Accessing Antecedents of Supply Chain Flexibility and Supply Chain Integration

This paper empirically examines the impact of environmental uncertainty, IT enablers and interorganizational relationships on supply chain flexibility and supply chain integration. Based on the data collected from 196 organizations, multiple regression analyses are used to test the factors impacting supply chain flexibility and supply chain integration respectively. It was found that commitment of supply chain partners and shared vision between supply chain partners positively impact both customization flexibility, and volume and launch flexibility. In addition, volume and launch flexibility are also positively impacted by customer uncertainty and technology uncertainty. It was also found that supply chain integration is positively impacted by supply chain management tools and shared vision, and negatively impacted by supplier uncertainty. The results also show that supply chain flexibility and supply chain integration are not impacted by communication tools, enterprise resource planning tools and trust in supply chain partners. The implications of the findings were discussed at the end.