Logistics and Supply Chain Resilience of Japanese Companies: Perspectives from Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Rajali Maharjan () and Hironori Kato
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Rajali Maharjan: Japan Transport and Tourism Research Institute, Tokyo 105-0001, Japan
Hironori Kato: Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan

Logistics, 2023, vol. 7, issue 2, 1-12

Abstract: Background: Enhancing the resilience of global supply chains has become of increasing priority in response to recent natural disasters and the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: This paper presents findings from semi-structured interviews with five Japanese companies conducted between November 2020 and February 2021 to examine the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on different aspects of logistics and supply chain activities and resilience strategies implemented. The interviews focused on firms’ financial performance and the status of preparedness, response, and future plans from the perspective of logistics and supply chain resilience. Through interviews, we also investigated whether existing logistics and supply chain resilience strategies helped the companies avoid, withstand, respond to, or recover from the pandemic’s impacts. Results: The results indicated that the interviewed companies experienced both positive and negative impacts from the pandemic on their logistics and supply chain activities and experienced negative impacts mainly on their financial performance. Conclusions: A certain level of preparedness was observed; however, the levels of resilience preparedness, response, and future plans varied among companies with different attributes, such as industry type and organisation size.

Keywords: supply chain resilience; logistics resilience; COVID-19 pandemic; Japanese companies; firm performance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L8 L80 L81 L86 L87 L9 L90 L91 L92 L93 L98 L99 M1 M10 M11 M16 M19 R4 R40 R41 R49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlogis:v:7:y:2023:i:2:p:27-:d:1139393

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