Resource Gaps and Resource Orchestration Shortfalls in Supply Chain Management: The Case of Product Recalls

Product recalls are often painful to endure, but they also create important opportunities for learning. Although past research implicitly treats recalls as monolithic, our grounded theory investigation uncovered four types of recalls. Each type of recall provides insight about the adequacy of a firm's resource endowments and how a firm orchestrates the activities around its resources. For researchers, our study highlights the value of examining the confluence of recalls, resource gaps, and resource orchestration shortfalls to better understand the role of resources within supply chain management. For managers, our study highlights the value of knowing what type of recall a firm is facing and how to remedy the problems that led to the recall.