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Based on the resource-based view (RBV) theory, this study examines how supply chain digitalisation affects firms’ performance by enabling firms to build supply chain agility and innovation capability.

Drawing from the dataset of 271 firms in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), we used structural equation modelling to validate the models. Mediation and moderation analyses were performed to test the research hypotheses.

The results suggest a positive correlation between supply chain digitalisation and a company’s performance, fully mediated by both supply chain agility and innovation capability. The interplay between supply chain agility and innovation capability has the potential to result in unfavourable outcomes for a firm’s performance. These results provide valuable insights into supply chain management during digital transformation.

The study advances the extant research on the antecedents of a firm’s performance by incorporating supply chain digitalisation and mediating mechanisms of supply chain agility and innovation capability that serve as a conduit between supply chain digitalisation and a firm’s performance based on RBV.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate two potentially key drivers of a firm's supply chain agility, namely strategic sourcing and firm's strategic flexibility. Despite some theoretical and conceptual works suggesting that some elements of these two constructs may relate to agility, this has not yet been assessed together empirically. This study aims to address this gap in the literature.

This study involves an empirical investigation of a theory‐based model based on the competence‐capability framework, and a dynamic capabilities theoretical perspective, where the internal competencies of strategic sourcing and firm's strategic flexibility relate to the dynamic capability of the firm's supply chain agility. This investigation also includes the testing of a possible mediation effect of firm's strategic flexibility on the relationship between strategic sourcing and the firm's supply chain agility. The model is tested utilizing data from 144 US manufacturing firms via partial least square methodology.

The results of the empirical study indicated that both strategic sourcing and firm's strategic flexibility were significantly related to the firm's supply chain agility. In addition, while a full mediation effect was not found on the part of strategic flexibility, there was evidence for partial mediation.

Given that the data are from specific US industries, the generalizability of current findings to other industries or countries may require additional investigation.

Given the attention paid to agility in terms of its importance to responding to business uncertainty, and more recently, as an important capability in managing supply chain disruption risks, this paper investigates how strategic sourcing and flexibility can contribute to agility.

The purpose of this paper is to emphasize the underlying mechanism through which firms can achieve supply chain agility and augment business performance from the vendor’s perspective.

Drawing on dynamic capability view and contingency theory, the study conceptualizes a moderated mediation model to investigate the underlying influence of process integration (PI), supply flexibility and product-related complexity on supply chain agility and the subsequent effect of supply chain agility on firm’s business performance. Survey data from a sample of 148 firms, in the garment manufacturing industry, in Pakistan were analyzed using partial least square methods.

The results revealed that supply flexibility (i.e. volume and mix) mediates the effect of PI on supply chain agility. Supply chain agility, in turn, influences a firm’s business performance. Furthermore, the competence‒capability framework is not consistent across the varying degrees of product complexity such as product complexity hinders the effect of supply flexibility on supply chain agility, whereas it amplifies the impact of PI on supply chain agility. The conditional indirect effects suggest that the indirect effect of PI on supply chain agility through supply flexibility becomes stronger when product complexity is high.

The study is novel in the context of an emerging economy to educate fashion vendors to tune their competencies and capabilities to regain the market share in the global market place.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of three critical dimensions of supply chain resilience, supply chain preparedness, supply chain alertness and supply chain agility, all aimed at increasing a firm’s financial outcomes. In a turbulent environment, firms require resilience in their supply chains to prepare for potential changes, detect changes and respond to actual changes, thus providing superior value.

Using survey data from 77 firms, this study develops scales for preparedness, alertness and agility. It then tests their hypothesized relationships with a firm’s financial performance.

The results reveal that the three dimensions of supply chain resilience (i.e. preparedness, alertness and agility) significantly impact a firm’s financial performance. It is also found that supply chain preparedness, as a proactive resilience capability, has a greater influence on a firm’s financial performance than the reactive capabilities including alertness and agility, suggesting that firms should pay more attention to proactive approaches for building supply chain resilience.

First, this study develops a comparatively comprehensive definition for supply chain resilience and explores its dimensionality. Second, this study provides empirically validated instruments for the dimensions of supply chain resilience. Third, this study is one of the first to provide empirical evidence for direct impact of supply chain resilience dimensions on a firm’s financial performance.

Developing agility and innovativeness as dynamic capabilities are important for firms to sustain their competitive advantage in today’s global economy. The purpose of this paper is to develop and empirically test a framework to investigate how the supply chain agility and innovativeness are achieved through IT integration and trust in members of supply chain and how these, in turn, can enhance firms’ competitive advantage.

This research employs a survey method and data are collected from senior managers working in the supply chain or IT area. The model and hypotheses are tested utilizing data from 204 usable Taiwan manufacturing firms via structural equations modeling methodology.

The study demonstrates that both IT integration and trust in supply chain members significantly enhance supply chain agility and innovativeness, which in turn positively affect firm’s competitive advantage. The results indicate that IT integration and trust are antecedents and major joint partnership resources for improving supply chain agility and innovativeness.

Data are collected from manufacturing industry in Taiwan and single respondent from each firm, the generalizability of current findings to other industries or countries should require additional investigation.

The study suggests that a firm should focus on IT integration and trust in supply chain members to achieve supply chain agility and innovativeness. To take advantage of supply chain agility and innovativeness, through maximizing firm’s competitive advantage, firms should continually adapt to the fast changing business environment and search for creative ways to satisfy new market needs.

Given the attention paid to supply chain agility and innovativeness in terms of importance to responding to business uncertainty and competitiveness, and more recently, as important capabilities in managing supply chain management, this paper investigates how IT integration and trust can contribute to supply chain agility and innovativeness. Provide evidence regarding the impact of IT integration and trust on agility of supply chains, innovativeness and competitive advantage.

This paper positions market sensing, supply chain agility and supply chain adaptability as a coherent cluster of dynamic supply chain capabilities. The purpose of this paper is to understand how dynamic supply chain capabilities interrelate and their effect on supply chain ambidexterity.

Based on a survey of Pakistani manufacturing firms, a theoretically-derived model was tested in a structural equation model.

The results of the study show that a market-sensing capability is an antecedent of supply chain agility and supply chain adaptability. Furthermore, supply chain agility, directly, and supply chain adaptability, indirectly, affect supply chain ambidexterity. Supply chain agility, therefore, mediates the relationship between supply chain adaptability and supply chain ambidexterity.

The contribution of this study lies in: first, identifying dynamic capability clusters relevant for achieving supply chain ambidexterity; second, evaluating performance implications of dynamic capabilities in the supply chain, specifically supply chain agility and adaptability; and third, proposing a unique measurement of supply chain ambidexterity in the light supply chain theory, and empirically evaluating the relationship between dynamic capabilities and supply chain ambidexterity.

The main purpose of this study is to examine the role of delivery dependability and time to market, on the relation between the infrastructure framework and supply chain agility. Furthermore, the impacts of supply chain agility on firm performance are examined.

Data were collected from 113 respondents, senior executives and managers, in purchasing, operations, supplying, planning and other supply chain functions in large manufacturing firms in the MENA region, which includes 12 countries (Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, Morocco, Tunis and Algeria). A large-scale survey questionnaire was used for data collection process. The research framework was tested by using hypothesis-testing deductive approach. The results are based on covariance-based analysis and structural equation modelling using analysis of moment structures software.

The results show that infrastructure framework elements do not contribute significantly to support supply chain agility. It is also found that delivery dependability and time to market partially mediate the relationship between infrastructure framework elements and supply chain agility. Additionally, it is found that supply chain agility is associated with enhanced firm performance.

This paper provides an overview and empirically shows that delivery dependability and time to market are appropriate logistics practices for mediating the impact of infrastructure framework and supply chain agility. These relationships indicate a contribution to theory that explains how infrastructure framework elements can procreate supply chain agility, through the synchronising of appropriately matched logistics practices.

In today’s constantly evolving global business environment, multidivisional firms (MDFs) require an organizational structure for supply chain management (SCM) that facilitates the development of supply chain agility. This research aims to investigate what structural elements of an MDF’s SCM team contribute to supply chain agility.

A two-sample field study was conducted. Four MDFs with top-performing supply chains (Sample 1) were first studied to identify agility-supporting structural elements. Then, quantitative data from 35 MDFs with contrasting levels of supply chain agility (Sample 2) were collected to test the theoretical propositions advanced from Sample 1 findings.

The results reveal four structural elements that exert a positive impact on an MDF’s supply chain agility: hierarchical position of the divisional top supply chain executive, scope of divisional supply chain operations, hierarchical position of the top supply chain executive at the headquarters and scope of SCM coordination by the headquarters.

First, this study provides a comparatively comprehensive understanding of the SCM organization structure in MDFs. Second, this study is one of the first to provide empirically supported theoretical insights about the linkage between an MDF’s organizational structure for SCM and supply chain agility.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to evaluate the roles of a transactive memory system and the supply network flexibility (SNF) of the firm as antecedents of a firm’s supply chain agility (FSCA), also incorporating the moderating role of the transactive memory system; and, second, to evaluate the relationship between FSCA and operations performance (OP).

Four hypothesized relationships are tested with survey data from 190 high-tech firms using structural equation models.

FSCA can be enhanced through the transactive memory system and SNF, although a higher degree of transactive memory system weakens the positive relationship between SNF and FSCA. A positive relationship is identified between FSCA and OP, while FSCA mediates the relationship between SNF and OP.

Managers can increase FSCA and improve OP by developing both the transactive memory system and SNF. Given that firms have limited resources, investment in internal capabilities should be prioritized as this appears to be more effective at developing FSCA.

The findings expand the literature by exploring two antecedents of FSCA and by analyzing the impact of FSCA on different measures of OP. Few prior studies have highlighted the importance of the transactive memory system to the operations function.

With emerging markets representing great growth opportunities and serving as indispensable components in the global supply chain, it is unclear how well modern supply chain management theories developed in advanced markets apply to emerging markets. This study integrates the institution-based view with supply chain management literature to examine how integration capabilities can be leveraged to achieve supply chain agility in emerging markets and how the efficacy of integration capabilities is shaped by internal and external institutional contexts.

This study examines how firms in emerging markets can leverage their platform integration and knowledge integration capabilities with channel distributors to improve the supply chain agility and how such relationships are shaped by both the internal (proxy by ownership structure) and external (proxy by regional openness) institutional contexts in which firms operate. Survey and archival data collected from 207 firms operating in China, one of the largest emerging markets, were used to test the proposed research model.

The results reveal that platform integration and knowledge integration are two driving forces for supply chain agility in the emerging markets. Moreover, the results indicate that state-owned firms are able to achieve higher supply chain agility from their investments in knowledge integration with channel distributors than non-state-owned firms. While firms in regions with a high level of openness enjoy higher supply chain agility from knowledge integration, firms in regions with a low level of openness can catch up by investing in platform integration with their channel distributors.

The authors extend the extant study on supply chain integration (SCI) research to examine how operational and strategic integration with channel distributors can help the focal firm achieve supply chain agility in emerging markets. The study results also enrich the existing studies in emerging markets by revealing the importance of the institutional context in which firms operate on B2B channel management.