Does supply chain quality integration guarantee ambidexterity? Contingency and configuration perspectives on their relationships

Abstract

While researchers have thoroughly investigated the impact of supply chain quality integration (SCQI) on competitive performance, they have paid less attention to its possible effects on a firm’s capabilities to reconfigure resources to adapt to environmental changes. Using data from 239 Spanish organic agro-food firms, we studied the relationships between SCQI dimensions and organisational ambidexterity from both contingency and configuration perspectives. In the contingency approach, a structural equation model was used to study the effect of individual SCQI dimensions on ambidexterity. In contrast, in the configuration perspective, cluster analysis and analysis of variance were used to investigate the relationship between SCQI patterns and ambidexterity. The contingency approach´s findings suggest that only internal quality integration has a positive direct impact on ambidexterity. The configuration approach complements such outcomes by revealing that only a high and balanced level of all the three SCQI dimensions (i.e. internal-, supplier- and customer-quality integration) guarantees significantly higher levels of ambidexterity. This paper provides a deeper understanding of the impact of SCQI on the firm's ambidexterity capability, and the findings offer managers of the organic agro-food industry some guidelines to develop an ambidexterity capability through SCQI to compete with the traditional agro-food players.

Keywords:

• supply chain quality integration
• supply chain management
• ambidexterity
• organic agro-food industry

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research is part of the Project [ECO2015-71380-R] funded by the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness. Co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).