Uniting partners to cope with environmental uncertainty: Disentangling the role of social capital in developing supply chain agility

Abstract

Based on social capital theory, in this study, we investigate how a firm utilized social capital to coordinate partners in the achievement of supply chain agility under different levels of environmental uncertainty. We test the proposed hypotheses via a hierarchical regression analysis using questionnaire survey data collected from 190 firms in China. The empirical results show that cognitive, relational, and structural capital positively influence supply chain agility. Furthermore, environmental uncertainty positively moderates the positive relationship between relational capital and supply chain agility, whereas environmental uncertainty negatively moderates the positive roles of cognitive and structural capital. The findings suggest managers should adopt different strategies when leveraging social capital according to the business environment. In unpredictable and volatile business environments, managers should motivate their firms to embrace relational capital to obtain sufficient resources for achieving supply chain agility.