Agile supply chain management: International differences in its identified enablers and outcomes

8/11/2019 Agile supply chain management: International differences in its identified enablers and outcomes

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Agile supply chain management: International

differences in its identified enablers and outcomes

Student name: Tom Krikke

Student number: 2056992

E-mail address: [email protected]

Name of the thesis supervisor: Drs. K. Heijnen

Faculty: FEWEB

Program: International Business Administration


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Purpose:The body of literature about agile supply chains has been growing since its conception in

1994. With it, the amount of identified enablers and outcomes of the technique has steadily been

increasing. A comprehensive study of these enablers and outcomes has, to my knowledge, never beenexecuted. The purpose of this literature review therefore is to study the international differences in

identified enablers and outcomes of agile supply chain management, in order to find whether there is

consensus within the field of research. A conclusion about the degree of consensus can provide

context to the done research, and can contribute possible ways in which the field of study could or

should continue.

Design/methodology/approach: This paper is a literature review of published articles about agile

supply chain management, based on a search for literature performed in the ISI Web of Science

database on April 10, 2013. The study is partitioned in a qualitative and quantitative section. The

qualitative section investigates the international differences in identified enablers and outcomes in 77

articles, published in 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013. The quantitative section aims to identify the trends

in the international sources of agile supply chain literature using 315 articles, published from 1994

until April 10, 2013.

Findings:In the case of enablers, authors from developing Asia focus more on issues within the

boundaries of firms or their departments, and authors from the western world are more interested in

enablers spanning the boundaries of firms and their departments. This leads one to believe that the

degree of consensus internationally regarding enablers is low. In case of outcomes, nothing can be said

about the degree of consensus. In addition to this, the influence of authors working in the US or the

UK is decreasing, literature from developing Asia is becoming more and more abundant, and the share

of published literature from the western world by countries other than the US and the UK is surpassing

the share of the US and the UK.

Conclusions:This study is limited by the scope of both the qualitative and quantitative parts. Other,

more valid conclusions might have been drawn if more literature would have been reviewed. The

described trends lead to a future where the field of agile supply chain management is likely to be

dominated by practical papers from developing Asia, rather than theoretical papers from the US and

the UK. It is important that the reasons for and the consequences of the apparent trends are

investigated, in addition to reconciling conflicting views of the topic. This might create a body of

knowledge about agile supply chains that focuses on all aspects of the technique, can be evaluated,

and can be put in context.

Keywords: Agile supply chain management, agile manufacturing, enablers, outcomes, international

differences


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Since the early 1990s, the concept of supply chain management has gained popularity (Cooper et al.,

1997; Mentzer et al., 2001). This is reflected in the exponential increase in the amount of literature on

this subject in the past two decades. During this period, multiple methods and techniques emerged

within the discipline. Lean and agile supply chain management (ASCM) are examples of these

methods. This paper will focus on the literature regarding agile supply chains and will provide an

encompassing review of this body of literature covering several of the concepts aspects.

In this review, the definition of supply chain management coined by members of the Council

of Supply Chain Management Professionals is used. This council defines supply chain management as

encompassing the planning and management of all activities involved in sourcing and procurement,

conversion, and all logistics management activities. According to this leading association of supply

chain professionals, supply chain management also includes coordination and collaboration with

channel partners, which can be suppliers, intermediaries, third party service providers, and customers.

(Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals, 2013).

The concept of agility in the supply chain, the subject of this study, was also introduced in the

early 1990s (Kidd, 1995; Nagel and Dove, 1991). Naylor et al. (1999), however, stated a

comprehensive definition of agility for the first time. They defined the term as using market

knowledge and a virtual corporation to exploit profitable opportunities in a volatilemarket place. The

emphasis on the word volatilewas further clarified by Martin Christopher, who identified flexibility as

a key factor in the concept of agility (Christopher, 2000). Flexibility in this sense refers to a

companys ability to meet the demands of customers for ever-shorter delivery times and to ensure

that supply can be synchronized to meet the peaks and troughs of demand (Christopher, 2000).

Responsiveness is thus an important element of the agile supply chain.

This literature review will investigate whether there is consensus within the literature about

ASCM regarding the enablers and outcomes of its use. In special, this paper will examine whether the

differences found within the literature exist along international borders. These international differencesare interesting to research, since the economic center of gravity in the world we live in is shifting.

International differences in the literature about ASCM might therefore say something about the future

of research assessing agile supply chains. Ifstructural holesare identified within the network of

literature, this could provide avenues for further research, which could help create a common body of

knowledge. The purpose of this paper can thus be captured in the following research question:

What are the international differences in the research of agile supply chains regarding the method's

identified enablers and outcomes?


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In order to fully answer this question, this study is divided in a qualitative and a quantitative literature

review. Both parts of the study use papers found in a structured search for ASCM literature.

The qualitative section will examine the two highlighted aspects of literature about agile

supply chains. First, the international differences in the identified enablers of agile supply chains will

be assessed. Then, the same will be done for the identified outcomes of agile supply chains.

The quantitative section will identify the international sources of agile supply chain literature

and empirical research on the topic. Here, the most influential references and the origins of ASCM

literature throughout the years will also be investigated. This part of the review is used in an attempt to

clarify and explain some of the conclusions of the qualitative analysis.

The paper will end with a discussion of the results of the literature review and several

propositions about the international differences in the research of agile supply chains. In addition to

this, the limitations of the study will be discussed and suggestions for further research will be named.

Finally, a conclusion to the work will be described.


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In order to do the qualitative literature review, a complete view of the existing literature about agile

supply chains needed to be gained. This oversight was obtained by searching the ISI Web of Science

database.

In this database, the search was limited to the areas ofBusiness & Economicsand Operations

Research & Management Science. This efficiently excluded possibly irrelevant literature from other

areas of research. The topics used in the search were Supply ChainandManufacturing. The reason for

this is that literature from before the concept of supply chain management was popular needed to be

included. In older literature, namely, the term agile manufacturing was more often used than the term

agile supply chain management. Using both topics thus increased the scope of the review. The third

used topic wasAgile. This word was used in order to focus the search on the research field of agile

supply chain management as opposed to supply chain management in general. The addition of

keywords such asResponsiveor On-Demandwas considered, but the use of these words greatly

polluted the dataset. Hence, the following search string was used: (SU=(Business & Economics OR

Operations Research & Management Science) AND TS=(Supply Chain OR Manufacturing) AND

TS=(Agile)). The search was not restricted in terms of time span or databases, and it was conducted on

10April 2013.

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The search produced 315 papers, a list of which can be viewed in the excel supplement to this paper.

Due to time constraints, it was not possible to analyze all of the articles. The decision was therefore

made to perform the qualitative analysis on the papers written in the years 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013.This resulted in 77 articles. The assumption was made that analyzing the most recent papers would

result in a complete view of agile supply chains, since the field of research would have matured in

comparison with the years before. It is, however, possible that this selection resulted in a loss of

information only published before 2010. The complete scope was retained for the quantitative

analysis. A list of the 77 papers, their IDs, titles, main authors, the publishing journals, and their years

of publication is shown in appendix 1. This list also shows whether outcomes or enablers were

extracted from a specific article.

In figure 1, the journals with a paper count of more than 5 are shown for the entire dataset of

315 articles. As can be seen in the figure, three journals combined published nearly 50% of all the


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papers in the field of research from 1994 until 2013. These journals are theInternational Journal of

Production Research, theInternational Journal of Production Economics, and theInternational

Journal of Operations Production Management.

Figure 1: The journals with the most articles about agile supply chain management from 1994 until

2013 in the dataset.

The entire set of papers spanned the period from 1994 until 2013. A diagram showing the number of

publications per year is shown below as figure 2. The exact year of publication per article can be

found in the appendix. As can be seen in the figure, the number of published items per year has been

increasing since 1994, with peaks in 1997, 1999, 2002, 2007, 2009, and 2011. It seems that thenumber 2012, the last full year covered in this review, represents a trough or the beginning of a

decrease in the amount of published ASCM papers. The number for 2013 is not representative for the

full year, since the search was performed at 10 April 2013. As mentioned before, only the articles

published in 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013 are examined in the qualitative section of this paper. The

number of publications in those years were, respectively, 24, 32, 19, and 2.


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Figure 2: Number of published items per year in the dataset.

In the process of narrowing down the analysis to the 77 most recent articles, the list of most important

journals also changed, naturally. Below, in figure 3, all journals that published 2 or more articles about

ASCM in the years from 2010 until 2013 are shown.

Figure 3: The journals with the most articles about agile supply chain management from 2010 until

2013 in the dataset.

It becomes clear in the diagram that the hierarchy of most important journals has changed. Although

the top three journals still combine for roughly half of all publications about agile supply chains, the

composition and point of gravity in the top three is different. TheInternational Journal of Production


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Researchnow makes up for almost one third of the fields publications. In addition to this, the

International Journal of Production Economicsis still ranked second on the list, while Supply Chain

Management: An International Journalhas occupied the third place. It is clear in this analysis that the

International Journal of Production Researchand theInternational Journal of Production Economics

are the most important journals in the field of ASCM. The dominance of these two journals has not

changed over the last years.

When shifting the view to the main authors in the field of research, one can see that from both

the period from 1994 until 2013, and 2010 until 2013, Vinodh was the most active author in the field

of ASCM. Most of Vinodhs contributions were published in the years from 2010 until 2013,

however, with collaboration in 10 articles, or roughly 13% of the total. Vinodh works at the Indian

National Institute of Technology (Vinodh and Aravindraj, 2013). The reason for the high amount of

papers written by this author is that Vinodh has published and tested a framework of enablers of

ASCM. Every test or case study was published separately in collaboration with different co-authors.

Naturally, this way of working amounts to a large number of articles published by an author.

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For the qualitative analysis, the identified enablers, outcomes, and country of origin for each paper

were extracted. The detailed results of this procedure are shown in the excel supplement to this paper.

An enabler was defined as a factor that enables a supply chain to be agile. An outcome was defined asa result of a supply chain being agile for individual companies that form the supply chain or the

supply chain as a whole. Finally, the country of origin of a paper was defined as the institution to

which the author(s) of a paper is/are linked. The latter is always mentioned on the first page of an

article.

The summarized results of this procedure are included in this paper as appendix 1. Of the 77

papers examined for the qualitative analysis, 21 were not relevant for the analysis of enablers and

outcomes, as these articles did not name any enablers or outcomes of ASCM. Many of these papers

described leagility, a supply chain concept that mixes both the lean and agile techniques. As this

review only entails papers describing ASCM, leagility will not be considered in the rest of this report.

Three of the 77 articles were not available. This left 53 papers, of which 31 described at least one

outcome of agile supply chains, while 49 described at least one enabler of the technique. In figures 4

and 5, the countries of origin for papers that named enablers or outcomes are shown.


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Figure 4: The number of papers naming at least one outcome per country.

Figure 5: The number of papers naming at least one enabler per country.

Figure 4 shows that the three main contributors to ASCM literature regarding the techniques

outcomes in the period from 2010 until 2013 are India, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

These three countries have produced the overwhelming majority of outcomes in ASCM literature.

Figure 5 shows a lead by the same three countries. In this case, however, the United Kingdom

has contributed most to ASCM literature regarding its enablers, followed by India and the United

States. It is also interesting to see here that the gap between the third and fourth place is not as large as

is the case in the literature regarding agile supply chains outcomes. The difference in the case of

enablers is 3, whereas the same gap is 5 in the case of outcomes.

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When one sums up the numbers in both figure 4 and figure 5, one sees that these numbers do

not add up to 31 and 49, respectively. The reason for this is that, in several articles, multiple authors

with varying nationalities collaborated. In these cases, that specific article is counted as a single entry

for each contributing nation.

It is important to mention here that both in case of enablers and outcomes, all but one of the

Indian articles are written by Vinodh.

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In this section, the results of the analysis regarding the origin of ASCMs enablers will first be

examined, after which the focus will be shifted to ASCMs outcomes.

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As mentioned above, an enabler was defined as a factor that enables a supply chain to be agile. Using

this definition, it was found that 49 of the 77 articles about ASCM published from 2010 until 2013

described at least one enabler. All other papers did not name any enablers. The enablers, the IDs of the

papers that discussed them, and the origin of these articles are shown in appendix 2. The table shown

in appendix 2 was too large to be placed conveniently inside this papers text.

Appendix 2 shows 9 categories of enablers, which were inspired by the 10 attributes of an

agile organization by Yusuf et al. (1999). Even though this publication is relatively old and does not

lie within the scope of this review, it is still cited often. The article is one of the top ten cited articles

within the field (shown in table 5), and has accounted for an average of 7 percent of all citations of the

top ten each year from 2006 until 2013. This means that the attributes described by these authors are

still relevant. The categories named by the authors in this article are integration, competence, team

building, technology, quality, change, partnership, market, education, and welfare. A table extracted

from the article by Yusuf et al. (1999) is shown below as figure 6.


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Figure 6: The 10 attributes of an agile organization by Yusuf et al. (1999).

The enablers described by the examined papers did not fall into all of the categories named by Yusuf

et al. (1999). This means that the attributes of an agile organization as described in this publication do

not completely correspond with the view of authors publishing from 2010 until 2013. For this reason,

not every category described by Yusuf et al. (1999) was used, some categories were added, and the

scope of several other categories was adjusted. The ten attributes of an agile organization by Yusuf et

al. (1999) were therefore rather used as an instrument to help orientating than as a manual set in stone.

The resulting 9 categories of enablers are thus the following:

Enablers regardingA focus on people/employees/organization;

Team working;

Integration with supply chain partners;

Managerial enablers and a focus on change;

Afocus on learning/education;

Technology; Afocus on the product, production, and logistics;


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Internal integration;

And regardinga focus on the market/environment.

Appendix 2 shows that all of these categories contain enablers, while some also contain sub-enablers.

Not every category contains the same amount of enablers, though. Team Working, for example, only

contains two enablers, whilefocus on the product, production, and logisticscontains 14 enablers and

16 sub-enablers.

In the second column, all paper IDs are shown, in order to enable a search in appendix 1. In

the third column, the geographical origin of the articles naming a specific outcome of ASCM is

named. Whenever a number between parentheses is added, this means that multiple papers from that

specific country describe the outcome in question. The fact that Vinodh is an author of multiple

articles in the dataset was mentioned before. Especially the articles with IDs 10, 17, 72, and 73 are

very similar, as they all name exactly the same enablers. In order to make sure the analysis stays

balanced, any combination of two, three, or all of these four articles was counted as a single case. This

was not done for any other author, since there is no author with more than three contributions in this

time span.

The issue of interest here is whether the identified enablers of ASCM differ per country. In

order to analyze this, one needs to find out whether the proportions of the origins of articles naming

specific enablers are different from the overall proportions of the origins of articles naming enablers.

One has to calculate several things in order to analyze the differences between countries in the

identified enablers of ASCM. It is impossible to draw relevant conclusions on the basis of an

examination of individual countries, so the spectrum of originating countries was divided into four

groups. These groups are based on GDP per capita according to The World Factbook (2013), in

addition to the countrys geographical position. The first group is developing Asia, which encompasses

the literature from China, India, and Iran. The second group is developed Asia,and contains all papers

from Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. The third group is the western world, which

contains the United States, Canada, Australia, and all of Europe with the exclusion of Russia. The last

group is the rest of the world. This group only contains the literature from Russia and South Africa. Inappendix 2, 122 entries were made for articles that can be put in the developing Asia group. Twenty-

five entries in the dataset belong to the second group, developed Asia, while 163 cases are classified as

coming from the western world. Only 9 cases come from countries that are part of the fourth group,

the rest of the world. The sum of the number of entries is thus 319.

The overall proportions of the origins of articles naming enablers of ASCM are shown in table

1 and figure 7. These overall proportions form the expectation for the proportions of the respective

categories.


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Groups Proportions

Developing Asia 122/319=0,38

Developed Asia 25/319=0,08

Western world 163/319=0,51

Rest of the world 9/319=0,03

Table 1: The overall proportions of the origins of articles naming enablers of ASCM, which form the

expectation for the proportions per category of enablers.

Figure 7: The overall proportions of the origins of articles naming enablers of ASCM, which form the

expectation for the proportions per category of enablers.

It becomes clear in table 1 and figure 7 that slightly more than half of the cases in which enablers were

identified in this study originated in the western world. Developing Asia also forms a large source, to

which around two fifths of the cases can be attributed. Developed Asia and the rest of the world both

only represent small sources in this part of the review. The numbers in table 1 will be compared with

the proportions of the origin of articles naming individual categories of enablers. In this way, it can be

assessed whether authors from certain parts of the world identify specific enablers more often than

authors working at an institution in another group. The findings regarding this question will be

presented in the order of the categories shown in appendix 2. For each category, a pie chart of the

proportions is described. In each pie chart, the number of cases is shown in the relevant area of the

chart itself, while the proportions are shown between parentheses in the legend.

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Figure 8: Proportions of enablers regarding a focus on people, employees, and the organization.

Firstly, a look is taken at the enablers regarding a focus on people, employees, and the organization

Figure 8 clearly shows a large difference with the overall proportions in the cases of the developing

Asia and western world groups. Authors from developing Asia thus more often identify enablers

regarding a focus on people, employees and the organization than their western counterparts.

Figure 9: Proportions of enablers regarding team working.

Next, ASCMs enablers regarding team working are considered. Again, the figure 9 indicates a large

difference with the overall proportions of the developing Asia and western world groups. One can thus

say that authors who work in developing Asia more often identify enablers regarding team working

than their western counterparts. It is important to mention here, however, that the number of 7 papers

mentioning enablers regarding team working is very low. This might make the conclusions in this

aspect less valid.

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Figure 10: Proportions of enablers regarding integration with supply chain partners.

Thirdly, enablers regarding integration with supply chain partners are examined. In this category, less

large differences with the overall proportions can be found. The amount of enablers of ASCM

regarding integration with supply chain partners described by authors working in developing Asia is

slightly lower than expected, while the same number is slightly higher than expected for authors from

the western world. It seems, however, that authors from different countries all equally recognize the

importance of integration with supply chain partners.

Figure 11: Proportions of enablers regarding management and a focus on change.

If one shifts the view to the fourth enabling factor, management and a focus on change, one can see a

clear difference with the overall proportions in the case of developing Asia and the western world.

This difference implies that authors working in developing Asia identify enablers of ASCM regarding

management and a focus on change more often than expected, while authors from the western world

describe the same enablers less often than expected.

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Figure 12: Proportions of enablers regarding a focus on learning and education.

The fifth category of enablers is the focus on learning and education. This category again shows a

difference, implying that authors from developing Asia identify enablers regarding learning and

education more often than authors from the western world. One has to be cautious in this case,

however, since a number of 9 entries is very low, which makes conclusions in this case less valid.

Figure 13: Proportions of enablers regarding technology.

The category analyzed next contains the technologic enablers of ASCM. The proportions visible in

figure 13 are different from the overall proportions, although the difference is not large. The

proportions show that authors from developing Asia are more inclined to identify technologic enablers

than they are expected to be. Authors working in the western world identified slightly less technologic

enablers than expected, but this difference is very small. Notable absentees in this category are the

countries from the developed Asia-group. Authors from this group did not name enablers regarding

technology, when the expectation would be 2 entries from this part of the world.

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Figure 14: Proportions of enablers regarding the product, its production, and the logistics system.

The seventh category that is examined is the category that contains all enablers regarding the product,

its production, and the logistics system. These enablers often overlapped, which is the reason why they

are categorized together. This category does not show any major differences with the overall

proportions, although several interesting points can be named. Authors working in developing Asia

identified enablers of ASCM regarding the product, its production, and logistics less often than

expected. On the other hand, authors from the rest of the world described enablers in this category

twice as often as expected. The latter statistic is based on a very low number, however, and this could

decrease its validity. The overall conclusion in this case is that the importance of enablers regarding

product, production, and logistics seems to be recognized equally worldwide.

Figure 15: Proportions of enablers regarding internal integration.

Next, the enablers regarding internal integration are assessed. The proportions visible in figure 15

differ from the overall proportions on the points of the number of entries from developing Asia and the

western world. It seems that authors from the western world recognize the importance of enablers of

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ASCM regarding internal integration more often than expected, while their colleagues from

developing Asia recognize the importance of these enablers less often than expected.

Figure 16: Proportions of enablers regarding a focus on the market and environment.

Finally, the enablers of ASCM regarding a focus on the market and environment were investigated.

The differences in this case are quite small. It seems that enablers regarding a focus on the market and

environment are identified in equal amounts internationally, although the western world identifies

these enablers slightly more often than expected.

In table 2, the findings are summarized in the order of investigation.

Category of ASCM

enablers

Findings

A focus on

people/employees/

organization

Authors from developing Asia identify enablers in this category more often than their

western counterparts.

Team working Authors who work in developing Asia more often identify enablers in this category than

their western counterparts. The number of papers naming enablers in this category is very

low, however.

Integration with supply

chain partners

The amount of enablers in this category described by authors working in developing Asia is

slightly lower than expected, while the same number is slightly higher than expected for

authors from the western world. It seems, however, that authors from different countries all

equally recognize the importance of enablers in this category.

Managerial enablers and

a focus on change

Authors working in developing Asia identify enablers in this category more often than

expected, while authors from the western world describe the same enablers less often than

expected.

A focus on Authors from developing Asia identify enablers in this category more often than authors

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learning/education from the western world. One has to be cautious in this case, however, since the number of 9

entries is very low.

Technology Authors from developing Asia are more inclined to identify enablers in this category than

they are expected to be. Authors working in the western world identified slightly less

technologic enablers than expected, but this difference is very small. Notable absentees in

this category are the countries from the developed Asia-group, who did not name enablers

regarding technology, when the expectation would be 2 entries.

A focus on the product,

production, and logistics

Authors working in developing Asia identified enablers in this category less often than

expected. Authors from the rest of the world described enablers in this category twice as

often as expected. The latter statistic is based on a very low number, however, and this

could decrease its validity. The overall conclusion in this case is that the importance of

enablers in this category seems to be recognized equally worldwide.

Internal integration It seems that authors from the western world recognize the importance of enablers in this

category more often than expected, while their colleagues from developing Asia recognize

the importance of these enablers less often than expected.

A focus on the

market/environment

The differences in this case are quite small. It seems that enablers in this category are

identified in equal amounts internationally, although the western world identifies these

enablers slightly more often than expected.

Table 2: Summary of the conclusions about the international differences in the identified enablers of

ASCM.

The limitations of this study have to be clarified at this point. All the conclusions in table 2 are based

on the performed search in the ISI Web of Science article database. As this search does not cover the

entire body of ASCM literature published in 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013, the conclusions become less

meaningful.

Further conclusions and implications of the analysis regarding the international differences in

the identified enablers of agile supply chains are given in section 4, which discusses this papers

findings and suggestions for further research.

;1;1; 4*+&5*#+9'*#% 69((&5&*8&, 9* +H& 96&*+9(9&6 '7+8'I&, '( #L9%& ,7DD%K 8H#9*,

As mentioned before, an outcome was defined as a result of a supply chain being agile for individual

companies that form the supply chain or the supply chain as a whole . Using this definition, it was

found that 31 of the 77 articles published from 2010 until 2013 described at least one outcome. The

other papers did not explicitly mention outcomes of ASCM, but often did implicitly include them by

defining ASCM as, for example, using market knowledge and a virtual corporation to exploit


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profitable opportunities in a volatilemarket place, which is the definition coined by Naylor et al.

(1999). The use of this definition or similar ones implies the assumption that an agile supply chain is

better able to compete in volatile markets than other supply chain techniques. It is thus important to

realize that virtually any paper concerning ASCM assumes the following:An agile supply chain is

more responsive and thus better able to function in a volatile environment than an non-agile supply

chain.

In this literature review, the focus does not lie on implied outcomes, but rather in outcomes

that were explicitly mentioned and based on empirical evidence. Using this criterion, one finds that 31

papers described at least one such outcome. These outcomes, the IDs of the articles that discussed

them, and the origin of the articles are shown in appendix 3.

Appendix 3 shows the following 9 categories of outcomes:

Organizationaloutcomes;

Production-process-relatedoutcomes;

Product-relatedoutcomes;

Performance-relatedoutcomes;

Cost-relatedoutcomes;

Uncertainty-relatedoutcomes;

Increased flexibility;

Increased responsiveness;

Andstrategic outcomes.

These 9 categories contain 21 outcomes and 4 sub-outcomes, most of which are positive. Outcomes

have been allocated to categories in order to enable the more effective drawing of conclusions. In the

second column, all paper IDs are shown, in order to enable a search in appendix 1. In the third column,

the geographical origin of the articles naming a specific outcome of ASCM is named. Whenever a

number between parentheses is added, this means that multiple papers from that specific country

describe the outcome in question. When examining enablers, any combination of papers 10, 17, 72,and 73 was counted as a single case, but, since the outcomes in these papers are dissimilar, the articles

can be counted separately in this part of the review.

Two outcomes, increased flexibilityand increased responsiveness, form their own categories,

since they cannot be allocated to one of the other categories, and because these two outcomes are

described often. Only two outcomes of ASCM, higher costsand theincreased amount of waste, are

negative. These outcomes, however, are only mentioned twice and once, respectively. It is clear in the

table that some positive outcomes are mentioned more often than others, and that the geographical

origin of these outcomes is often dissimilar. The outcome of ASCM that is described most is increased

responsiveness, which is mentioned in 13 articles. The ability to shorten lead times,increased


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flexibility, and the ability to deal with an uncertain environment or marketare also mentioned in 9, 8,

and 7 articles, respectively. 11 of the outcomes and 8 of the sub-outcomes are only mentioned once or

twice.

The categories of outcomes of ASCM that are mentioned most areproduction-process-

related,product-related, and uncertainty-relatedoutcomes, in addition to increased responsiveness.

The other five categories are described less frequently.

The issue of interest here is whether the identified outcomes of ASCM differ per country. In

order to analyze this, one needs to find out whether the proportions of the origins of articles naming

specific outcomes are different from the overall proportions of the origins of articles naming

outcomes.

The spectrum of originating countries was again separated into the four groups described in

section 2.2.1. In appendix 3, 36 entries were made for articles that can be put in the developing Asia

group. Eight entries in the dataset belong to the second group, developed Asia, while 64 cases are

classified as coming from the western world. No cases come from countries that are part of the fourth

group, the rest of the world, so this group will not be considered in this analysis. The sum of the

number of entries is 108.

The overall proportions of the origins of articles naming outcomes of ASCM are shown in

table 3 and figure 17. These overall proportions form the expectation for the proportions of the

respective categories.

Groups Proportions

Developing Asia 36/108=0,33

Developed Asia 8/108=0,08

Western world 64/108=0,59

Table 3: The overall proportions of the origins of articles naming outcomes of ASCM, which form the

expectation for the proportions per category of outcomes.


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Figure 17: The overall proportions of the origins of articles naming outcomes of ASCM, which form

the expectation for the proportions per category of outcomes.

As can be seen in table 3 and figure 17, the western world forms the largest cluster when it comes to

specifying outcomes of ASCM, as roughly three fifths of the total can be attributed to this category.

Developing Asia is the next largest group, being the source of one third of the provided cases of

described outcomes. Developed Asia forms a small group, as less than one tenth of the total amount of

the total amount of outcomes can be attributed to this group. The rest of the world, containing Russia

and South Africa, is not represented in this part of the paper. The numbers in table 3 will be compared

with the proportions of the origin of articles naming individual categories of outcomes. In this way,

one can find out whether authors from certain parts of the world identify specific outcomes more often

than authors working at an institution in another group. The findings regarding this question will be

presented in the order of the categories shown in appendix 3. For each category, a pie chart of the

proportions is described. In each pie chart, the number of cases is shown in the relevant area of the

chart itself, while the proportions are shown between parentheses in the legend.

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Figure 18: Proportions of outcomes regarding organization.

Firstly, a look is taken at the category of organizational outcomes. In this case, only three entries of

outcomes were made, one for each of the three groups. Developing Asia, developed Asia, and the

western world all thus provided 0,33 of the total amount of entries. Since the number is so low, it is

impossible to draw a valid conclusion from this examination.

Figure 19: Proportions of outcomes regarding the production process.

Next, the focus is shifted to the production-process-related outcomes of ASCM. It is clear in figure 19

that the proportion of entries regarding production-process-related outcomes made by authors working

in developing Asia is higher than expected, while the proportion of entries made by western authors is

lower than expected. It thus seems that more weight is given in developing Asia to production-

process-related outcomes of ASCM than in the western world.

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Figure 20: Proportions of outcomes regarding the product.

Thirdly, examine product-related outcomes are examined. The findings in figure 20 are in line with the

expectations, and it thus seems that product-related outcomes are equally valued internationally. It is

interesting to notice, however, that authors working in developed Asia did not make not an entry in

this case while at least one description was expected from this group.

Figure 21: Proportions of outcomes regarding performance.

The fourth category, performance-related outcomes, is next in line. Only 5 cases of authors describing

outcomes in this category were found. The cases all came from authors working in the western world.

Even though the amount of entries is very low, it is interesting to see that no author from developing

Asia made a contribution to this category. It thus seems that performance-related outcomes are more

valued among western authors. Drawing conclusions on this limited amount of data is dangerous,

however, as they may not be valid.

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Figure 22: Proportions of outcomes regarding cost.

Next, cost-related outcomes of ASCM are considered. In total, 10 entries of cost-related outcomes

were made. Five of these were made by authors working in developing Asia, and 5 of these were made

by authors from the western world. It thus seems that authors from developing Asia are more inclined

to identify cost-related outcomes of ASCM than their western colleagues. However, once again, the

number of entries in this case is quite low, so any conclusion may be invalid.

Figure 23: Proportions of outcomes regarding uncertainty.

The sixth category is made up of uncertainty-related outcomes. The proportions visible in figure 23

show a distribution that is very different from the overall proportions, especially in the case of authors

from the western world and developing Asia. It thus seems that authors in the western world value

uncertainty-related outcomes more than their counterparts from developing Asia.

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Figure 24: Proportions of outcomes regarding increased flexibility.

Increased flexibility is the next category in the analysis. The numbers shown in figure 24 do not differ

greatly from the expectations. An interesting point, though, is the high amount of entries made by

authors working in developed Asia. In spite of this, it seems that increased flexibility is an outcome of

ASCM that is identified in equal numbers in the different international groups.

Figure 25: Proportions of outcomes regarding increased responsiveness.

The eighth category looks at increased responsiveness. From the proportions shown in figure 25, one

can conclude that authors working in developing Asia identified increased responsiveness as an

outcome more often than expected, while authors from the western world identified this outcome less

often than expected.

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Figure 26: Proportions of outcomes regarding strategy.

Finally, the strategic outcomes of ASCM are investigated. The proportions shown in figure 26 are

close to the expectation, but conclusions might be invalid because of the low number of entries in this

case. It seems, however, that strategic outcomes of ASCM are equally valued in the different

international groups.

In table 4, the findings are summarized in the order of investigation.

Category of ASCM

outcomes

Findings

Organizational outcomes It is impossible to draw a valid conclusion from this examination, since the number

of entries is too low.

Production-process-

related outcomes

The proportion of entries made by authors working in developing Asia is higher

than expected, while the proportion of entries made by western authors is lower

than expected. It thus seems that more weight is given in developing Asia to this

category of outcomes than in the western world.

Product-related outcomes It seems that outcomes in this category are equally valued internationally. It is

interesting to notice, however, that authors working in developed Asia did not makean entry in this case while at least one description was expected from this group.

Performance-related

outcomes

Even though the amount of entries is very low, it is interesting to see that no author

from developing Asia made a contribution to this category. It therefore seems that

outcomes in this category are more valued among western authors. Drawing

conclusions on this limited amount of data is dangerous, however, as they may not

be valid.

Cost-related outcomes It seems that authors from developing Asia are more inclined to identify outcomes

in this category than their western colleagues. However, once again, the number of

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entries in this case is quite low, so any conclusion may be invalid.

Uncertainty-related

outcomes

The proportions show a distribution that is very different from the overall

proportions, especially in the case of authors from the western world and

developing Asia. It thus seems that authors in the western world value outcomes in

this category more than their counterparts from developing Asia.

Increased flexibility An interesting point here is the high amount of entries made by authors working in

developed Asia. In spite of this, it seems that this outcome of ASCM is identified in

equal numbers in the different international groups.

Increased responsiveness Authors working in developing Asia identified this outcome more often than

expected, while authors from the western world identified this outcome less often

than expected.

Strategic outcomes It seems that this category of outcomes is equally valued in the different

international groups. However, our conclusions might be invalid because of the low

number of entries in this case.

Table 4: Summary of the conclusions about the international differences in the identified outcomes of

ASCM.

The limitations of this study again have to be clarified at this point. All the conclusions in table 4 are

based on the performed search in the ISI Web of Science article database. As this search does not

cover the entire body of ASCM literature published in 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013, the conclusionsbecome less meaningful.

In addition to the conclusions regarding individual categories of outcomes, two other relevant

conclusions about the negative outcomes of ASCM can also be made.

Firstly, it is clear in the analysis that little attention is paid to the negative outcomes of ASCM.

Only two articles, 27 and 30, that have their origins in Poland, The Netherlands, and the United

Kingdom mention disadvantages of the technique. Furthermore, these papers combined only name two

negative outcomes of agile supply chains, while one can imagine there are many more. One might

argue, however, that the disadvantages of ASCM are the advantages of other supply chain techniques,

such as lean or leagile supply chain management. In spite of this, a deliberate, empirical search for the

negative sides of agile supply chains is missing, and this forms a gap in the field of knowledge about

ASCM. Research into this topic could thus provide a significant leap forward in the field of ASCM

literature.

Secondly, it is interesting to see that no author working in countries belonging to the fourth

group, the rest of the world, has made a contribution to the literature identifying outcomes of ASCM.

An obvious reason for this is that the number of articles that come from these countries is very small

in this review. If one looks at the number of entries regarding ASCMs enablers, however, one can see

that 3% of the total came from authors working in countries belonging to the fourth group. If this is


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extrapolated to the entries regarding the outcomes of the supply chain technique, one sees that a

minimum of 3 entries from these countries would be expected. This is not the case, and, though the

number of possible entries might be too small to yield a valid conclusion, this could mean that

literature from countries that belong to the fourth group does not focus on the outcomes of agile

supply chains.

Further conclusions and implications of the analysis regarding the international differences in

the identified outcomes of agile supply chains are given in section 4, which discusses this papers

findings and suggestions for further research.

21 9+&5#+75& 0&=9&?

In order to gain knowledge about the development of the field of ASCM research on its own and inrelation with the topics that were discussed in the qualitative part of this paper, a quantitative review

was used. The goal of this analysis is to clarify and explain some of the conclusions of the qualitative

section. This section does not focus on the many individual categories of enablers and outcomes

described above, but rather on the complete view of the origin of enablers and outcomes in general.

The questions this section will try to answer are therefore the following:

What is the degree of consensus in the field of ASCM research regarding enablers and

outcomes?

What are the origins of the most influentialpapers in ASCM?

Where does ASCM literature in general come from?

Where has ASCM literature in general come from over time?

And judging from the answers to these four questions: Are the overall proportions visible in

the qualitative section in table 1 and 3 as expected or not?

213 G&+H'6 #*6 /#ID%& ,&%&8+9'*

For the quantitative analysis, the entire dataset of 315 papers was considered. This group of articles

was described in section 2.1. Based on this dataset, a few calculations were performed. All of these

calculations were facilitated by theAnalyze Resultsoption of ISI Web of Knowledge and performed

using Microsoft Excel. The relevant tables and graphs that resulted from these calculations are shown

below.


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21; -*#%K,9, #*6 0&,7%+,

In this section, short descriptions of the performed calculations and analyses will be given, after which

the results of these analyses will be presented. This process will be repeated per analysis.

Firstly, the frequency of citation per article was investigated. According to ISI Web of

Science, as of 1 June 2013, the 315 articles in the dataset were cited a total of 6429 times. A measure

of how heavily this network of citations is centered on an influential group can be taken by looking at

the top 10 percent of most cited articles. If one sets off the amount of citations of these papers to the

total, the degree to which there is consensus within the field of ASCM research can be assessed. In

this case, a logical cut off point can be found at 29 papers, or 9,2% of the total. The top 29 papers have

all been cited a minimum of 50 times, and together accounted for a total of 3331 citations. This means

that 51,8% of all the citations from articles describing ASCM come from 29 papers, which indicates a

relatively high degree of consensus within the field. The high percentage is not remarkable, however,

because many of the 29 articles are papers that describe ASCM in general, and are often cited in

introductions, for example. Using this statistic, it is therefore not possible to conclude about the degree

of consensus in the field of ASCM research about the techniques enablers and outcomes. It can

merely be concluded that a high degree of consensus could be found when looking at the definition of

ASCM and its basic characteristics.

Another measure of consensus can be taken by looking at the top 10 cited papers. These

papers are shown in table 5, and accounted for 2067 citations, or 32,15% of the total. It thus again

seems that there is a small group of influential papers in the field.

Authors Title Journal Year

Citation

Count

Fisher, ML

What is the right supply chain for

your product?

HARVARD BUSINESS

REVIEW 1997 532

Christopher, M

The agile supply chain -

Competing in volatile markets

INDUSTRIAL MARKETING

MANAGEMENT 2000 250Naylor, JB;

Naim, MM;

Berry, D

Leagility: Integrating the lean and

agile manufacturing paradigms in

the total supply chain

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL

OF PRODUCTION

ECONOMICS 1999 249

Lee, HL The triple-A supply chain

HARVARD BUSINESS

REVIEW 2004 193

Da Silveira, G;

Borenstein, D;

Fogliatto, FS

Mass customization: Literature

review and research directions


OF PRODUCTION

ECONOMICS 2001 170


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Meade, LM;

Sarkis, J

Analyzing organizational project

alternatives for agile

manufacturing processes: an

analytical network approach


OF PRODUCTION

RESEARCH 1999 164

Gunasekaran, A

Agile manufacturing: enablers and

an implementation framework


OF PRODUCTION

RESEARCH 1998 153

Yusuf, YY;

Sarhadi, M;

Gunasekaran, A

Agile manufacturing: The drivers,

concepts and attributes


OF PRODUCTION

ECONOMICS 1999 146

Gunasekaran, A

Agile manufacturing: A

framework for research and

development


OF PRODUCTION

ECONOMICS 1999 121

Gunasekaran,

Angappa; Lai,

Kee-Hung;

Cheng, T. C.

Edwin

Responsive supply chain: A

competitive strategy in a

networked economy

OMEGA-INTERNATIONAL

JOURNAL OF

MANAGEMENT SCIENCE 2008 89

Table 5: The top 10 most cited ASCM articles published from 1994 until 2013 as of 1 June 2013.

If one uses the country groups described in section 2.2.1, it becomes clear that only the fifth article in

table 5 was written by authors that did not work in the western world. This article, written by Da

Silveira, Borenstein, and Fogliatto, has its origins in Argentina and Brazil, countries that did not

appear in the qualitative analysis. All other articles were authored by scholars working in the western

world, with non-western co-authors only participating in the tenth paper. This creates a clear view of

the dominance of the western world when it comes to the most cited articles in the field of ASCM

research. Even though this fact refers to the most cited articles in generalas opposed to the most cited

articles naming enablers or outcomes, table 5 presents a very interesting reality.

The dominance of the western world did not appear as strongly in the qualitative analysis,

where the significant role of developing Asia could also be identified. This fact can have two possible

reasons; either literature from developing Asia has become more dominant over the years; or western

authors do not describe enablers or outcomes of ASCM, and rather discuss the topic in general terms.

Both options could explain the difference found in this review: The dominance of the western world in

the field of ASCM research in general on the one hand, and the significant amount of both enablers

and outcomes mentioned in articles originating in developing Asia in 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013.

The validity of either of these options will now be assessed. The way in which this is done is

by recording the amount of papers originating in different countries per year, from 1994 until 2013.


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The top 14 publishing countries, which all account for a minimum of 6 published articles about

ASCM, are shown in table 6. The number of articles originating in a specific country includes co-

authored papers. Because of this, the total amount of articles amounts to 386.

Country Amount of published articles

USA 111

UK 70

China 39

India 22

Italy 15

Taiwan 12

Canada 11

Australia 10

Germany 9

Sweden 8

Finland 7

France 6

Iran 6

South Korea 6

Table 6: The 14 countries with most published articles about ASCM from 1994 until 2013, based on

the set of articles retrieved on 10 April 2013.

The top 14 countries account for 332 articles, or 86,01% of the total. The overall dominance of the

western world illustrated by table 5 is also visible in this table, table 6. If one makes a graph of the

amount of papers originating in different countries in each year from 1994 until 2012, this creates a

different view. This graph is shown below, in figure 27. Figure 27 does not include data from 2013,

because the data for this year is incomplete and would disable us to form conclusions about the graph.


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Figure 27: The amount of articles about ASCM published per country from 1994 until 2012, based on

the set of articles retrieved on 10 April 2013. Only the top 14 countries, with more than 6 articles in

total, are included.

Figure 27 is not straightforward to interpret. One reason for this is that the countries are not sorted per

country group. Several different ways of showing this data were attempted, however, and the shown

figure is the clearest option. This graph is most enabling of an analysis of trends in the published

literature. To make up for the lack of clarity of the figure, however, a detailed description of the

visible trends follows.

When looking at figure 27, one can draw two conclusions. Firstly, it is clear that the spectrum

of countries from which ASCM authors hail has vastly grown since 2005. In the years before 2005,

there were never more than 7 countries from the top 14 that spawned literature on the subject each

year. This number increased, reaching 12 or 13 every year from 2009 until 2012.

Secondly, it is clear that the center of gravity in the literature has moved over the years. To

show this, the four groups of countries used before are again used here. From 1994 until 2005, the

western world was always responsible for a minimum of 70% of the published literature. The main

countries responsible for the dominance of the western world in this period are the United States and

the United Kingdom. The year 2000 is interesting in this context, as the contribution by authors

working in the US suddenly drops below 20% in this year.

A more definitive decline of the western contribution can be found from 2005 on, however.

The year 2006 sees the introduction of articles written by Indian authors, and 2009 was the first year in

which authors working in Iran made a contribution to ASCM literature. China, the third country in the

developing Asia group, already had a steady presence since 2001. In addition to this, one can see that

2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012 have seen the assertion of literature from less influential countries


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belonging to the western world and developed Asia groups. This development has led to the UK and

US only accounting for around 25% of the published literature by the top 14 countries in 2012. In the

same year, the countries belonging to the developing Asia group made a contribution of around 35%,

while developed Asia provided 5% of the literature published by the top 14. The remaining 35% can

be attributed to other countries than the UK or US in the western world group.

Three interesting trends can be seen in these percentages. Firstly, the influence of authors

working in the US or the UK is decreasing. Secondly, ASCM literature from developing Asia is

becoming more and more abundant. And finally, the share of published literature from the western

world by countries other than the US and the UK is surpassing the share of the US and the UK.

There are two possible explanations of the apparent trends described above. Firstly, it could be

possible that authors in the US and the UK are losing their interest for ASCM. The reason for this

could be that authors working in these countries contribute most to new, relatively unexplored fields

of study. These scholars would shift their focus to other innovative subjects whenever the previous

subject has become too popular.

The second explanation is more plausible than the first. This explanation would be that interest

from the US and the UK has not necessarily decreased, but that interest from other western and Asian

countries has increased. This is a logical line of thought when one takes the rise of the amount of

published literature about ASCM visible in figure 2 into account. A fact that also supports this

explanation is that the absolute number of publications from the US and the UK has not decreased

sharply from 2005 until 2012.

It is possible that most of the articles originating in developing Asia, for example, have a

practical focus, while papers from the US and the UK are more theoretical. The practical articles in

this sense would be, for example, case studies, while the theoretical literature would describe ASCM

using broad conceptual frameworks. A reason for this could be that, as the field of ASCM research

matured, the focus shifted from theoretical studies to practical papers. In short, the field of ASCM

might have become more mainstreamover the years, which has led to the decrease of influence of the

US and the UK.

Above, after the description of table 5, two possible reasons were mentioned for the differencebetween the dominance of the western world in table 5 and the qualitative analysis, in which the

significant role of developing Asia in 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013 could also be identified. Either

literature from developing Asia has become more dominant over the years, or western authors do not

describe enablers or outcomes of ASCM, and rather discuss the topic in general terms. Using the

analysis of figure 27, both of these reasons can now be assessed.

It is clear in figure 27 that in 2010, 2011, and 2012, authors working in developing Asia

steadily published around 32% of all literature published by the top 14 countries. These percentages

are for each year, respectively, 33%, 28%, and 35%. The overall proportions regarding the origins of

articles naming enablers and outcomes of ASCM are visible in table 1 and table 3, respectively. In


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these tables, it is visible that 38% of all enablers can be attributed to developing Asia, while 33% of all

outcomes come from developing Asia. Although the percentage of outcomes attributable to

developing Asia does not differ from the overall percentage of literature published by these countries

in 2010, 2011, and 2012, the percentage of enablers that come from developing Asia is higher than

expected. The explanation described above can be repeated in this case: Enablers appear most often in

articles that take a practical approach to describing ASCM, for example in case studies. This idea

cannot directly be tested, as the approach of all articles was not analyzed in this study due to time

constraints, it can, however, be emphasized that the percentage of enablers of 38% coming from

developing Asia is higher than expected, since this groups share in the total amount of publications is

only 30%. This leads one to believe that authors from developing Asia are more often interested in the

practical application of ASCM than their western counterparts.

At the beginning of this section several questions were asked, which are restated here:

What is the degree of consensus in the field of ASCM research regarding enablers and

outcomes?

What are the origins of the most influentialpapers in ASCM?

Where does ASCM literature in general come from?

Where has ASCM literature in general come from over time?

And judging from the answers to these four questions: Are the overall proportions visible in

the qualitative section in table 1 and 3 as expected or not?

Using the quantitative analysis of the literature, answers to these questions can now be formulated.

It is not possible to answer the first question using this quantitative analysis. The most

influential papers in the field of ASCM literature all have a broad theoretical scope, and are thus often

cited in the introductions of articles. Due to the broad scope, these influential papers do not describe

enablers or outcomes, which are more often found in case studies or literature reviews, for example. It

is therefore not possible to indicate whether there is consensus in the field of ASCM research

regarding enablers and outcomes using the quantitative analysis. It is clear, however, that there is ahigh degree of consensus regarding the definition of agile supply chains. It is important to mention

here that consensus regarding enablers and outcomes was tested in the qualitative part of this review.

The origins of the most influential papers were stated in the description of table 5. It was

interesting to see here that 9 of the 10 most influential articles came from the western world, with only

one article being co-authored by a non-westerner. The fifth article in table 5 was the only article

written by authors working outside of the western world. The interesting point to take away from this

analysis is the difference between the dominance of the western world in table 5 and the qualitative

analysis, in which the significant role of developing Asia in 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013 could also be

identified.


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The question of the origins of ASCM literature in general was answered using table 6. This

table clearly showed the dominance of the western world also visible in table 5.

The fourth question was answered by making a graph of the amount of papers originating in

different countries in each year from 1994 until 2012. This graph was shown in figure 6. Three

interesting trends could be seen in this figure. Firstly, the influence of authors working in the US or

the UK is decreasing. Secondly, ASCM literature from developing Asia is becoming more and more

abundant. And finally, the share of published literature from the western world by countries other than

the US and the UK is surpassing the share of the US and the UK.

The final question was answered using the entire quantitative analysis and table 1 and 3 in the

qualitative analysis. This question asked whether the overall proportions visible in table 1 and 3 were

as expected regarding the entire field of ASCM literature. In both of these tables, the most interesting

comparison can be drawn between developing Asia and the western world, since these two groups

claim the largest proportions. The average contribution from developing Asia to the field of ASCM

was 32% of the top 14 countries in 2010, 2011, and 2012, as can be seen in figure 6. This number

forms the expectation for the percentage of enablers and outcomes that were described by authors

working in developing Asia. The percentage of enablers that can be attributed to this group is 38%,

while in the case of outcomes this is 33%. These percentages can be found in table 1 and table 3,

respectively. It is clear that the percentage of outcomes provided by authors working in developing

Asia is not higher than expected, as there is a small difference between 33% and 32%. However, in

case of enablers, this difference is larger, the percentages being 38% and 32%. Therefore, it seems that

authors from developing Asia are more often interested in the enablers of ASCM than their western

counterparts. In addition to this, it might be that authors working in developing Asia are more

interested in the practical application of ASCM than western authors.


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In this section of the paper, the findings of the qualitative and quantitative sections of this review will

be discussed and integrated. First, the findings of the qualitative review of ASCM literature in terms of

enablers and outcomes of agile supply chains will be shortly restated. After this, the findings of the

quantitative review will be discussed. Finally, the importance and the implications of the findings will

be explained.

In the qualitative review, an attempt was made to get a clear image of the differences between

different countries regarding the identification of ASCMs enablers and outcomes. The question to

which an answer was searched was whether some parts of the world identify specific enablers or

outcomes more often than other parts of the world. The findings are presented in table 7 in case of the

enablers, and table 8 in case of the outcomes. Table 7 is a summary of table 2, while table 8 is a

summary of table 3.

Category of ASCM enablers Developing

Asia: findings

higher or lower

than expected?

Developed Asia:

findings higher

or lower than

expected?

Western world:

findings higher

or lower than

expected?

Rest of the world:

findings higher or

lower than

expected?

A focus on people/employees/

organization

Higher - Lower -

Team working Higher (low

amount of cases)

- Lower (low

amount of cases)

-

Integration with supply chain

partners

Slightly lower - Slightly higher -

Managerial enablers and a focus

on change

Higher - Lower -

A focus on learning/education Higher (low

amount of cases)

- Lower (low

amount of cases)

-

Technology Higher Lower (low

amount of cases)

Slightly lower -

A focus on the product, Lower - - Higher (low amount


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production, and logistics of cases)

Internal integration Lower - Higher -

A focus on the

market/environment

- - Slightly higher -

Table 7: A summary of the findings of the qualitative review regarding ASCMs enablers presented in

table 2. This table describes whether the amount of cases of a category of enablers found in a group of

countries is higher, lower, or equal (expressed by -) to the expectation. In a number of cells, low

amount of cases is added. This expresses the warning that this specific finding may be invalid due to

the low amount of cases available.

Table 7 illustrates the finding that the degree of consensus regarding ASCMs enablers is low, as there

are a number of instances in which the expectation differs from the findings. Only in case of

Integration with supply chain partners and a focus on the market/environmenta reasonable degree of

consensus could be found. In all other categories, the difference between expectations and findings

was most clearly visible when looking at developing Asia and the western world. This leads one to

believe that these two international groups have different views on the enablers of ASCM. It seems

that authors working in developing Asia are more inclined to identify enablers of ASCM regarding

people, management, and technology than their western colleagues. On the other hand, westernauthors focus more often on internal integration, external integration, and the market/environment. A

rough division can be identified when looking at these findings: authors from developing Asia focus

on enablers within the boundaries of firms or their departments, while authors from the western world

are more interested in enablers spanning the boundaries of firms and their departments.

Regarding the other two other groups of countries, developed Asia and the rest of the world, it

is more difficult to form a conclusion of the findings. The reason for this is that both of these groups

provided too little cases in general to justify any conclusion. There will therefore be no elaboration on

the findings regarding these groups of countries.

Next, the section of the qualitative review concerning ASCMs outcomes is looked at. A

summary of the findings in this case can be found in table 8.

Category of ASCM outcomes Developing Asia:

findings higher or

lower than expected?

Developed Asia: findings

higher or lower than

expected?

Western world: findings

higher or lower than

expected?

Organizational outcomes (Amount of cases too

low to perform

(Amount of cases too low

to perform analysis)

(Amount of cases too low

to perform analysis)


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analysis)

Production-process-related

outcomes

Higher - Lower

Product-related outcomes - - -

Performance-related outcomes Lower (low amount of

cases)

- Higher (low amount of

cases)

Cost-related outcomes Higher (low amount of

cases)

Lower (low amount of

cases)

Uncertainty-related outcomes Lower - Higher

Increased flexibility - Higher -

Increased responsiveness Higher - Lower

Strategic outcomes - (Low amount of

cases)

- (Low amount of cases) - (Low amount of cases)

Table 8: A summary of the findings of the qualitative review regarding ASCMs outcomes presented in

table 4. This table describes whether the amount of cases of a category of outcomes found in a group

of countries is higher, lower, or equal (expressed by -) to the expectation. In a number of cells,

low amount of cases is added. This expresses the warning that this specific finding may be invalid

due to the low amount of cases available.

It is more difficult to draw conclusions about the findings in case of ASCMs outcomes than in case ofits enablers. The reason for this is the low amount of cases of described outcomes in general. This is

illustrated in table 8, in which it is clear that the analysis of the organizational outcomescategory did

not yield any results. This category will therefore not be considered in this discussion. In addition to

this, the table shows that the findings in theperformance-related outcomes, cost-related outcomes, and

strategic outcomescategories are less likely to be valid. On the basis of the rest table 8, a few

interesting conclusions can be drawn.

Again, as was the case when considering ASCMs enablers, the main difference can be found

between developing Asia and the western world. A comparison between these two groups is also

safest to draw, because it can be based on a large number of cases. Authors working in developing

Asia and the western world are equally interested in outcomes of ASCM regarding increased

flexibilityandproducts. It seems, however, that authors from developing Asia are more likely to focus

onproduction-process-related outcomesand increased responsivenessthan their western colleagues.

On the other hand, western authors focus more often on uncertainty-related outcomes than their

counterparts from developing Asia. It is difficult to find an all-encompassing reason for this

difference, even when one takes the categories with a too low amount of cases into account. It is clear,

however, that authors from developing Asia and the western world do not identify the same outcomes


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of ASCM in the same amount. Whether this points to a lack of consensus regarding the issue cannot

be said, because the number of cases on which the findings are based is too low.

When considering the outcomes of ASCM originating in developed Asia, we can see that

authors working in this part of the world score as expected in all but one of the categories. The reason

for this might be the limited amount of cases on which the findings are based in this case. It is

interesting to see, however, that authors from developed Asia identify outcomes regarding increased

flexibilitymore often than expected.

Two additional findings were mentioned in the qualitative section. Firstly, it is clear in the

analysis that little attention is paid to the negative outcomes of ASCM

Secondly, it is interesting to see that no author working in countries belonging to the rest of the world

has made a contribution to the literature identifying outcomes of ASCM.

Next, the view is shifted to the quantitative section of this review. The aim in this section was

to clarify and explain some of the conclusions of the qualitative section. The approach to attaining this

aim was to take a complete view of the origin of enablers and outcomes in general. With the

answering of the four questions asked at the beginning of the quantitative review, the findings of this

section have already been discussed. The most important points will be recapitulated here, but the

main focus will lie on integrating the quantitative and qualitative reviews.

An interesting point to take away from the quantitative analysis is the difference between the

dominance of the western world in table 5 and the qualitative analysis, in which the significant role of

developing Asia in 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013 could also be identified. Expanding on this finding, a

graph was made of the amount of papers originating in different countries in each year from 1994 until

2012. Three further trends could be found in this graph. Firstly, the influence of authors working in the

US or the UK is decreasing. Secondly, ASCM literature from developing Asia is becoming more and

more abundant. And finally, the share of published literature from the western world by countries

other than the US and the UK is surpassing the share of the US and the UK.

The three points illustrate an issue that can also be related to the qualitative part of this review.

It seems, namely, that authors from developing Asia are more often

Documents

Agile supply chain management: International differences in its identified enablers and outcomes