Advancing Production System Resilience Theory: Evidence from Disruption Events in Nigerian Manufacturing Firms

This dissertation advances production system resilience theory by generating original empirical evidence from disruption events experienced by Nigerian manufacturing firms, addressing fundamental theoretical and empirical gaps arising from the predominance of resilience research conducted in high-income country manufacturing contexts. Nigerian manufacturers have navigated an exceptional concentration of major disruption events over the past decade, including currency devaluation, energy infrastructure failures, supply chain disruptions from global crises, and security-related logistics disruptions, providing a natural laboratory for empirical resilience research of exceptional richness. Applying a longitudinal mixed-methods design, this study tracks disruption events and organisational responses across sixty-one manufacturing firms in Lagos, Kano, Enugu, Kaduna, Rivers, and Borno states over a thirty-six-month observation period, combining quarterly survey data collection with in-depth case studies at twelve firms selected to represent diversity of sector, size, and resilience performance. Grounded theory analysis of case study data generates three original constructs absent from existing resilience frameworks: adaptive inventory bridging, network redundancy activation, and institutional arbitrage capability. Quantitative analysis using fixed-effects panel regression confirms significant relationships between the newly identified constructs and post-disruption recovery speed and performance recovery depth outcomes. The revised resilience framework advances theory by incorporating informal economy interfaces and multi-stakeholder network dynamics as distinctive resilience mechanisms in the Nigerian manufacturing context. Keywords: production system resilience, disruption events, grounded theory, panel regression, Nigerian manufacturing