Managing compounding disruptions: analysis of supply chain responsiveness affordances enabled by cross-border E-commerce platforms

How cross-border e-commerce platforms facilitate firms in responding to disruptions is growing to become important to improve supply chain responsiveness. Existing literature focuses on isolated disruptions and the adoption of static adoption of technologies; this research investigates the responsiveness affordances enabled by cross-border e-commerce platforms applied in facilitating small and medium-sized enterprises’ (SMEs) efforts to respond to compounding disruptions. This research follows a process approach, combining a retrospective and real-time perspective to report on qualitative inquiries with experienced informants from 15 SMEs in the manufacturing industry. The results offer a process model revealing how cross-border e-commerce platforms enabled affordances for SMEs’ responsiveness strategies to evolve throughout the Trade War and COVID-19, and also unpack the underlying logic behind the dynamic.