This research aims to investigate the interplay between flexibilities and strategic orientations in the context of supply chain agility (SCA), particularly in the medical equipment supply chain. The study seeks to identify key internal and external flexibility factors, along with the firm’s strategic orientations, and understand why and how these factors are interrelated and contribute to the development or enhancement of SCA.
The study adopts an inductive exploratory multiple case study design to empirically identify and examine the underlying flexibility and strategic orientation factors and their link to SCA. Data collection tools included semi-structured interviews and access to key company documentation and archives from six major medical equipment suppliers in Jordan.
The research findings lead to the proposal of an emerging theoretical model describing the nature of relationships among internal/external flexibility factors, strategic orientations and SCA, with underlying research propositions that can later be subjected to deductive testing and empirical quantitative validation.
This research advances the theoretical understanding of SCA by investigating its strategic antecedents, including various orientations and their direct and indirect effects. Second, it provides a comprehensive insight into the combined impact of internal and external flexibilities on SCA, an aspect relatively underexplored in previous literature.
