Cultivating supply chain agility: Managerial actions derived from established antecedents

Abstract

Today's marketplace is characterized by intense competitive pressures as well as high levels of turbulence and uncertainty. Organizations require agility in their supply chains to provide superior value and also manage disruption risks and ensure uninterrupted service to customers. The cultivation of agility can be approached as a risk management initiative that enables a firm to anticipate as well as respond rapidly to marketplace changes and disruptions in the supply chain. Agility is thus of value for both risk mitigation and response. This chapter provides an updated perspective of an emerging body of literature devoted to supply chain agility. Next, based on our own research stream on this topic, we propose a set of supply chain initiatives as antecedents for cultivation of agility. These include internal integration measures, external integration with suppliers and customers, cultivation of external flexibility, and lean practices. We also provide more fundamental, cultural drivers for cultivating agility, which include market orientation, learning orientation and organizational culture types that are conducive for agility. These antecedents were established through empirical research, and we translate them into a set of managerial practices to address the cultivation of agility for both mitigation and response.