The agile capabilities of Polish companies in the supply chain: An empirical study

The agility concept is widely adapted to the area of contemporary business. The existing literature presents agility as a general concept, which can be easily adopted in the field of manufacturing. At the same time there are few theoretical and empirical studies on inter-organizational agility, which frequently involves just the application of system engineering thinking to describe and optimize factors influencing the transfer of material and information between companies. This paper explores the main agile capabilities of Polish companies in supply chains. The variables, which have an impact on the inter-organizational agility in the supply chains were identified. Having performed a factor analysis in a space of the variables, the constructs were extracted and employed as classification criteria in a cluster analysis. The results of the study show that the examined companies can be grouped into four classes having distinct characteristics. The conclusions of the paper indicate which attributes of companies in specific industries may influence more positive or negative attitude to the agility concept. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.