Investigating the supply chain agility–Innovation link: The role of organizational context

Abstract

Previous literature provides ample analyses of the antecedents of supply chain agility, but the organizational context has generally been neglected. Setting up the right organizational context is important for dynamic capabilities such as supply chain agility, especially in turbulent times. In this research, we study organizational context from two aspects as antecedents of supply chain agility, i.e., a firm’s performance orientation context and its social orientation context. Based on the dynamic capabilities view, the literature on organizational context, supply chain agility, and innovation, we develop our hypotheses. We investigate the previously overlooked impact of supply chain agility on innovation performance, as we find that supply chain agility not only helps to prevent and repair short-term damage but also promotes innovation in the long term. We also consider the moderating role of the organization’s complementarity with its key suppliers in this relationship. Structural equation modeling is applied to investigate the proposed research hypotheses using lagged survey data with multiple respondents from the manufacturing sector in Pakistan.