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The purpose of this study is to develop a framework of strategies to achieving customer order flexibility in and related to the order-to-delivery (OTD) process. The purpose is also to investigate how companies prioritize various strategies to achieve customer order flexibility.

Based on a literature review, pre-tests and conceptual reasoning, a conceptual framework of strategies related to the order-to-delivery process was developed. The strategies were linked to the order quantity and delivery lead-time flexibility dimensions. This structure resulted in six groups covering enabling as well as remedial strategies. An empirical interview study of ten customer–supplier relationships was conducted.

The interviews identified additional strategies, thereby expanding the framework. The enabling strategies with the highest median values were “have continuous contact with the customer's purchaser” and “use safety stock of raw materials/semi-finished products”. The remedial strategy with the highest median was “re-plan/re-prioritize the order backlog”. In the delivery sub-process, it was more common to apply remedial strategies for delivery lead-time than for order quantities.

The developed framework is a contribution to the literature on operational flexibility in and related to the OTD process. It complements existing knowledge by taking a supplier perspective.

Suppliers can use the framework as a tool to understand and systematically achieve better customer order flexibility in and related to the OTD process. Customers can use the framework as a checklist for supplier evaluation and supplier development.

Few identified studies include empirical data on customer order flexibility.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between strategy and flexibility in new product development, and the operational and financial performance in the supply chain context. The motives for conducting this research are to introduce the supply chain strategies and new product development flexibility (NPDF) as constructs that could have the potential to contribute to the success of supply chain performance. Based on the relational view of the firm, the authors propose that supply chain strategy is an antecedent of NPDF and can create value for the buying firm in terms of better financial and non-financial performance.

The structural equation modeling approach was used to evaluate the proposed model and analyze hypothesized relationships. The analysis, based on data collected from 175 small- and medium-sized (SME) Canadian manufacturing companies.

The analysis shows that there are direct positive effects from strategy on NPDF. The findings indicate also a direct positive association between NPDF and performance and showed that the total effect (direct and indirect) positively influenced performance.

The literature did not reveal any study which attempted to examine strategy, NPDF, and performance in the supply chain context of SMEs. The current study fills this important gap in the literature.

Decisions about strategies to be implemented and organization design are important in having competitive advantage for companies. Although this statement widely takes place in management literature, very little research has been done on this subject in Turkey. The aim of this study is to examine the mediating role of competitive strategies in the impact of organizational flexibility on competitive advantage in order to extend about empirical literature of the structure-strategy-competitive advantage paradigm based on the resource-based view (RBV). In this context, the data were collected from the top 500 industrial enterprises in Turkey. The data were tested via structural equation model. The findings of our research show that the direct effect of organizational flexibility on competitive superiority was marginally significant and when three different competitive strategies were included between these two variables in the model, the marginally significant effect of organizational flexibility on the competitive advantage disappeared. In other words, the full mediating role of applied competition strategies in the effect of organizational flexibility on competitive advantage has been identified. Our findings are similar to the findings of other studies that consider organizational structure as a valuable resource and examine the relationship between the structure and the strategy according to the RBV.

In response to highly volatile and uncertain environments, many firms have implemented flexible strategies and many management researchers have discussed the topic of flexibility. The purpose of this paper is to focus on distribution flexibility, the aspect of flexibility related to a downstream supply chain and to examine the construct of distribution flexibility and how organisations make strategic choices among different distribution flexibility strategies.

This work conducts an exploratory multiple case study which analyses four Chinese manufacturers from different industries (pharmaceutical, solid/liquid separation, electric appliances, and clothing).

The results show that, given different circumstances, firms might choose an appropriate distribution flexibility strategy (one focused on either physical distribution flexibility, demand management flexibility, coordination flexibility, or on distribution flexibility co‐alignment) which fits with their distribution environment in the contingency theory sense of matching. Furthermore, for implementation, they fit a given distribution flexibility strategy to both their distribution networks and their distribution performance outcomes in the sense of gestalts or covariance.

This paper has some limitations common to all case studies, such as the limited generalisability of results (since the sample of firms is not statistically significant) and the potential subjectivity of the analysis.

The paper contributes to the existing literature by empirically investigating the dimensions of distribution flexibility, by considering how an organisation develops a distribution flexibility strategy in order to adapt to a particular environment, and by suggesting that final performance outcomes may arise through a variety of different distribution flexibility strategies.

The objective of this paper is to illustrate and examine the different flexibility strategies adopted by supply chain participants as a result of different environmental uncertainties.

An exploratory multi‐case study, involving five Chinese companies in the textile and apparel industry, was conducted.

The analysis, based on the supply chain literature, reveals that the unpredictable dynamics of the supply chain can arise from a variety of internal and external sources, including suppliers, operating systems, customers, and competitors. In response to the various environmental uncertainties and risks in the supply chain, four types of flexibility strategy are identified in our case analysis: laggard, conservative, agile, and aggressive. The results also suggest that the adoption of flexibility strategies should match a firm's business environment and that better supply chain responsiveness can be achieved in two ways: by reducing uncertainties and by improving supply chain flexibility.

The key limitation of the study is that it focuses solely on the textiles and clothing industry, which makes it difficult to generalize the results to other industries. Another difficulty arises from the subjective criteria employed in some constructs, such as the perceived aggressiveness of competition, the predictability of customer demand, and the designations of companies in the proposed strategy categories.

The proposed theoretical framework can assist managers in properly diagnosing and deploying supply chain flexibility strategies. The actions identified for promoting supply chain flexibility can also be used to assess the various options for exploiting or acquiring flexibility strategies.

Expanding on the previous research approach of examining flexibility strategies from the perspective of a single firm, this study draws on the multi‐case approach to posit a series of propositions that link the adoption of specific supply chain flexibility strategies to various environmental conditions in a supply chain context and proposes a conceptual framework to illustrate how supply chain responsiveness can be improved in today's volatile market environment.

The purpose of this research is to examine the relationships among strategy, flexibility, and performance in the supply chain context.

The research is based on a quantitative approach using a questionnaire survey and personal interviews from a total of 175 small and medium‐sized Canadian manufacturing companies. The identified constructs have been utilized to test a theoretical model using the path analysis technique.

First, the findings provide evidence of direct effects of strategy on flexibility and flexibility on performance. Second, innovative strategy firms must invest time and resources in developing new product and delivery flexibility; while customer‐oriented strategy firms are required to invest heavily in developing sourcing, product, and delivery flexibility and follower strategy firms need no investment in any specific type of flexibility. Third, results demonstrated that Canadian manufacturers must reconsider how they use information technology to enhance information systems flexibility and improve overall performance.

The measures of flexibility and strategy dimensions used to rate the supply chain organizations are a possible limitation of the research study.

Managers need to think seriously about which type of flexibility they implement and that they should not increase all dimensions of flexibility in their power; some dimensions of flexibility may not significantly contribute to the overall performance. Considering that small and medium‐sized enterprises have limited resources, it is important for managers to carefully assess their strategic needs before getting involved in any flexibility program; otherwise the result can be competitively negative.

No empirical study was found in the supply chain literature that specifically investigates the relationships among strategy, flexibility and performance in the supply chain context; the paper fills an important gap in the supply chain literature.

The purpose of this paper is to explore different drivers and volume flexibility strategies employed in manufacturing firms. It also examines contingent factors, which determine volume flexibility requirement in manufacturing firms.

Using a multi-case study approach, the study examines and analyses drivers, strategies and contingent factors that affect volume flexibility in four Indian manufacturing plants belonging to automobiles, auto ancillary, fashion apparel and electrical industry.

The empirical analysis suggests various drivers of volume flexibility and different strategies employed by firms to enhance flexibility. The study also illustrates various contingent factors that determine the need of volume flexibility in firms.

The sample of the study is majorly confined to the northern region of India. Methodologically, the analysis is solely based on the qualitative data.

The study suggests practitioners to consider a range of contingent factors, while evaluating the need of volume flexibility in manufacturing plants. Rather than relying on a single strategy, a mix of strategies should be used to develop volume flexibility in firms.

The identification of a range of strategies employed by volume flexible firms as well as contingent factors that need to be evaluated before employing volume flexibility are the major contributions of this study.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the effects on performance of two types of misfits (overfit vs underfit) as well as two types of fits (high-high fit vs low-low fit) between environmental uncertainty and supply chain flexibility.

The two asymmetry hypotheses have been tested with survey data from 212 Chinese manufacturing firms.

The results in general provided empirical evidences for the asymmetric effects in the fits and misfits between environmental uncertainty and supply chain flexibility. For the same degree of misfit, underfit deteriorates performance more than overfit. In addition, high supply chain flexibility fitting high environmental uncertainty (i.e. high-high fit) results in a higher performance than low supply chain flexibility fitting low environmental uncertainty (i.e. low-low fit).

It suggests that managers should strive to avoid the underfit of supply chain flexibility rather than the overfit, if the perfect fit is impossible to achieve. In addition, as it is beneficial to realize the fit of supply chain flexibility to high levels of environmental uncertainty, managers should probably embrace the highly uncertain environment and enhance the supply chain flexibility of their organizations to meet the increasing uncertainty of environment.

Fit and misfit are the core concepts to understand the relationships among environmental uncertainty, supply chain flexibility strategy, and performance. While the existing literature highlights the differential performance consequences of fit vs misfit between environmental uncertainty and supply chain flexibility strategy, the effects on performance are assumed to be the same for the two types of misfits, and two types of fits. The authors challenge these symmetry assumptions by arguing that overfit has a less negative effect on performance than underfit, and high-high fit has a stronger positive effect than low-low fit. The authors found empirical evidence in a large sample of Chinese manufacturing firms.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the supply chain strategy, flexibility, and performance relationships in the context of SMEs in Canada and Pakistan.

The research is based on a quantitative approach using a questionnaire survey from a total of 170 small and medium-sized Pakistani manufacturing companies. The current study draws upon the earlier work of Fantazy et al. (2009) for comparative purpose and employs path analysis technique.

The results partially confirm the findings of previous study on Canadian SMEs with regard to the relationships among strategy, flexibility, and performance in the context of supply chain. The survey results revealed that SMEs in Pakistan adopt followers strategy in order to achieve financial and non-financial performance. Whereas in the previous study, Canadian SMEs adopted innovative strategy and customer-oriented strategy in order to enhance their performance.

The literature did not reveal any study which attempted to compare supply chain strategy, flexibility, and performance of SMEs in developed and developing countries. The current study fills this important gap in the literature.

This study introduces a framework for the management of product variety in strategy and operations. It combines the analysis of five case studies in the UK and Brazil with a research background based on the existing literature. The framework describes the elements and steps involved in the process of dealing with product variety needs in manufacturing systems. The results suggest how operations management should evaluate the gaps between the importance and performance of product variety to develop appropriate adaptive and flexibility measures when dealing with product variety requirements in operations and strategy.