IOS drivers of manufacturer-supplier flexibility and manufacturer agility

Abstract

In today’s hypercompetitive environment, it is critical for manufacturing firms to be agile in responding to ephemeral opportunities in the marketplace. This agility often requires the collaboration with supply chain partners. However, how a manufacturing firm collaborates with its suppliers to achieve agility remains an understudied issue. This study holds that manufacturing firms and their suppliers need to develop manufacturer-supplier flexibility accompanied with well-built integrated information systems and associated analytical systems (such as business intelligence) to enable manufacturer agility. To deepen our understanding of the roles of manufacturer-supplier flexibility and IOS technologies in facilitating manufacturer agility, we build and test a model based on the real options theory and bounded rationality. Based on 141 matched-pair samples of Taiwanese manufacturing firms, our findings demonstrate the importance of manufacturer-supplier flexibility in achieving higher manufacturer agility, wherein IOS integration enables better flexibility. We also show IOS-enabled analytical ability can strengthen the effect of such flexibility on manufacturer agility. Implications of the results for practices and academics are provided.