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Purpose An agile supply chain (SC) is critical in achieving competitive advantages in the vulnerable environment. Based on the competence–capability–performance paradigm, this study aims to investigate how information technology (IT) usage and employee multi-skilling influence internal, supplier and customer agility that are the three dimensions of SC agility. It further explores relationships between SC agility dimensions and SC performance. Design/methodology/approach This study used a survey method to collect primary data and sampled 216 Chinese manufacturing firms in different industries. Construct validity and reliability were confirmed. Structural equation modeling was used to test hypotheses. Findings The findings indicate that internal agility is the baseline of SC agility, which improves supplier and customer agility. IT usage is more important than employee multi-skilling in facilitating SC agility. The former improves all three dimensions, whereas the latter only improves internal agility. Both internal and supplier agility can improve SC performance, whereas customer agility has no significant effect. Originality/value This study contributes to the SC agility literature in two folds. On the one hand, based on the dynamic capability perspective, this research clarifies three dimensions of SC agility and their interrelationships. On the other hand, integrating competence–capability–performance paradigm with information processing view, this research investigates the antecedent and outcome of SC agility. In addition, to date, this is one of the first studies to simultaneously examine the effect of two critical competencies, namely, IT usage and employee multi-skilling on SC agility.
Zhang et al. (Thu,) studied this question.