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8/11/2019 Agile supply chain management: International differences in its identified enablers and outcomes
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Agile supply chain management: International
differences in its identified enablers and outcomes
Student name: Tom Krikke
Student number: 2056992
E-mail address: [email protected]
Name of the thesis supervisor: Drs. K. Heijnen
Faculty: FEWEB
Program: International Business Administration
8/11/2019 Agile supply chain management: International differences in its identified enablers and outcomes
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Purpose:The body of literature about agile supply chains has been growing since its conception in
1994. With it, the amount of identified enablers and outcomes of the technique has steadily been
increasing. A comprehensive study of these enablers and outcomes has, to my knowledge, never beenexecuted. The purpose of this literature review therefore is to study the international differences in
identified enablers and outcomes of agile supply chain management, in order to find whether there is
consensus within the field of research. A conclusion about the degree of consensus can provide
context to the done research, and can contribute possible ways in which the field of study could or
should continue.
Design/methodology/approach: This paper is a literature review of published articles about agile
supply chain management, based on a search for literature performed in the ISI Web of Science
database on April 10, 2013. The study is partitioned in a qualitative and quantitative section. The
qualitative section investigates the international differences in identified enablers and outcomes in 77
articles, published in 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013. The quantitative section aims to identify the trends
in the international sources of agile supply chain literature using 315 articles, published from 1994
until April 10, 2013.
Findings:In the case of enablers, authors from developing Asia focus more on issues within the
boundaries of firms or their departments, and authors from the western world are more interested in
enablers spanning the boundaries of firms and their departments. This leads one to believe that the
degree of consensus internationally regarding enablers is low. In case of outcomes, nothing can be said
about the degree of consensus. In addition to this, the influence of authors working in the US or the
UK is decreasing, literature from developing Asia is becoming more and more abundant, and the share
of published literature from the western world by countries other than the US and the UK is surpassing
the share of the US and the UK.
Conclusions:This study is limited by the scope of both the qualitative and quantitative parts. Other,
more valid conclusions might have been drawn if more literature would have been reviewed. The
described trends lead to a future where the field of agile supply chain management is likely to be
dominated by practical papers from developing Asia, rather than theoretical papers from the US and
the UK. It is important that the reasons for and the consequences of the apparent trends are
investigated, in addition to reconciling conflicting views of the topic. This might create a body of
knowledge about agile supply chains that focuses on all aspects of the technique, can be evaluated,
and can be put in context.
Keywords: Agile supply chain management, agile manufacturing, enablers, outcomes, international
differences
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Since the early 1990s, the concept of supply chain management has gained popularity (Cooper et al.,
1997; Mentzer et al., 2001). This is reflected in the exponential increase in the amount of literature on
this subject in the past two decades. During this period, multiple methods and techniques emerged
within the discipline. Lean and agile supply chain management (ASCM) are examples of these
methods. This paper will focus on the literature regarding agile supply chains and will provide an
encompassing review of this body of literature covering several of the concepts aspects.
In this review, the definition of supply chain management coined by members of the Council
of Supply Chain Management Professionals is used. This council defines supply chain management as
encompassing the planning and management of all activities involved in sourcing and procurement,
conversion, and all logistics management activities. According to this leading association of supply
chain professionals, supply chain management also includes coordination and collaboration with
channel partners, which can be suppliers, intermediaries, third party service providers, and customers.
(Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals, 2013).
The concept of agility in the supply chain, the subject of this study, was also introduced in the
early 1990s (Kidd, 1995; Nagel and Dove, 1991). Naylor et al. (1999), however, stated a
comprehensive definition of agility for the first time. They defined the term as using market
knowledge and a virtual corporation to exploit profitable opportunities in a volatilemarket place. The
emphasis on the word volatilewas further clarified by Martin Christopher, who identified flexibility as
a key factor in the concept of agility (Christopher, 2000). Flexibility in this sense refers to a
companys ability to meet the demands of customers for ever-shorter delivery times and to ensure
that supply can be synchronized to meet the peaks and troughs of demand (Christopher, 2000).
Responsiveness is thus an important element of the agile supply chain.
This literature review will investigate whether there is consensus within the literature about
ASCM regarding the enablers and outcomes of its use. In special, this paper will examine whether the
differences found within the literature exist along international borders. These international differencesare interesting to research, since the economic center of gravity in the world we live in is shifting.
International differences in the literature about ASCM might therefore say something about the future
of research assessing agile supply chains. Ifstructural holesare identified within the network of
literature, this could provide avenues for further research, which could help create a common body of
knowledge. The purpose of this paper can thus be captured in the following research question:
What are the international differences in the research of agile supply chains regarding the method's
identified enablers and outcomes?
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In order to fully answer this question, this study is divided in a qualitative and a quantitative literature
review. Both parts of the study use papers found in a structured search for ASCM literature.
The qualitative section will examine the two highlighted aspects of literature about agile
supply chains. First, the international differences in the identified enablers of agile supply chains will
be assessed. Then, the same will be done for the identified outcomes of agile supply chains.
The quantitative section will identify the international sources of agile supply chain literature
and empirical research on the topic. Here, the most influential references and the origins of ASCM
literature throughout the years will also be investigated. This part of the review is used in an attempt to
clarify and explain some of the conclusions of the qualitative analysis.
The paper will end with a discussion of the results of the literature review and several
propositions about the international differences in the research of agile supply chains. In addition to
this, the limitations of the study will be discussed and suggestions for further research will be named.
Finally, a conclusion to the work will be described.
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In order to do the qualitative literature review, a complete view of the existing literature about agile
supply chains needed to be gained. This oversight was obtained by searching the ISI Web of Science
database.
In this database, the search was limited to the areas ofBusiness & Economicsand Operations
Research & Management Science. This efficiently excluded possibly irrelevant literature from other
areas of research. The topics used in the search were Supply ChainandManufacturing. The reason for
this is that literature from before the concept of supply chain management was popular needed to be
included. In older literature, namely, the term agile manufacturing was more often used than the term
agile supply chain management. Using both topics thus increased the scope of the review. The third
used topic wasAgile. This word was used in order to focus the search on the research field of agile
supply chain management as opposed to supply chain management in general. The addition of
keywords such asResponsiveor On-Demandwas considered, but the use of these words greatly
polluted the dataset. Hence, the following search string was used: (SU=(Business & Economics OR
Operations Research & Management Science) AND TS=(Supply Chain OR Manufacturing) AND
TS=(Agile)). The search was not restricted in terms of time span or databases, and it was conducted on
10April 2013.
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The search produced 315 papers, a list of which can be viewed in the excel supplement to this paper.
Due to time constraints, it was not possible to analyze all of the articles. The decision was therefore
made to perform the qualitative analysis on the papers written in the years 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013.This resulted in 77 articles. The assumption was made that analyzing the most recent papers would
result in a complete view of agile supply chains, since the field of research would have matured in
comparison with the years before. It is, however, possible that this selection resulted in a loss of
information only published before 2010. The complete scope was retained for the quantitative
analysis. A list of the 77 papers, their IDs, titles, main authors, the publishing journals, and their years
of publication is shown in appendix 1. This list also shows whether outcomes or enablers were
extracted from a specific article.
In figure 1, the journals with a paper count of more than 5 are shown for the entire dataset of
315 articles. As can be seen in the figure, three journals combined published nearly 50% of all the
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papers in the field of research from 1994 until 2013. These journals are theInternational Journal of
Production Research, theInternational Journal of Production Economics, and theInternational
Journal of Operations Production Management.
Figure 1: The journals with the most articles about agile supply chain management from 1994 until
2013 in the dataset.
The entire set of papers spanned the period from 1994 until 2013. A diagram showing the number of
publications per year is shown below as figure 2. The exact year of publication per article can be
found in the appendix. As can be seen in the figure, the number of published items per year has been
increasing since 1994, with peaks in 1997, 1999, 2002, 2007, 2009, and 2011. It seems that thenumber 2012, the last full year covered in this review, represents a trough or the beginning of a
decrease in the amount of published ASCM papers. The number for 2013 is not representative for the
full year, since the search was performed at 10 April 2013. As mentioned before, only the articles
published in 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013 are examined in the qualitative section of this paper. The
number of publications in those years were, respectively, 24, 32, 19, and 2.
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Figure 2: Number of published items per year in the dataset.
In the process of narrowing down the analysis to the 77 most recent articles, the list of most important
journals also changed, naturally. Below, in figure 3, all journals that published 2 or more articles about
ASCM in the years from 2010 until 2013 are shown.
Figure 3: The journals with the most articles about agile supply chain management from 2010 until
2013 in the dataset.
It becomes clear in the diagram that the hierarchy of most important journals has changed. Although
the top three journals still combine for roughly half of all publications about agile supply chains, the
composition and point of gravity in the top three is different. TheInternational Journal of Production
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Researchnow makes up for almost one third of the fields publications. In addition to this, the
International Journal of Production Economicsis still ranked second on the list, while Supply Chain
Management: An International Journalhas occupied the third place. It is clear in this analysis that the
International Journal of Production Researchand theInternational Journal of Production Economics
are the most important journals in the field of ASCM. The dominance of these two journals has not
changed over the last years.
When shifting the view to the main authors in the field of research, one can see that from both
the period from 1994 until 2013, and 2010 until 2013, Vinodh was the most active author in the field
of ASCM. Most of Vinodhs contributions were published in the years from 2010 until 2013,
however, with collaboration in 10 articles, or roughly 13% of the total. Vinodh works at the Indian
National Institute of Technology (Vinodh and Aravindraj, 2013). The reason for the high amount of
papers written by this author is that Vinodh has published and tested a framework of enablers of
ASCM. Every test or case study was published separately in collaboration with different co-authors.
Naturally, this way of working amounts to a large number of articles published by an author.
;131; JE+5#8+&6 6#+# #*6 #*#%K,9,
For the qualitative analysis, the identified enablers, outcomes, and country of origin for each paper
were extracted. The detailed results of this procedure are shown in the excel supplement to this paper.
An enabler was defined as a factor that enables a supply chain to be agile. An outcome was defined asa result of a supply chain being agile for individual companies that form the supply chain or the
supply chain as a whole. Finally, the country of origin of a paper was defined as the institution to
which the author(s) of a paper is/are linked. The latter is always mentioned on the first page of an
article.
The summarized results of this procedure are included in this paper as appendix 1. Of the 77
papers examined for the qualitative analysis, 21 were not relevant for the analysis of enablers and
outcomes, as these articles did not name any enablers or outcomes of ASCM. Many of these papers
described leagility, a supply chain concept that mixes both the lean and agile techniques. As this
review only entails papers describing ASCM, leagility will not be considered in the rest of this report.
Three of the 77 articles were not available. This left 53 papers, of which 31 described at least one
outcome of agile supply chains, while 49 described at least one enabler of the technique. In figures 4
and 5, the countries of origin for papers that named enablers or outcomes are shown.
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Figure 4: The number of papers naming at least one outcome per country.
Figure 5: The number of papers naming at least one enabler per country.
Figure 4 shows that the three main contributors to ASCM literature regarding the techniques
outcomes in the period from 2010 until 2013 are India, the United States, and the United Kingdom.
These three countries have produced the overwhelming majority of outcomes in ASCM literature.
Figure 5 shows a lead by the same three countries. In this case, however, the United Kingdom
has contributed most to ASCM literature regarding its enablers, followed by India and the United
States. It is also interesting to see here that the gap between the third and fourth place is not as large as
is the case in the literature regarding agile supply chains outcomes. The difference in the case of
enablers is 3, whereas the same gap is 5 in the case of outcomes.
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When one sums up the numbers in both figure 4 and figure 5, one sees that these numbers do
not add up to 31 and 49, respectively. The reason for this is that, in several articles, multiple authors
with varying nationalities collaborated. In these cases, that specific article is counted as a single entry
for each contributing nation.
It is important to mention here that both in case of enablers and outcomes, all but one of the
Indian articles are written by Vinodh.
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In this section, the results of the analysis regarding the origin of ASCMs enablers will first be
examined, after which the focus will be shifted to ASCMs outcomes.
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As mentioned above, an enabler was defined as a factor that enables a supply chain to be agile. Using
this definition, it was found that 49 of the 77 articles about ASCM published from 2010 until 2013
described at least one enabler. All other papers did not name any enablers. The enablers, the IDs of the
papers that discussed them, and the origin of these articles are shown in appendix 2. The table shown
in appendix 2 was too large to be placed conveniently inside this papers text.
Appendix 2 shows 9 categories of enablers, which were inspired by the 10 attributes of an
agile organization by Yusuf et al. (1999). Even though this publication is relatively old and does not
lie within the scope of this review, it is still cited often. The article is one of the top ten cited articles
within the field (shown in table 5), and has accounted for an average of 7 percent of all citations of the
top ten each year from 2006 until 2013. This means that the attributes described by these authors are
still relevant. The categories named by the authors in this article are integration, competence, team
building, technology, quality, change, partnership, market, education, and welfare. A table extracted
from the article by Yusuf et al. (1999) is shown below as figure 6.
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Figure 6: The 10 attributes of an agile organization by Yusuf et al. (1999).
The enablers described by the examined papers did not fall into all of the categories named by Yusuf
et al. (1999). This means that the attributes of an agile organization as described in this publication do
not completely correspond with the view of authors publishing from 2010 until 2013. For this reason,
not every category described by Yusuf et al. (1999) was used, some categories were added, and the
scope of several other categories was adjusted. The ten attributes of an agile organization by Yusuf et
al. (1999) were therefore rather used as an instrument to help orientating than as a manual set in stone.
The resulting 9 categories of enablers are thus the following:
Enablers regardingA focus on people/employees/organization;
Team working;
Integration with supply chain partners;
Managerial enablers and a focus on change;
Afocus on learning/education;
Technology; Afocus on the product, production, and logistics;
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Internal integration;
And regardinga focus on the market/environment.
Appendix 2 shows that all of these categories contain enablers, while some also contain sub-enablers.
Not every category contains the same amount of enablers, though. Team Working, for example, only
contains two enablers, whilefocus on the product, production, and logisticscontains 14 enablers and
16 sub-enablers.
In the second column, all paper IDs are shown, in order to enable a search in appendix 1. In
the third column, the geographical origin of the articles naming a specific outcome of ASCM is
named. Whenever a number between parentheses is added, this means that multiple papers from that
specific country describe the outcome in question. The fact that Vinodh is an author of multiple
articles in the dataset was mentioned before. Especially the articles with IDs 10, 17, 72, and 73 are
very similar, as they all name exactly the same enablers. In order to make sure the analysis stays
balanced, any combination of two, three, or all of these four articles was counted as a single case. This
was not done for any other author, since there is no author with more than three contributions in this
time span.
The issue of interest here is whether the identified enablers of ASCM differ per country. In
order to analyze this, one needs to find out whether the proportions of the origins of articles naming
specific enablers are different from the overall proportions of the origins of articles naming enablers.
One has to calculate several things in order to analyze the differences between countries in the
identified enablers of ASCM. It is impossible to draw relevant conclusions on the basis of an
examination of individual countries, so the spectrum of originating countries was divided into four
groups. These groups are based on GDP per capita according to The World Factbook (2013), in
addition to the countrys geographical position. The first group is developing Asia, which encompasses
the literature from China, India, and Iran. The second group is developed Asia,and contains all papers
from Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. The third group is the western world, which
contains the United States, Canada, Australia, and all of Europe with the exclusion of Russia. The last
group is the rest of the world. This group only contains the literature from Russia and South Africa. Inappendix 2, 122 entries were made for articles that can be put in the developing Asia group. Twenty-
five entries in the dataset belong to the second group, developed Asia, while 163 cases are classified as
coming from the western world. Only 9 cases come from countries that are part of the fourth group,
the rest of the world. The sum of the number of entries is thus 319.
The overall proportions of the origins of articles naming enablers of ASCM are shown in table
1 and figure 7. These overall proportions form the expectation for the proportions of the respective
categories.
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Groups Proportions
Developing Asia 122/319=0,38
Developed Asia 25/319=0,08
Western world 163/319=0,51
Rest of the world 9/319=0,03
Table 1: The overall proportions of the origins of articles naming enablers of ASCM, which form the
expectation for the proportions per category of enablers.
Figure 7: The overall proportions of the origins of articles naming enablers of ASCM, which form the
expectation for the proportions per category of enablers.
It becomes clear in table 1 and figure 7 that slightly more than half of the cases in which enablers were
identified in this study originated in the western world. Developing Asia also forms a large source, to
which around two fifths of the cases can be attributed. Developed Asia and the rest of the world both
only represent small sources in this part of the review. The numbers in table 1 will be compared with
the proportions of the origin of articles naming individual categories of enablers. In this way, it can be
assessed whether authors from certain parts of the world identify specific enablers more often than
authors working at an institution in another group. The findings regarding this question will be
presented in the order of the categories shown in appendix 2. For each category, a pie chart of the
proportions is described. In each pie chart, the number of cases is shown in the relevant area of the
chart itself, while the proportions are shown between parentheses in the legend.
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Figure 8: Proportions of enablers regarding a focus on people, employees, and the organization.
Firstly, a look is taken at the enablers regarding a focus on people, employees, and the organization
Figure 8 clearly shows a large difference with the overall proportions in the cases of the developing
Asia and western world groups. Authors from developing Asia thus more often identify enablers
regarding a focus on people, employees and the organization than their western counterparts.
Figure 9: Proportions of enablers regarding team working.
Next, ASCMs enablers regarding team working are considered. Again, the figure 9 indicates a large
difference with the overall proportions of the developing Asia and western world groups. One can thus
say that authors who work in developing Asia more often identify enablers regarding team working
than their western counterparts. It is important to mention here, however, that the number of 7 papers
mentioning enablers regarding team working is very low. This might make the conclusions in this
aspect less valid.
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Figure 10: Proportions of enablers regarding integration with supply chain partners.
Thirdly, enablers regarding integration with supply chain partners are examined. In this category, less
large differences with the overall proportions can be found. The amount of enablers of ASCM
regarding integration with supply chain partners described by authors working in developing Asia is
slightly lower than expected, while the same number is slightly higher than expected for authors from
the western world. It seems, however, that authors from different countries all equally recognize the
importance of integration with supply chain partners.
Figure 11: Proportions of enablers regarding management and a focus on change.
If one shifts the view to the fourth enabling factor, management and a focus on change, one can see a
clear difference with the overall proportions in the case of developing Asia and the western world.
This difference implies that authors working in developing Asia identify enablers of ASCM regarding
management and a focus on change more often than expected, while authors from the western world
describe the same enablers less often than expected.
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Figure 12: Proportions of enablers regarding a focus on learning and education.
The fifth category of enablers is the focus on learning and education. This category again shows a
difference, implying that authors from developing Asia identify enablers regarding learning and
education more often than authors from the western world. One has to be cautious in this case,
however, since a number of 9 entries is very low, which makes conclusions in this case less valid.
Figure 13: Proportions of enablers regarding technology.
The category analyzed next contains the technologic enablers of ASCM. The proportions visible in
figure 13 are different from the overall proportions, although the difference is not large. The
proportions show that authors from developing Asia are more inclined to identify technologic enablers
than they are expected to be. Authors working in the western world identified slightly less technologic
enablers than expected, but this difference is very small. Notable absentees in this category are the
countries from the developed Asia-group. Authors from this group did not name enablers regarding
technology, when the expectation would be 2 entries from this part of the world.
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Figure 14: Proportions of enablers regarding the product, its production, and the logistics system.
The seventh category that is examined is the category that contains all enablers regarding the product,
its production, and the logistics system. These enablers often overlapped, which is the reason why they
are categorized together. This category does not show any major differences with the overall
proportions, although several interesting points can be named. Authors working in developing Asia
identified enablers of ASCM regarding the product, its production, and logistics less often than
expected. On the other hand, authors from the rest of the world described enablers in this category
twice as often as expected. The latter statistic is based on a very low number, however, and this could
decrease its validity. The overall conclusion in this case is that the importance of enablers regarding
product, production, and logistics seems to be recognized equally worldwide.
Figure 15: Proportions of enablers regarding internal integration.
Next, the enablers regarding internal integration are assessed. The proportions visible in figure 15
differ from the overall proportions on the points of the number of entries from developing Asia and the
western world. It seems that authors from the western world recognize the importance of enablers of
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ASCM regarding internal integration more often than expected, while their colleagues from
developing Asia recognize the importance of these enablers less often than expected.
Figure 16: Proportions of enablers regarding a focus on the market and environment.
Finally, the enablers of ASCM regarding a focus on the market and environment were investigated.
The differences in this case are quite small. It seems that enablers regarding a focus on the market and
environment are identified in equal amounts internationally, although the western world identifies
these enablers slightly more often than expected.
In table 2, the findings are summarized in the order of investigation.
Category of ASCM
enablers
Findings
A focus on
people/employees/
organization
Authors from developing Asia identify enablers in this category more often than their
western counterparts.
Team working Authors who work in developing Asia more often identify enablers in this category than
their western counterparts. The number of papers naming enablers in this category is very
low, however.
Integration with supply
chain partners
The amount of enablers in this category described by authors working in developing Asia is
slightly lower than expected, while the same number is slightly higher than expected for
authors from the western world. It seems, however, that authors from different countries all
equally recognize the importance of enablers in this category.
Managerial enablers and
a focus on change
Authors working in developing Asia identify enablers in this category more often than
expected, while authors from the western world describe the same enablers less often than
expected.
A focus on Authors from developing Asia identify enablers in this category more often than authors
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learning/education from the western world. One has to be cautious in this case, however, since the number of 9
entries is very low.
Technology Authors from developing Asia are more inclined to identify enablers in this category than
they are expected to be. Authors working in the western world identified slightly less
technologic enablers than expected, but this difference is very small. Notable absentees in
this category are the countries from the developed Asia-group, who did not name enablers
regarding technology, when the expectation would be 2 entries.
A focus on the product,
production, and logistics
Authors working in developing Asia identified enablers in this category less often than
expected. Authors from the rest of the world described enablers in this category twice as
often as expected. The latter statistic is based on a very low number, however, and this
could decrease its validity. The overall conclusion in this case is that the importance of
enablers in this category seems to be recognized equally worldwide.
Internal integration It seems that authors from the western world recognize the importance of enablers in this
category more often than expected, while their colleagues from developing Asia recognize
the importance of these enablers less often than expected.
A focus on the
market/environment
The differences in this case are quite small. It seems that enablers in this category are
identified in equal amounts internationally, although the western world identifies these
enablers slightly more often than expected.
Table 2: Summary of the conclusions about the international differences in the identified enablers of
ASCM.
The limitations of this study have to be clarified at this point. All the conclusions in table 2 are based
on the performed search in the ISI Web of Science article database. As this search does not cover the
entire body of ASCM literature published in 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013, the conclusions become less
meaningful.
Further conclusions and implications of the analysis regarding the international differences in
the identified enablers of agile supply chains are given in section 4, which discusses this papers
findings and suggestions for further research.
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As mentioned before, an outcome was defined as a result of a supply chain being agile for individual
companies that form the supply chain or the supply chain as a whole . Using this definition, it was
found that 31 of the 77 articles published from 2010 until 2013 described at least one outcome. The
other papers did not explicitly mention outcomes of ASCM, but often did implicitly include them by
defining ASCM as, for example, using market knowledge and a virtual corporation to exploit
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profitable opportunities in a volatilemarket place, which is the definition coined by Naylor et al.
(1999). The use of this definition or similar ones implies the assumption that an agile supply chain is
better able to compete in volatile markets than other supply chain techniques. It is thus important to
realize that virtually any paper concerning ASCM assumes the following:An agile supply chain is
more responsive and thus better able to function in a volatile environment than an non-agile supply
chain.
In this literature review, the focus does not lie on implied outcomes, but rather in outcomes
that were explicitly mentioned and based on empirical evidence. Using this criterion, one finds that 31
papers described at least one such outcome. These outcomes, the IDs of the articles that discussed
them, and the origin of the articles are shown in appendix 3.
Appendix 3 shows the following 9 categories of outcomes:
Organizationaloutcomes;
Production-process-relatedoutcomes;
Product-relatedoutcomes;
Performance-relatedoutcomes;
Cost-relatedoutcomes;
Uncertainty-relatedoutcomes;
Increased flexibility;
Increased responsiveness;
Andstrategic outcomes.
These 9 categories contain 21 outcomes and 4 sub-outcomes, most of which are positive. Outcomes
have been allocated to categories in order to enable the more effective drawing of conclusions. In the
second column, all paper IDs are shown, in order to enable a search in appendix 1. In the third column,
the geographical origin of the articles naming a specific outcome of ASCM is named. Whenever a
number between parentheses is added, this means that multiple papers from that specific country
describe the outcome in question. When examining enablers, any combination of papers 10, 17, 72,and 73 was counted as a single case, but, since the outcomes in these papers are dissimilar, the articles
can be counted separately in this part of the review.
Two outcomes, increased flexibilityand increased responsiveness, form their own categories,
since they cannot be allocated to one of the other categories, and because these two outcomes are
described often. Only two outcomes of ASCM, higher costsand theincreased amount of waste, are
negative. These outcomes, however, are only mentioned twice and once, respectively. It is clear in the
table that some positive outcomes are mentioned more often than others, and that the geographical
origin of these outcomes is often dissimilar. The outcome of ASCM that is described most is increased
responsiveness, which is mentioned in 13 articles. The ability to shorten lead times,increased
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flexibility, and the ability to deal with an uncertain environment or marketare also mentioned in 9, 8,
and 7 articles, respectively. 11 of the outcomes and 8 of the sub-outcomes are only mentioned once or
twice.
The categories of outcomes of ASCM that are mentioned most areproduction-process-
related,product-related, and uncertainty-relatedoutcomes, in addition to increased responsiveness.
The other five categories are described less frequently.
The issue of interest here is whether the identified outcomes of ASCM differ per country. In
order to analyze this, one needs to find out whether the proportions of the origins of articles naming
specific outcomes are different from the overall proportions of the origins of articles naming
outcomes.
The spectrum of originating countries was again separated into the four groups described in
section 2.2.1. In appendix 3, 36 entries were made for articles that can be put in the developing Asia
group. Eight entries in the dataset belong to the second group, developed Asia, while 64 cases are
classified as coming from the western world. No cases come from countries that are part of the fourth
group, the rest of the world, so this group will not be considered in this analysis. The sum of the
number of entries is 108.
The overall proportions of the origins of articles naming outcomes of ASCM are shown in
table 3 and figure 17. These overall proportions form the expectation for the proportions of the
respective categories.
Groups Proportions
Developing Asia 36/108=0,33
Developed Asia 8/108=0,08
Western world 64/108=0,59
Table 3: The overall proportions of the origins of articles naming outcomes of ASCM, which form the
expectation for the proportions per category of outcomes.
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Figure 17: The overall proportions of the origins of articles naming outcomes of ASCM, which form
the expectation for the proportions per category of outcomes.
As can be seen in table 3 and figure 17, the western world forms the largest cluster when it comes to
specifying outcomes of ASCM, as roughly three fifths of the total can be attributed to this category.
Developing Asia is the next largest group, being the source of one third of the provided cases of
described outcomes. Developed Asia forms a small group, as less than one tenth of the total amount of
the total amount of outcomes can be attributed to this group. The rest of the world, containing Russia
and South Africa, is not represented in this part of the paper. The numbers in table 3 will be compared
with the proportions of the origin of articles naming individual categories of outcomes. In this way,
one can find out whether authors from certain parts of the world identify specific outcomes more often
than authors working at an institution in another group. The findings regarding this question will be
presented in the order of the categories shown in appendix 3. For each category, a pie chart of the
proportions is described. In each pie chart, the number of cases is shown in the relevant area of the
chart itself, while the proportions are shown between parentheses in the legend.
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Figure 18: Proportions of outcomes regarding organization.
Firstly, a look is taken at the category of organizational outcomes. In this case, only three entries of
outcomes were made, one for each of the three groups. Developing Asia, developed Asia, and the
western world all thus provided 0,33 of the total amount of entries. Since the number is so low, it is
impossible to draw a valid conclusion from this examination.
Figure 19: Proportions of outcomes regarding the production process.
Next, the focus is shifted to the production-process-related outcomes of ASCM. It is clear in figure 19
that the proportion of entries regarding production-process-related outcomes made by authors working
in developing Asia is higher than expected, while the proportion of entries made by western authors is
lower than expected. It thus seems that more weight is given in developing Asia to production-
process-related outcomes of ASCM than in the western world.
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Figure 20: Proportions of outcomes regarding the product.
Thirdly, examine product-related outcomes are examined. The findings in figure 20 are in line with the
expectations, and it thus seems that product-related outcomes are equally valued internationally. It is
interesting to notice, however, that authors working in developed Asia did not make not an entry in
this case while at least one description was expected from this group.
Figure 21: Proportions of outcomes regarding performance.
The fourth category, performance-related outcomes, is next in line. Only 5 cases of authors describing
outcomes in this category were found. The cases all came from authors working in the western world.
Even though the amount of entries is very low, it is interesting to see that no author from developing
Asia made a contribution to this category. It thus seems that performance-related outcomes are more
valued among western authors. Drawing conclusions on this limited amount of data is dangerous,
however, as they may not be valid.
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Figure 22: Proportions of outcomes regarding cost.
Next, cost-related outcomes of ASCM are considered. In total, 10 entries of cost-related outcomes
were made. Five of these were made by authors working in developing Asia, and 5 of these were made
by authors from the western world. It thus seems that authors from developing Asia are more inclined
to identify cost-related outcomes of ASCM than their western colleagues. However, once again, the
number of entries in this case is quite low, so any conclusion may be invalid.
Figure 23: Proportions of outcomes regarding uncertainty.
The sixth category is made up of uncertainty-related outcomes. The proportions visible in figure 23
show a distribution that is very different from the overall proportions, especially in the case of authors
from the western world and developing Asia. It thus seems that authors in the western world value
uncertainty-related outcomes more than their counterparts from developing Asia.
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Figure 24: Proportions of outcomes regarding increased flexibility.
Increased flexibility is the next category in the analysis. The numbers shown in figure 24 do not differ
greatly from the expectations. An interesting point, though, is the high amount of entries made by
authors working in developed Asia. In spite of this, it seems that increased flexibility is an outcome of
ASCM that is identified in equal numbers in the different international groups.
Figure 25: Proportions of outcomes regarding increased responsiveness.
The eighth category looks at increased responsiveness. From the proportions shown in figure 25, one
can conclude that authors working in developing Asia identified increased responsiveness as an
outcome more often than expected, while authors from the western world identified this outcome less
often than expected.
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Figure 26: Proportions of outcomes regarding strategy.
Finally, the strategic outcomes of ASCM are investigated. The proportions shown in figure 26 are
close to the expectation, but conclusions might be invalid because of the low number of entries in this
case. It seems, however, that strategic outcomes of ASCM are equally valued in the different
international groups.
In table 4, the findings are summarized in the order of investigation.
Category of ASCM
outcomes
Findings
Organizational outcomes It is impossible to draw a valid conclusion from this examination, since the number
of entries is too low.
Production-process-
related outcomes
The proportion of entries made by authors working in developing Asia is higher
than expected, while the proportion of entries made by western authors is lower
than expected. It thus seems that more weight is given in developing Asia to this
category of outcomes than in the western world.
Product-related outcomes It seems that outcomes in this category are equally valued internationally. It is
interesting to notice, however, that authors working in developed Asia did not makean entry in this case while at least one description was expected from this group.
Performance-related
outcomes
Even though the amount of entries is very low, it is interesting to see that no author
from developing Asia made a contribution to this category. It therefore seems that
outcomes in this category are more valued among western authors. Drawing
conclusions on this limited amount of data is dangerous, however, as they may not
be valid.
Cost-related outcomes It seems that authors from developing Asia are more inclined to identify outcomes
in this category than their western colleagues. However, once again, the number of
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entries in this case is quite low, so any conclusion may be invalid.
Uncertainty-related
outcomes
The proportions show a distribution that is very different from the overall
proportions, especially in the case of authors from the western world and
developing Asia. It thus seems that authors in the western world value outcomes in
this category more than their counterparts from developing Asia.
Increased flexibility An interesting point here is the high amount of entries made by authors working in
developed Asia. In spite of this, it seems that this outcome of ASCM is identified in
equal numbers in the different international groups.
Increased responsiveness Authors working in developing Asia identified this outcome more often than
expected, while authors from the western world identified this outcome less often
than expected.
Strategic outcomes It seems that this category of outcomes is equally valued in the different
international groups. However, our conclusions might be invalid because of the low
number of entries in this case.
Table 4: Summary of the conclusions about the international differences in the identified outcomes of
ASCM.
The limitations of this study again have to be clarified at this point. All the conclusions in table 4 are
based on the performed search in the ISI Web of Science article database. As this search does not
cover the entire body of ASCM literature published in 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013, the conclusionsbecome less meaningful.
In addition to the conclusions regarding individual categories of outcomes, two other relevant
conclusions about the negative outcomes of ASCM can also be made.
Firstly, it is clear in the analysis that little attention is paid to the negative outcomes of ASCM.
Only two articles, 27 and 30, that have their origins in Poland, The Netherlands, and the United
Kingdom mention disadvantages of the technique. Furthermore, these papers combined only name two
negative outcomes of agile supply chains, while one can imagine there are many more. One might
argue, however, that the disadvantages of ASCM are the advantages of other supply chain techniques,
such as lean or leagile supply chain management. In spite of this, a deliberate, empirical search for the
negative sides of agile supply chains is missing, and this forms a gap in the field of knowledge about
ASCM. Research into this topic could thus provide a significant leap forward in the field of ASCM
literature.
Secondly, it is interesting to see that no author working in countries belonging to the fourth
group, the rest of the world, has made a contribution to the literature identifying outcomes of ASCM.
An obvious reason for this is that the number of articles that come from these countries is very small
in this review. If one looks at the number of entries regarding ASCMs enablers, however, one can see
that 3% of the total came from authors working in countries belonging to the fourth group. If this is
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extrapolated to the entries regarding the outcomes of the supply chain technique, one sees that a
minimum of 3 entries from these countries would be expected. This is not the case, and, though the
number of possible entries might be too small to yield a valid conclusion, this could mean that
literature from countries that belong to the fourth group does not focus on the outcomes of agile
supply chains.
Further conclusions and implications of the analysis regarding the international differences in
the identified outcomes of agile supply chains are given in section 4, which discusses this papers
findings and suggestions for further research.
21 9+&5#+75& 0&=9&?
In order to gain knowledge about the development of the field of ASCM research on its own and inrelation with the topics that were discussed in the qualitative part of this paper, a quantitative review
was used. The goal of this analysis is to clarify and explain some of the conclusions of the qualitative
section. This section does not focus on the many individual categories of enablers and outcomes
described above, but rather on the complete view of the origin of enablers and outcomes in general.
The questions this section will try to answer are therefore the following:
What is the degree of consensus in the field of ASCM research regarding enablers and
outcomes?
What are the origins of the most influentialpapers in ASCM?
Where does ASCM literature in general come from?
Where has ASCM literature in general come from over time?
And judging from the answers to these four questions: Are the overall proportions visible in
the qualitative section in table 1 and 3 as expected or not?
213 G&+H'6 #*6 /#ID%& ,&%&8+9'*
For the quantitative analysis, the entire dataset of 315 papers was considered. This group of articles
was described in section 2.1. Based on this dataset, a few calculations were performed. All of these
calculations were facilitated by theAnalyze Resultsoption of ISI Web of Knowledge and performed
using Microsoft Excel. The relevant tables and graphs that resulted from these calculations are shown
below.
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In this section, short descriptions of the performed calculations and analyses will be given, after which
the results of these analyses will be presented. This process will be repeated per analysis.
Firstly, the frequency of citation per article was investigated. According to ISI Web of
Science, as of 1 June 2013, the 315 articles in the dataset were cited a total of 6429 times. A measure
of how heavily this network of citations is centered on an influential group can be taken by looking at
the top 10 percent of most cited articles. If one sets off the amount of citations of these papers to the
total, the degree to which there is consensus within the field of ASCM research can be assessed. In
this case, a logical cut off point can be found at 29 papers, or 9,2% of the total. The top 29 papers have
all been cited a minimum of 50 times, and together accounted for a total of 3331 citations. This means
that 51,8% of all the citations from articles describing ASCM come from 29 papers, which indicates a
relatively high degree of consensus within the field. The high percentage is not remarkable, however,
because many of the 29 articles are papers that describe ASCM in general, and are often cited in
introductions, for example. Using this statistic, it is therefore not possible to conclude about the degree
of consensus in the field of ASCM research about the techniques enablers and outcomes. It can
merely be concluded that a high degree of consensus could be found when looking at the definition of
ASCM and its basic characteristics.
Another measure of consensus can be taken by looking at the top 10 cited papers. These
papers are shown in table 5, and accounted for 2067 citations, or 32,15% of the total. It thus again
seems that there is a small group of influential papers in the field.
Authors Title Journal Year
Citation
Count
Fisher, ML
What is the right supply chain for
your product?
HARVARD BUSINESS
REVIEW 1997 532
Christopher, M
The agile supply chain -
Competing in volatile markets
INDUSTRIAL MARKETING
MANAGEMENT 2000 250Naylor, JB;
Naim, MM;
Berry, D
Leagility: Integrating the lean and
agile manufacturing paradigms in
the total supply chain
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
OF PRODUCTION
ECONOMICS 1999 249
Lee, HL The triple-A supply chain
HARVARD BUSINESS
REVIEW 2004 193
Da Silveira, G;
Borenstein, D;
Fogliatto, FS
Mass customization: Literature
review and research directions
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
OF PRODUCTION
ECONOMICS 2001 170
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Meade, LM;
Sarkis, J
Analyzing organizational project
alternatives for agile
manufacturing processes: an
analytical network approach
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
OF PRODUCTION
RESEARCH 1999 164
Gunasekaran, A
Agile manufacturing: enablers and
an implementation framework
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
OF PRODUCTION
RESEARCH 1998 153
Yusuf, YY;
Sarhadi, M;
Gunasekaran, A
Agile manufacturing: The drivers,
concepts and attributes
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
OF PRODUCTION
ECONOMICS 1999 146
Gunasekaran, A
Agile manufacturing: A
framework for research and
development
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
OF PRODUCTION
ECONOMICS 1999 121
Gunasekaran,
Angappa; Lai,
Kee-Hung;
Cheng, T. C.
Edwin
Responsive supply chain: A
competitive strategy in a
networked economy
OMEGA-INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL OF
MANAGEMENT SCIENCE 2008 89
Table 5: The top 10 most cited ASCM articles published from 1994 until 2013 as of 1 June 2013.
If one uses the country groups described in section 2.2.1, it becomes clear that only the fifth article in
table 5 was written by authors that did not work in the western world. This article, written by Da
Silveira, Borenstein, and Fogliatto, has its origins in Argentina and Brazil, countries that did not
appear in the qualitative analysis. All other articles were authored by scholars working in the western
world, with non-western co-authors only participating in the tenth paper. This creates a clear view of
the dominance of the western world when it comes to the most cited articles in the field of ASCM
research. Even though this fact refers to the most cited articles in generalas opposed to the most cited
articles naming enablers or outcomes, table 5 presents a very interesting reality.
The dominance of the western world did not appear as strongly in the qualitative analysis,
where the significant role of developing Asia could also be identified. This fact can have two possible
reasons; either literature from developing Asia has become more dominant over the years; or western
authors do not describe enablers or outcomes of ASCM, and rather discuss the topic in general terms.
Both options could explain the difference found in this review: The dominance of the western world in
the field of ASCM research in general on the one hand, and the significant amount of both enablers
and outcomes mentioned in articles originating in developing Asia in 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013.
The validity of either of these options will now be assessed. The way in which this is done is
by recording the amount of papers originating in different countries per year, from 1994 until 2013.
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The top 14 publishing countries, which all account for a minimum of 6 published articles about
ASCM, are shown in table 6. The number of articles originating in a specific country includes co-
authored papers. Because of this, the total amount of articles amounts to 386.
Country Amount of published articles
USA 111
UK 70
China 39
India 22
Italy 15
Taiwan 12
Canada 11
Australia 10
Germany 9
Sweden 8
Finland 7
France 6
Iran 6
South Korea 6
Table 6: The 14 countries with most published articles about ASCM from 1994 until 2013, based on
the set of articles retrieved on 10 April 2013.
The top 14 countries account for 332 articles, or 86,01% of the total. The overall dominance of the
western world illustrated by table 5 is also visible in this table, table 6. If one makes a graph of the
amount of papers originating in different countries in each year from 1994 until 2012, this creates a
different view. This graph is shown below, in figure 27. Figure 27 does not include data from 2013,
because the data for this year is incomplete and would disable us to form conclusions about the graph.
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Figure 27: The amount of articles about ASCM published per country from 1994 until 2012, based on
the set of articles retrieved on 10 April 2013. Only the top 14 countries, with more than 6 articles in
total, are included.
Figure 27 is not straightforward to interpret. One reason for this is that the countries are not sorted per
country group. Several different ways of showing this data were attempted, however, and the shown
figure is the clearest option. This graph is most enabling of an analysis of trends in the published
literature. To make up for the lack of clarity of the figure, however, a detailed description of the
visible trends follows.
When looking at figure 27, one can draw two conclusions. Firstly, it is clear that the spectrum
of countries from which ASCM authors hail has vastly grown since 2005. In the years before 2005,
there were never more than 7 countries from the top 14 that spawned literature on the subject each
year. This number increased, reaching 12 or 13 every year from 2009 until 2012.
Secondly, it is clear that the center of gravity in the literature has moved over the years. To
show this, the four groups of countries used before are again used here. From 1994 until 2005, the
western world was always responsible for a minimum of 70% of the published literature. The main
countries responsible for the dominance of the western world in this period are the United States and
the United Kingdom. The year 2000 is interesting in this context, as the contribution by authors
working in the US suddenly drops below 20% in this year.
A more definitive decline of the western contribution can be found from 2005 on, however.
The year 2006 sees the introduction of articles written by Indian authors, and 2009 was the first year in
which authors working in Iran made a contribution to ASCM literature. China, the third country in the
developing Asia group, already had a steady presence since 2001. In addition to this, one can see that
2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012 have seen the assertion of literature from less influential countries
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belonging to the western world and developed Asia groups. This development has led to the UK and
US only accounting for around 25% of the published literature by the top 14 countries in 2012. In the
same year, the countries belonging to the developing Asia group made a contribution of around 35%,
while developed Asia provided 5% of the literature published by the top 14. The remaining 35% can
be attributed to other countries than the UK or US in the western world group.
Three interesting trends can be seen in these percentages. Firstly, the influence of authors
working in the US or the UK is decreasing. Secondly, ASCM literature from developing Asia is
becoming more and more abundant. And finally, the share of published literature from the western
world by countries other than the US and the UK is surpassing the share of the US and the UK.
There are two possible explanations of the apparent trends described above. Firstly, it could be
possible that authors in the US and the UK are losing their interest for ASCM. The reason for this
could be that authors working in these countries contribute most to new, relatively unexplored fields
of study. These scholars would shift their focus to other innovative subjects whenever the previous
subject has become too popular.
The second explanation is more plausible than the first. This explanation would be that interest
from the US and the UK has not necessarily decreased, but that interest from other western and Asian
countries has increased. This is a logical line of thought when one takes the rise of the amount of
published literature about ASCM visible in figure 2 into account. A fact that also supports this
explanation is that the absolute number of publications from the US and the UK has not decreased
sharply from 2005 until 2012.
It is possible that most of the articles originating in developing Asia, for example, have a
practical focus, while papers from the US and the UK are more theoretical. The practical articles in
this sense would be, for example, case studies, while the theoretical literature would describe ASCM
using broad conceptual frameworks. A reason for this could be that, as the field of ASCM research
matured, the focus shifted from theoretical studies to practical papers. In short, the field of ASCM
might have become more mainstreamover the years, which has led to the decrease of influence of the
US and the UK.
Above, after the description of table 5, two possible reasons were mentioned for the differencebetween the dominance of the western world in table 5 and the qualitative analysis, in which the
significant role of developing Asia in 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013 could also be identified. Either
literature from developing Asia has become more dominant over the years, or western authors do not
describe enablers or outcomes of ASCM, and rather discuss the topic in general terms. Using the
analysis of figure 27, both of these reasons can now be assessed.
It is clear in figure 27 that in 2010, 2011, and 2012, authors working in developing Asia
steadily published around 32% of all literature published by the top 14 countries. These percentages
are for each year, respectively, 33%, 28%, and 35%. The overall proportions regarding the origins of
articles naming enablers and outcomes of ASCM are visible in table 1 and table 3, respectively. In
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these tables, it is visible that 38% of all enablers can be attributed to developing Asia, while 33% of all
outcomes come from developing Asia. Although the percentage of outcomes attributable to
developing Asia does not differ from the overall percentage of literature published by these countries
in 2010, 2011, and 2012, the percentage of enablers that come from developing Asia is higher than
expected. The explanation described above can be repeated in this case: Enablers appear most often in
articles that take a practical approach to describing ASCM, for example in case studies. This idea
cannot directly be tested, as the approach of all articles was not analyzed in this study due to time
constraints, it can, however, be emphasized that the percentage of enablers of 38% coming from
developing Asia is higher than expected, since this groups share in the total amount of publications is
only 30%. This leads one to believe that authors from developing Asia are more often interested in the
practical application of ASCM than their western counterparts.
At the beginning of this section several questions were asked, which are restated here:
What is the degree of consensus in the field of ASCM research regarding enablers and
outcomes?
What are the origins of the most influentialpapers in ASCM?
Where does ASCM literature in general come from?
Where has ASCM literature in general come from over time?
And judging from the answers to these four questions: Are the overall proportions visible in
the qualitative section in table 1 and 3 as expected or not?
Using the quantitative analysis of the literature, answers to these questions can now be formulated.
It is not possible to answer the first question using this quantitative analysis. The most
influential papers in the field of ASCM literature all have a broad theoretical scope, and are thus often
cited in the introductions of articles. Due to the broad scope, these influential papers do not describe
enablers or outcomes, which are more often found in case studies or literature reviews, for example. It
is therefore not possible to indicate whether there is consensus in the field of ASCM research
regarding enablers and outcomes using the quantitative analysis. It is clear, however, that there is ahigh degree of consensus regarding the definition of agile supply chains. It is important to mention
here that consensus regarding enablers and outcomes was tested in the qualitative part of this review.
The origins of the most influential papers were stated in the description of table 5. It was
interesting to see here that 9 of the 10 most influential articles came from the western world, with only
one article being co-authored by a non-westerner. The fifth article in table 5 was the only article
written by authors working outside of the western world. The interesting point to take away from this
analysis is the difference between the dominance of the western world in table 5 and the qualitative
analysis, in which the significant role of developing Asia in 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013 could also be
identified.
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The question of the origins of ASCM literature in general was answered using table 6. This
table clearly showed the dominance of the western world also visible in table 5.
The fourth question was answered by making a graph of the amount of papers originating in
different countries in each year from 1994 until 2012. This graph was shown in figure 6. Three
interesting trends could be seen in this figure. Firstly, the influence of authors working in the US or
the UK is decreasing. Secondly, ASCM literature from developing Asia is becoming more and more
abundant. And finally, the share of published literature from the western world by countries other than
the US and the UK is surpassing the share of the US and the UK.
The final question was answered using the entire quantitative analysis and table 1 and 3 in the
qualitative analysis. This question asked whether the overall proportions visible in table 1 and 3 were
as expected regarding the entire field of ASCM literature. In both of these tables, the most interesting
comparison can be drawn between developing Asia and the western world, since these two groups
claim the largest proportions. The average contribution from developing Asia to the field of ASCM
was 32% of the top 14 countries in 2010, 2011, and 2012, as can be seen in figure 6. This number
forms the expectation for the percentage of enablers and outcomes that were described by authors
working in developing Asia. The percentage of enablers that can be attributed to this group is 38%,
while in the case of outcomes this is 33%. These percentages can be found in table 1 and table 3,
respectively. It is clear that the percentage of outcomes provided by authors working in developing
Asia is not higher than expected, as there is a small difference between 33% and 32%. However, in
case of enablers, this difference is larger, the percentages being 38% and 32%. Therefore, it seems that
authors from developing Asia are more often interested in the enablers of ASCM than their western
counterparts. In addition to this, it might be that authors working in developing Asia are more
interested in the practical application of ASCM than western authors.
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In this section of the paper, the findings of the qualitative and quantitative sections of this review will
be discussed and integrated. First, the findings of the qualitative review of ASCM literature in terms of
enablers and outcomes of agile supply chains will be shortly restated. After this, the findings of the
quantitative review will be discussed. Finally, the importance and the implications of the findings will
be explained.
In the qualitative review, an attempt was made to get a clear image of the differences between
different countries regarding the identification of ASCMs enablers and outcomes. The question to
which an answer was searched was whether some parts of the world identify specific enablers or
outcomes more often than other parts of the world. The findings are presented in table 7 in case of the
enablers, and table 8 in case of the outcomes. Table 7 is a summary of table 2, while table 8 is a
summary of table 3.
Category of ASCM enablers Developing
Asia: findings
higher or lower
than expected?
Developed Asia:
findings higher
or lower than
expected?
Western world:
findings higher
or lower than
expected?
Rest of the world:
findings higher or
lower than
expected?
A focus on people/employees/
organization
Higher - Lower -
Team working Higher (low
amount of cases)
- Lower (low
amount of cases)
-
Integration with supply chain
partners
Slightly lower - Slightly higher -
Managerial enablers and a focus
on change
Higher - Lower -
A focus on learning/education Higher (low
amount of cases)
- Lower (low
amount of cases)
-
Technology Higher Lower (low
amount of cases)
Slightly lower -
A focus on the product, Lower - - Higher (low amount
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0F
production, and logistics of cases)
Internal integration Lower - Higher -
A focus on the
market/environment
- - Slightly higher -
Table 7: A summary of the findings of the qualitative review regarding ASCMs enablers presented in
table 2. This table describes whether the amount of cases of a category of enablers found in a group of
countries is higher, lower, or equal (expressed by -) to the expectation. In a number of cells, low
amount of cases is added. This expresses the warning that this specific finding may be invalid due to
the low amount of cases available.
Table 7 illustrates the finding that the degree of consensus regarding ASCMs enablers is low, as there
are a number of instances in which the expectation differs from the findings. Only in case of
Integration with supply chain partners and a focus on the market/environmenta reasonable degree of
consensus could be found. In all other categories, the difference between expectations and findings
was most clearly visible when looking at developing Asia and the western world. This leads one to
believe that these two international groups have different views on the enablers of ASCM. It seems
that authors working in developing Asia are more inclined to identify enablers of ASCM regarding
people, management, and technology than their western colleagues. On the other hand, westernauthors focus more often on internal integration, external integration, and the market/environment. A
rough division can be identified when looking at these findings: authors from developing Asia focus
on enablers within the boundaries of firms or their departments, while authors from the western world
are more interested in enablers spanning the boundaries of firms and their departments.
Regarding the other two other groups of countries, developed Asia and the rest of the world, it
is more difficult to form a conclusion of the findings. The reason for this is that both of these groups
provided too little cases in general to justify any conclusion. There will therefore be no elaboration on
the findings regarding these groups of countries.
Next, the section of the qualitative review concerning ASCMs outcomes is looked at. A
summary of the findings in this case can be found in table 8.
Category of ASCM outcomes Developing Asia:
findings higher or
lower than expected?
Developed Asia: findings
higher or lower than
expected?
Western world: findings
higher or lower than
expected?
Organizational outcomes (Amount of cases too
low to perform
(Amount of cases too low
to perform analysis)
(Amount of cases too low
to perform analysis)
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;8
analysis)
Production-process-related
outcomes
Higher - Lower
Product-related outcomes - - -
Performance-related outcomes Lower (low amount of
cases)
- Higher (low amount of
cases)
Cost-related outcomes Higher (low amount of
cases)
Lower (low amount of
cases)
Uncertainty-related outcomes Lower - Higher
Increased flexibility - Higher -
Increased responsiveness Higher - Lower
Strategic outcomes - (Low amount of
cases)
- (Low amount of cases) - (Low amount of cases)
Table 8: A summary of the findings of the qualitative review regarding ASCMs outcomes presented in
table 4. This table describes whether the amount of cases of a category of outcomes found in a group
of countries is higher, lower, or equal (expressed by -) to the expectation. In a number of cells,
low amount of cases is added. This expresses the warning that this specific finding may be invalid
due to the low amount of cases available.
It is more difficult to draw conclusions about the findings in case of ASCMs outcomes than in case ofits enablers. The reason for this is the low amount of cases of described outcomes in general. This is
illustrated in table 8, in which it is clear that the analysis of the organizational outcomescategory did
not yield any results. This category will therefore not be considered in this discussion. In addition to
this, the table shows that the findings in theperformance-related outcomes, cost-related outcomes, and
strategic outcomescategories are less likely to be valid. On the basis of the rest table 8, a few
interesting conclusions can be drawn.
Again, as was the case when considering ASCMs enablers, the main difference can be found
between developing Asia and the western world. A comparison between these two groups is also
safest to draw, because it can be based on a large number of cases. Authors working in developing
Asia and the western world are equally interested in outcomes of ASCM regarding increased
flexibilityandproducts. It seems, however, that authors from developing Asia are more likely to focus
onproduction-process-related outcomesand increased responsivenessthan their western colleagues.
On the other hand, western authors focus more often on uncertainty-related outcomes than their
counterparts from developing Asia. It is difficult to find an all-encompassing reason for this
difference, even when one takes the categories with a too low amount of cases into account. It is clear,
however, that authors from developing Asia and the western world do not identify the same outcomes
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;"
of ASCM in the same amount. Whether this points to a lack of consensus regarding the issue cannot
be said, because the number of cases on which the findings are based is too low.
When considering the outcomes of ASCM originating in developed Asia, we can see that
authors working in this part of the world score as expected in all but one of the categories. The reason
for this might be the limited amount of cases on which the findings are based in this case. It is
interesting to see, however, that authors from developed Asia identify outcomes regarding increased
flexibilitymore often than expected.
Two additional findings were mentioned in the qualitative section. Firstly, it is clear in the
analysis that little attention is paid to the negative outcomes of ASCM
Secondly, it is interesting to see that no author working in countries belonging to the rest of the world
has made a contribution to the literature identifying outcomes of ASCM.
Next, the view is shifted to the quantitative section of this review. The aim in this section was
to clarify and explain some of the conclusions of the qualitative section. The approach to attaining this
aim was to take a complete view of the origin of enablers and outcomes in general. With the
answering of the four questions asked at the beginning of the quantitative review, the findings of this
section have already been discussed. The most important points will be recapitulated here, but the
main focus will lie on integrating the quantitative and qualitative reviews.
An interesting point to take away from the quantitative analysis is the difference between the
dominance of the western world in table 5 and the qualitative analysis, in which the significant role of
developing Asia in 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013 could also be identified. Expanding on this finding, a
graph was made of the amount of papers originating in different countries in each year from 1994 until
2012. Three further trends could be found in this graph. Firstly, the influence of authors working in the
US or the UK is decreasing. Secondly, ASCM literature from developing Asia is becoming more and
more abundant. And finally, the share of published literature from the western world by countries
other than the US and the UK is surpassing the share of the US and the UK.
The three points illustrate an issue that can also be related to the qualitative part of this review.
It seems, namely, that authors from developing Asia are more often