Building Enterprise Systems Infrastructure Flexibility as Enabler of Organisational Agility: Empirical Evidence

Enterprise systems (ES) that capture the most advanced developments of information technology are becoming common fixtures in most organisations. However, how ES affect organizational agility (OA) has been less researched and the existing research remains equivocal. From the perspective that ES can positively contribute to OA, this research via theory-based model development and rigorous empirical investigation of the proposed model, has bridged significant research gaps and provided empirical evidence for, and insights into, the effect of ES on OA. The empirical results based on data collected from 179 large organizations in Australia and New Zealand which have implemented and used ES for at least one year show that organisations can achieve agility out of their ES in two ways: by developing ES technical competences to build ES-enabled capabilities that digitise their key sensing and responding processes; and when ES-enabled sensing and responding capabilities are aligned in relatively turbulent environment.