“I Am Because We Are”: The Role of Sub-Saharan Africa's Collectivist Culture in Achieving Traceability and Global Supply Chain Resilience

Abstract

Prior studies on traceability as an enabler of supply chain resilience (SCRes) have focused on large-scale disruptions and developed country contexts. Few studies have focused on developing countries where chronic, small-scale disruptions are common and resource scarcity means advanced digital technologies are rarely adopted. This research explores how traceability is achieved across upstream actors in two Ghanaian agri-food supply chains and how this affects global SCRes. Social characteristics are shown to influence the risks inherent in supply chains, while traceability is both a direct and indirect SCRes enabler. Informed by the relational view, the roles of relation-specific assets and governance mechanisms in maintaining traceability are explored. Supply chain-wide relation-specific assets are prioritized over dyadic relation-specific assets. This original finding is explained by the importance of maintaining social ties over short-term economic gains in a collectivist culture, leading to greater relational rents in the long term. A novel, informal third-party governance mechanism that reduces formal contracting costs and provides flexibility and continuity to interfirm relationships is also identified, further facilitating the attainment of relational rents. The findings are explained in light of sub-Saharan Africa's collectivist culture, encapsulated in the philosophy of ubuntu. Overall, the research theorizes on achieving supply chain traceability and thus enhancing global SCRes as a sociotechnical system incorporating technological and nontechnological systems that are socially embedded in the local context.