Understanding and Development of Supply Chain Agility and Flexibility: A Structured Literature Review

• Author: Sajad Fayezi,Ambika Zutshi,Andrew O'Loughlin
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ijmr.12096
• Date: 01 October 2017
• Published date: 01 October 2017

International Journal of Management Reviews, Vol. 19, 379–407 (2017)

DOI: 10.1111/ijmr.12096

Understanding and Development of Supply

Chain Agility and Flexibility: A Structured

Literature Review

Sajad Fayezi, Ambika Zutshi1and Andrew O’Loughlin2

Department of Business Technology and Entrepreneurship, Swinburne Business School, Swinburne University of

Technology,Melbour ne, Australia, 1Department of Management, Deakin Business School, Deakin University,

Melbourne, Australia, and 2La Trobe Business School, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia

Corresponding author email: sfayezi@swin.edu.au

This paper provides a review of the literature while contributing to academic under-

standing of the concepts of agility and flexibility within the supply chain. The research

identified 83 peer-reviewed articles through a structured review technique, which is

based on a three-stage refinement process. Data reduction procedures using codifica-

tion, sentence strings and a review of keywords, title, abstract and conclusion were

used in the search. The papers identified focused on organizational and supply chain

agility and flexibility. The acknowledged gaps in understanding and development of

agility and flexibility in supply chains were identified and categorized in terms of con-

ceptual, contextual and methodological gaps. Subsequent to the gap analysis,this paper

argues that effective relationship integration with keypartners is a fundamental mech-

anism for mitigating the problem of control dissipation, which has hindered academic

understanding with respect to development and application of agile and flexible capa-

bilities in supply chains. The findings in this paper will help academics to gain a better

understanding and to develop the concepts of supply chain agility and flexibility. In

addition, the findings indicate that supply chain stakeholders need to address the issue

of relationship integration when undertaking, or participating in agility and flexibility

development programmes, so as to maximize supply chain performance. The paper

concludes by highlighting implications for managers and researchers, and proposes a

number of areas for future investigation.

Introduction

Different types of uncertainty and change demand dif-

ferent capabilities for effective and efficientorganiza-

tional responses (McCann 2004; Purvis et al. 2014).

These responses have been linked to the strategic ca-

pabilities of agility and flexibility, with the research

focused on the functions and processes of the orga-

nization and, more recently, the supply chain (Dove

1996; Ngai et al. 2011). In spite of this, the liter-

ature does not provide useful guidelines and exam-

ples of what actually constitutes organizational and

supply chain capability, or how companies use these

capabilities to manage and influence their relation-

ships (Flynn and Flynn 2004; Gligor et al. 2015;

Rosenzweig and Roth 2004).

According to Wadhawa and Rao (2003) there is

a dichotomous view of how agility and flexibility

occurs; many researchers view agility as composed

of a number of core elements centring on flexi-

bility (Prater et al. 2001; Sharifi and Zhang 1999;

Vernadat 1999), while others see agility as an ex-

tension of flexibility (Backhouse and Burns, 1999;

Richter et al. 2010; Tan 1998; Vokurka and Fliedner

1998). Confusion also occurs because of the inter-

changeable use of the terms within the literature, as

noted by Bernardes and Hanna (2009); whereby both

terms may be used to describe the same situation or

set of circumstances (Li et al. 2010; Yi et al. 2011).

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380 S. Fayezi et al.

Only a limited number of studies have specificallyre-

searched the differences that exist betweenagility and

flexibility and their interaction within the supplychain

(e.g. Baker 1996; Bernardes and Hanna 2009; Charles

et al. 2010; Wadhawa and Rao 2003). The discrepan-

cies in terminology application exist because neither

term has been comprehensively defined in the litera-

ture that surrounds supply chain management (Gligor

and Holcomb 2012b). The authors argue that this is

a serious impediment to academic understanding, as

it creates an inaccurate purview of the processes that

are in play, or need to be managed.

Drawing from a structured review, this paper ad-

dresses the dichotomy by providing an explanation

of how the concepts of agility and flexibility are

used and defined within supply chains. The review,

based on 83-refereed articles sourced from electronic

databases, addresses the following research question:

How can agility and flexibility be better understood

and developed within supply chains? The review of

the literature presented in this paper differs from pre-

vious studies with respect to its aim, scope, approach,

methodology and contribution, which is much more

comprehensive than in previously published articles.

The review of the literature, as guided by the re-

search question, led to the identification of three cat-

egories of research gap:

rconceptual (areas of difference; agility and flexi-

bility)

rcontextual (unit of analysis; organizational and

supply chain)

rmethodological (choice of methods; case study and

modelling).

This paper presents a discussion focusing specifically

on the supply chain, which identifies the importance

of relationship dynamics for understanding and de-

veloping agility and flexibility (e.g. Braunscheidel

and Suresh 2009; Christopher 2000; Kisperska-

Moron and Swierczek 2009; Li et al. 2008; Ngai et al.

2011; Swafford et al. 2006; Yusuf et al. 1999; Zhang

2011). The imperfections associated with control pro-

ficiency in the supply chain are explained and used

to support calls for stronger relationship integration

in supply chain environments. It is argued that rela-

tionship integration is influential in mitigating poten-

tial problems relating to inter-organizational engage-

ment, which can hinder both agility and flexibility.

This study uses the following definitions grounded in

theworkofFayeziet al. (2015):

rSupply chain agility: a strategic ability that as-

sists organizations rapidly to sense and respond

to internal and external uncertainties via effective

integration of supply chain relationships.

rSupply chain flexibility: an operational ability that

assists organizations to change efficiently inter-

nally and/or across their key partners in response

to internal and external uncertainties via effective

integration of supply chain relationships.

One of the paper’s contributions focuses on updating

the literature concerning the importance of agility and

flexibility in supply chains, and how these two con-

cepts have evolved and are now central to organiza-

tional planning and operational practice. Importantly,

the authors highlight that supply chain agility and

flexibility, while related to organizational agility and

flexibility, are actually different concepts in terms of

the key drivers and operational focus. The discussion

presented in this paper provides greater clarity con-

cerning the respective terms and the role that each

concept plays within the supply chain. This has also

been addressed through developing the definitions of

supply chain agility and flexibility above via a struc-

tured review of the literature.

The paper is organized as follows. The methodol-

ogy is discussed first; it explains the methods used to

collect and analyse data for the purpose of a struc-

tured review of the literature. This is followed by a

review of the agility and flexibility literature relating

to both organizations and supply chains. Important

gaps within the literature are identified and discussed

in relation to conceptual, contextual and methodologi-

cal categories. Concluding remarks, contributions and

implications for theory and practice are discussed in

the final section of the paper.

Methodology

The method employed in this paper is secondary data

collection and analysis using documentary research

techniques (Platt 1981). The authors have adopted

a structured process for selection of the appropriate

literature, which is consistent with similar review

studies undertaken by, for example, Burgess et al.

(2006), Giunipero et al. (2008) and Vanany et al.

(2009). The strategy employed seeks to identify the

relevant information through a coded evaluation

process in order to identify the articles. A three-stage

refinement process using data reduction procedures

(e.g. title, keywords, abstract and conclusion) has

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