics, and e-commerce sectors in Bangladesh. Construct validity was established through composite reliability (CR) and average variance extracted (AVE); discriminant validity via Fornell–Larcker and Heterotrait-monotrait (HTMT) criteria. Regression-based mediation and moderation analyses were conducted using PROCESS macro with 5,000 bootstrap samples.FindingsFestival-season pressures are significantly associated with increased supply chain disruptions, which in turn negatively relate to performance. Consistent with full mediation, disruptions account for the pressure performance relationship. Mitigation strategies, demand forecasting, inventory buffering, supplier diversification and workforce planning are significantly associated with an attenuation of both the disruptive effect of festival pressures and disruptions’ negative relationship with performance.Practical implicationsManagers should adopt anticipatory, data-driven approaches including proactive inventory positioning and digital logistics integration. Policymakers should invest in infrastructure resilience and institutional capacity building.Originality/valueThis study advances institutional, resource dependence and dynamic capability theories by demonstrating that predictable, culturally embedded disruptions require anticipatory management capabilities in emerging economy contexts.

Keywords: Supply chain disruptions; Festival season; Bangladesh; Mitigation strategies; Emerging economies; Dynamic capabilities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/mscra/article/doi/10.1108/ ... ason-on-supply-chain (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/mscra/article-pdf/doi/10.1 ... a-04-2026-0046en.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:mscrap:mscra-04-2026-0046

DOI: 10.1108/MSCRA-04-2026-0046

Access Statistics for this article

Modern Supply Chain Research and Applications is currently edited by YU Yugang

More articles in Modern Supply Chain Research and Applications from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().