Strengthening Operational Resilience through Supply Chain Flexibility: Evidence from Textile Industries in Tirupur District

Abstract

The textile industry operates in a highly competitive and volatile environment characterized by fluctuating customer demand, raw-material price instability, supplier disruptions, labour shortages, transportation constraints and changing international market conditions. These challenges have increased the importance of operational resilience, particularly the ability of firms to anticipate disruptions, absorb operational shocks, adapt processes, maintain continuity and recover performance. This study examined the influence of supply chain flexibility on the operational resilience of textile industries in Tirupur District, Tamil Nadu. The study specifically examined sourcing flexibility, production flexibility, logistics flexibility and information flexibility as dimensions of supply chain flexibility. A quantitative, descriptive and explanatory cross-sectional research design was adopted. The individual textile firm constituted the unit of analysis, and one knowledgeable owner, manager or senior executive represented each participating firm. Of the 410 textile firms approached, 384 firms provided usable responses, resulting in a response rate of 93.66%. A pilot study involving 30 textile firm owners was conducted individually before the final survey, and the pilot responses were excluded from the final sample. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire and analysed using IBM SPSS Statistics and IBM SPSS AMOS. Reliability and validity were assessed before testing the structural relationships through Structural Equation Modelling. The results indicated that sourcing flexibility (β = 0.214, p < 0.001), production flexibility (β = 0.286, p < 0.001), logistics flexibility (β = 0.241, p < 0.001) and information flexibility (β = 0.318, p < 0.001) had positive and statistically significant effects on operational resilience. The model explained 67.4% of the variance in operational resilience (R² = 0.674). Information flexibility emerged as the strongest predictor, followed by production flexibility, logistics flexibility and sourcing flexibility. The findings demonstrate that developing flexible sourcing, production, logistics and information capabilities can strengthen the ability of textile firms to withstand and recover from supply-chain disruptions. The study provides empirical evidence from Tirupur's textile cluster and offers implications for managers seeking to build more responsive and resilient supply chains.