Supply chain flexibility

Abstract

Purpose The conceptualization of flexibility in organizations historically emerged from three views which relate to economic, to organizational and to manufacturing perspectives. Despite the growing number of publications about supply chain flexibility in the area of supply chain management, there is a lack of consensus on how to define and to conceptualize supply chain flexibility from a management point of view. The purpose of this paper is to present a comprehensive overview of the literature on the supply chain flexibility perspective and contributes to our understanding of the current state of research and its future development. Design/methodology/approach The research methodology used is the systematic literature review. In total 92 articles were selected from databases of well-known journal publishers in the field of economics, business studies and management sciences as well as grey literature to cover the topic of supply chain flexibility. Findings A limited number of studies in the field of supply chain flexibility apply theories and define the term supply chain flexibility. Instead they focus on a particular part or dimension of the supply chain. Based on the analysis, a distinction is made between flexibility in the supply chain and supply chain flexibility. Based on the function and characteristics of the supply chain, the authors selected 30 flexibility dimensions that cover supply chain flexibility by concentrating on the different business areas involved. Research limitations/implications The results support researchers and practitioners by identifying relevant trends and gaps in the field of supply chain flexibility. Originality/value The authors review the dimensions and aspects of supply chain flexibility that are currently taken into account in the literature. In this way, the authors provide an overarching perspective on the flexibility literature relating to supply chains.

RETRACTED: Ambidexterity and IT competence can improve supply chain flexibility? A resource orchestration approach

“…Various theoretical models have defined the dimensions of SCF (Stevenson and Spring, 2007;Manders et al 2017), and as a consequence, two problems arise that increase the difficulty of clearly distinguishing between the dimensions necessarily required for flexibility in manufacturing and supply chain flexibility. Because of this difficulty, the effort to create a measurement scale that operationalizes the conceptualizations has failed (Manders et al, 2017).…”

Managing supply chain uncertainty and risk in the pharmaceutical industry

“…19,20,48,58 In the supply chain literature, supply chain integration capability is considered as an important firm capability consisting of visibility, agility and flexibility. 25,34,38,59,70,71 To sustain growth and competitive advantage, the firms need to have the ability to sense, seize and reconfigure. 25,40,72 Thus, three underlying factors including supply chain visibility, supply chain agility and supply chain flexibility are identified for the supply chain integration capability.…”

“…In the conceptual framework, supply chain integration capability is categorised and measured by visibility, supply chain agility and supply chain flexibility. 25,59 The study focus on the supply chain uncertainty and risk in the pharmaceutical industry. 14,21,22,52,57 Organisational success first depends upon the performance of the supply chains, and the supply chain performance directly influences the organisational performance.…”

Inter-Organizational Supply Chain Interaction for Sustainability: A Systematic Literature Review

“…Guided by e.g., Manders et al [126], the findings are based on an analysis of the source and date of publication, unit of analysis, research methods applied, industry and geographical area, as well as the theoretical approach. After the presentation of sources and dates of publication this chapter commences with a description of the sustainability dimensions identified and their developments over time.…”

“…The social dimension regards primarily codes of conduct and/or working conditions at suppliers and sub-suppliers in developing countries in Asia Within the environmental dimension a broadening outside the expected focus on CO 2 [11,30,64] is identified. Beyond the broad "climate related category" focusing (CO 2 ) emissions [11,14,64,83,97], and waste and waste reduction [68,78,97,126] the environmental dimension can be seen as fragmented that covers various aspects. The social dimension regards primarily codes of conduct and/or working conditions at suppliers and sub-suppliers in developing countries in Asia [12,16,59,103,106].…”