The effects of supply chain disruptions on logistics service providers: evidence from Ghana during the COVID-19 pandemic

Global scale disruptive events in supply chains are becoming common. Recently, the COVID-19 pandemic, grounding of the Ever-Given container ship in the Suez Canal, the Russia-Ukraine War, the hijack of the Galaxy Leader merchant ship in the Red Sea and subsequent attacks of other commercial ships in the Red Sea have had varying impacts on supply chains in the last few years. In the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, lockdowns were initiated due to the rapid spread of the virus worldwide. From the perspective of disease prevention, this action aided in suppressing the spread of the virus but introduced further disruptions to supply chains with subsequent impacts on business operations. Using a structural causal model, this paper examines how the COVID-19 induced economic shutdown in Ghana and subsequent disruption in the operations of logistics service providers (LSPs) affected labour and wages, business operations and revenue. Using a sample of 161 logistics service providers, the study found that most LSPs, classified as small and medium scale enterprises experienced revenue decline. However, a percentage of LSPs within the warehousing and storage businesses experienced increases in revenue.