An Agile Approach to Sourcing Solutions: Embracing Uncertainty for Strategic Relevance

Abstract

This study examines agile sourcing, an emerging approach to procurement that deliberately incorporates uncertainty to address business challenges. Guided by a critical realist ontology and framing agile sourcing as an information-processing issue, this study explores the generative mechanisms that enable organizations to manage the deliberate escalation of sourcing uncertainty and its implications. The empirical phenomenon of agile sourcing is theorized by identifying mechanisms at three key sourcing steps through an in-depth analysis of three case studies. These mechanisms include top-down attention-directing schemas, rich information processing, redundancy in supplier innovation, maximization of access to novel information, comparative acquisition of collaboration experience, experience-based supplier selection, simple and flexible input-based compensation, and flexible reorientation and situational adaptation through relational governance. The findings reveal interdependencies among the identified mechanisms, thereby suggesting complexity in managing the sourcing process and also suggesting the antifragile nature of the agile sourcing approach. Furthermore, employing the critical realist approach, the research generates theoretical knowledge on the causal mechanisms of agile sourcing.