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Scaling up and scaling down supply chains in volatile resource-based economies

Laura Ryser, Sean Markey and Greg Halseth
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Laura Ryser: 6727University of Northern British Columbia, Canada
Sean Markey: 1763Simon Fraser University, Canada

Local Economy, 2020, vol. 35, issue 8, 831-851

Abstract: The growth of mobile workforces to support diversified resource extraction activities, compared to historically single-industry towns, represents a key change in rural and remote resource landscapes that has accelerated since the 1980s. Mobile workforces can present many opportunities to rural communities and economies. However, the capacity, viability and competitiveness of rural-based businesses to engage in supply chains serving mobile labour may be undermined by limited attention to how businesses manoeuvre downturns while maintaining a level of readiness to recover and scale-up in order to meet emerging mobile workforce needs. Drawing upon interviews with businesses in Fort St. John, British Columbia, Canada, our research uses the concept of resiliency to examine challenges and strategies associated with business capacity and agility to scale-up and scale-down in response to changing economic conditions associated with large-scale mobile workforces and related economic sectors. Our findings suggest that the capacity to scale-up and scale-down is shaped by capital, human resource and infrastructure strategies, inventory management and contract management strategies. Industry and state policies may also play a role supporting the conditions that will improve the agility, capacity and readiness of businesses operating in volatile resource-based economies.

Keywords: business; resilience; rural; staples; supply chain (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:loceco:v:35:y:2020:i:8:p:831-851

DOI: 10.1177/0269094221993439

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