A review of research on supply chain adaptability: Opening the black box

Abstract

Supply chain adaptability is the least explored of the three revered Triple-A qualities (agility and alignment being the other two) and in the greatest need of a deeper understanding in the unpredictably evolving contemporary business environment. This study critically reviews the literature and makes three contributions. First, it outlines the different ways supply chain adaptability has been understood and describes the epistemological basis of this knowledge. Second, it synthesizes the findings into a theoretical model linking supply chain adaptability to its antecedents and outcomes. Third, despite its origins in a practitioner-focused journal, supply chain adaptability has largely been explored like a black box, with few insights into its workings or actionable recommendations for its creation. To this end, the study outlines an agenda for future research to deepen our understanding along the extant lines of inquiry and to broaden our investigation to cover new empirical foci to open the black box of supply chain adaptability.