Examining Organizational Flexibility in an Interorganizational Context

The ability of an organization to be flexible is becoming increasingly important. Within the field of IS, interorganizational systems (IOS) have been proposed as an avenue towards flexibility. This paper proposes an interpretive approach to clarify the complex notion of flexibility and to analyse the impact of IOS on organizational flexibility. It presents a research framework and argues that a better understanding of the phenomenon under study can result by examining flexibility not only as a characteristic of the firm, but also as a property of the relationship between firms. Flexibility is perceived as being embedded in and influenced by the organizational/interorganizational context. It is also seen as a dynamic characteristic changing over time following and influencing the changes of context. Empirical work conducted in a grocery retail-supply chain, using Continuous Replenishment Program (CRP), an EDI-based ordering system, illustrates the paper’s argument.