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This study aims to test how three types of institutional pressure (normative, coercive, and mimetic) influence supply chain digital embeddedness (SCDE) and how SCDE benefits supply chain (SC) competences.

The authors develop and test hypotheses through structural equation modeling (SEM) based on data from 201 European firms. Institutional theory is applied to determine the reasons that lead SCs to embed digitally. SCDE is assessed through three dimensions: technology, infrastructure and culture. The data were analyzed using SEM-partial least squares (PLS-SEM) modeling with SmartPLS software.

The findings show a positive relationship of normative and coercive pressures to SCDE but no relationship between mimetic pressures and SCDE. Additionally, results confirm a positive relationship between SCDE and SC competences that contribute to SC competitive advantage obtaining.

The results underscore the importance of analyzing the environment when undertaking digital projects. Key issues include SC culture and infrastructure in these projects and the advisability of anticipating potential influence of digitalization projects on SC competences that support the chain’s competitive advantage.

This study contributes to institutional theory by providing empirical evidence of the individual effect of the three types of institutional pressure, with noteworthy lack of influence from mimetic pressures. The paper also contributes a conceptualization of SCDE composed of three dimensions: digital technologies, digital infrastructure and digital culture. Finally, the study advances the literature on SC competences.

Once the operational benefits of Six Sigma are well-recognized in the literature, this research advances the strategic advantages of this initiative. Thus, this paper aims to analyze how dynamic capabilities (DCs) mediates the relationship between Six Sigma implementation and organizational flexibility, not discussed in the literature yet.

Data from 66 Six Sigma European firms are used for a structural equation modeling and additional tests –Baron and Kenny’s test and Preacher and Hayes’s test – to analyze the mediating role of DCs. Following the scholars’ recommendations, the authors have created a second-order factor explained by knowledge absorption, organizational learning and knowledge integration to measure DCs. Flexibility, understood as the capacity for organizational adaptation, is measured through its operational and strategic dimensions.

The results show a significant relationship between Six Sigma practices – team management and statistical metrics – and DCs. In addition, the authors find support for a significant relationship between DCs and the operational and strategic dimensions of flexibility. Finally, the results confirm that DCs act as a mediating variable in the relationship between Six Sigma practices and flexibility.

The study contributes to literature that supports the decision to implement Six Sigma. In particular, key Six Sigma practices are identified for those managers who wish to foster DCs generation and organizational flexibility inside their companies.

This research analyzes the relationship between Six Sigma and strategic variables, answering the call for research about Six Sigma influence on long-term organizational success.