Organisational agility: systematic literature review and future research agenda

ABSTRACT

Several studies have addressed the attributes necessary for an organisation to ensure organisational competitiveness, but the literature on organisational agility is fragmented. Therefore, this study aims to identify the contributions of organisational agility, as well as the approaches that facilitate its action for effectiveness among the departments of a company, in order to bridge the gaps identified in previous research. For this purpose, bibliometric analysis was used, which identified four clusters. These clusters revealed that organisational agility is related to various business factors, such as culture and technology, which contribute to achieving organisational goals; its relationship with responsiveness and flexibility in the business environment. Among the contributions of this research is the development of a conceptual model to interpret organisational agility, in addition to the list of organisational competencies. It presents suggestions to optimise quality and organisational productivity, improve interpersonal relationships and make more assertive decisions.

KEYWORDS:

• Organisational agility
• competences
• organisational methodologies and departments
• SLR

1. Introduction

In the competitive business scenario and with the need for changes in organisations, the ability to implement is one of the main requirements to stay in business (Malekifar et al., 2014; Mishra, Mahapatra et al., 2014; Mollahoseini Ardakani et al., 2018). Organizational agility represents an ability to respond (Atkinson et al., 2022; Chakravarty et al., 2013; Govuzela & Mafini, 2019; Mircea, 2013; Nejatian et al., 2019), organise uncertainties (Nijssen & Paauwe, 2012) and create value and competitive advantage (Stylos et al., 2021) in the midst of unpredictable changes (Tolf et al., 2015). The relationship between strategic agility and value creation impacts the organisation’s performance (Claus, 2021), which is the main objective in a complex environment (Walter, 2021).

Agile organisations can achieve conditions that promote learning (Hamad & Yozgat, 2017), since agility has been recognised as the key to sustaining the market and recovering knowledge for application in high-quality development (Cegarra-Navarro, Soto -Acosta, & Wensley, 2016; Hamad & Yozgat, 2017; Nejatian et al., 2019). Thus, the influences of organisational agility on assertive decisions, redeployment of resources, unexpected adjustments and excellence regarding market demands are observed (Alexopoulou et al., 2010; Brueller et al., 2014; Malekifar et al., 2014; Mishra et al., 2014; Taghizadeh & Shokri, 2015).

Consequently, organisations tend to adopt a strategic logic that requires the co-evolution of organisational agility for the design of management, structures and processes to ensure the combination of internal efficiency and external effectiveness Wang et al., 2018), as well as skills to deal with contingencies (El Idrissi et al., 2022).

In this scenario, through their workforce and the use of agile methods, organisations aim to optimise the time taken to develop and allocate new features (Agren et al., 2022). Workforce agility has been described as a strategy that allows quick and effective responses to threats and opportunities arising from the competitive business environment (Tessarini Junior & Saltorato, 2021).

Organisational agility, which involves customer, operational and partnership dimensions (El Idrissi et al., 2022), represents a central, enduring and distinctive characteristic of the organisation (Liang et al., 2022) and is leveraged to help institutions implement changes and become more solid (Liang et al., 2022). This concept is linked to how quickly an entity understands the market and makes decisions to adapt to it (Kalaignanam et al., 2021).

Agility in the organisation emerges in three aspects: strategic (capturing game-changing opportunities), portfolio (resources reallocation) and operational (occurring within a focused business model; Sull, 2010). This means that it is a crucial element for competitiveness, as it represents the integration of processes, characteristics and organisational members with advanced technology, to elevate the organisation’s potential to provide high quality products and services (Crocitto & Youssef, 2003; Nejatian et al., 2018). Here, agility works as a total mediator, given its direct influence on transformational performance (Mihardjo Leonardus et al., 2019; Vickery et al., 2010), operational performance and customer retention (Shin et al., 2015), through satisfaction in terms of importance and impact, with the speed factor (Kish & Rojuee, 2016).

Competitive advantage and the elimination of problems in the midst of crises have become vital issues for organisations, so organisational agility, understood as a commercial and dynamic capacity, results in progressive improvements, in carrying out activities in a timely manner (Al-Faouri et al., 2014; Babineau & Lessard, 2015; Felipe et al., 2016; Gallagher & Worrell, 2008; Ghanbari & Keshtegar, 2016; Govuzela & Mafini, 2019; O. K. Lee et al., 2015; Shirouyehzad et al., 2016; Wahyono, 2018), and has an impact on employees’ spirituality and well-being (Srivastava & Gupta, 2022). The current context of organisational crisis, aggravated by the COVID-19 epidemic and the lack of social knowledge, related to the type of organisational behaviour implemented, can be mitigated by developing skills and organisational agility (Tomé et al., 2022).

There is a shortage of studies addressing the methodologies facilitating organisational agility and its effect on promoting excellence, aiming to synchronise all areas of the firm. This line of thinking is supported by previous research, which identified gaps on the topic under analysis. For example, the lack of a conceptual and analytical focus on organisational agility (Averineni & Rama Swathi, 2019); the characteristics of organisational agility and its mechanisms of co-evolution being generally unknown (Wang et al., 2018); the need to explore the association between agility in learning and authentic leadership development (Yadav & Dixit, 2017) and the limited attention paid to the “people” factor as being critical to the firm’s agility (Alavi et al., 2014). Several studies have demonstrated organisations’ capacity to acquire competitive advantages, although there is a shortage of specific studies, for example, on the skills and support methodologies for the best use of organisational efficiency, to optimise the results of the interaction between the organisation’s sectors. The addition of agility facilitates rapid adaptation to change and impacts on leadership, decisions and interpersonal relationships information technology and agility are moderated by absorptive capacity (Mao et al., 2021), and core competencies should be managed and directed to drive greater agility rather than being incompatible (Aburub, 2015).

A systematic literature review (SLR) was carried out, using the Prisma method, in a first phase, and the IraMuteQ software to operationalise the bibliometrics. Therefore, this study presents the development of a conceptual model to interpret organisational agility, that is, an agile, adjusted and flexible response to the market, which suggests organisations need new skills and business tools.

The theoretical contributions lie in listing competencies to promote organisational agility and develop better intra and inter-organisational relationships, establish priorities and choices of more assertive strategies. The practical contributions lie in suggesting that managers use methodological approaches to support organisational agility, in order to promote a more accurate identification of errors and points to improve, for the purposes of productivity, quality and effectiveness in the synchronisation of organisational sectors. These contributions addressed the gaps identified in the literature, as the bibliometric and exhaustive content analysis went far beyond analysis of the importance of the software quality implemented in organisations for agility, as in the studies by Arcos-Medina and Mauricio (2019), Heck and Zaidman (2018), Suryaatmaja et al. (2020), and Suryaatmaja et al. (2019).

This brief Introduction is followed by the Methodology, Results and their discussion, and the conclusions.

2. Methodology

According to Siddaway et al. (2019), the SLR is less costly scientific research, with pre-defined methods for systematic identification of all the relevant documents published on a given topic. The quality of articles is assessed, data are extracted and the results are summarised. However, an SLR requires the adoption of stages that allow its replication, meaning its narrative must be transparent in all of them (Briner & Denyer, 2012), so that the final result can be understood as providing critical aggregate value (Mentzer & Kahn, 1995). This critical aggregation should lead to a descriptive compilation of the literature on the topic analysed, the identification of gaps and future paths for immediate research (Mentzer & Kahn, 1995). Specifically, this method depends on the transparency of data collection and definition of criteria for the eligibility of documents (Hadengue et al., 2017). In this context, Tranfield et al. (2003) and Xiao and Watson (2019) consider essential: formulation of the research issue, development and validation of the review protocol, a search of the literature; eligibility for inclusion and exclusion, quality assessment, data extraction, analysis and summary of the data extracted and discussion of the content of the results obtained. To satisfy these requirements, this study resorted to a bibliometric review (Connor & Voos, 1981; Garfield, 1979; Powell et al., 1996; Quinlan et al., 2008a; Wasserman & Faust, 1994; White & Griffith, 1981).

As a first step, the PRISMA method allows for the adoption of a research protocol, which consists of a “minimum set of evidence-based items to report on systematic reviews and meta-analyses. PRISMA – an acronym for Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis – consists, among other things, of a checklist and flow chart” (Donato & Donato, 2019). Recently, Page et al. (2021, p. 1) argued that “the methods and results of systematic reviews should be reported in sufficient detail to allow users to assess the trustworthiness and applicability of the review findings. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement was developed to facilitate transparent and complete reporting of systematic reviews and has been updated (to PRISMA 2020) to reflect recent advances in systematic review methodology and terminology”. So, the flow chart referred to, allowed the delineation of a protocol with the eligibility criteria for the implementation of the systematic review, which are fundamental for obtaining relevant and primary studies on the topic under study (Adiyarta et al., 2020). This method consists of 5 steps followed in this research, which are: 1) definition of eligibility criteria; 2) definition of information sources; 3) literature selection; 4) data collection; and 5) data item selection (Liberati et al., 2009). Figure 1 shows the protocol and the steps followed, which were searched in the databases on March 52,020.

Figure 1. Sequencing of documents included in the final output (Prisma).

In a second step, the bibliometric review was used to operationalise the scientific mapping of the topic under analysis (Connor & Voos, 1981; Garfield, 1979; Howard & Katherine, 1998; Powell et al., 1996; Quinlan et al., 2008a; Wasserman & Faust, 1994; White & Griffith, 1981), in order to provide critical added value to the proposed objective. In addition, bibliometry provides a summary of the literature on the topic under study and the discovery of gaps and pertinent clues for future research, whose main objective is to contribute to the advancement of scientific knowledge on this topic (Mentzer & Kahn, 1995); bibliometric analysis is a statistical method that can evaluate the qualitative and quantitative coverage of a topic (Geaney et al., 2015).

Given these arguments, a protocol for all activities was developed, involving selection of the database, terms and limitations; decisions on inclusion and exclusion criteria; reading of the titles and abstracts; distinguishing between work considered relevant and irrelevant; reading the complete texts and data extraction for textual creation of a final database for subsequent analysis.

The study is based on references collected from the Scopus database, the first access date being March 52,020, and the last one being April 202,020. The search criteria are listed in Table 1.

Table 1. Search criteria.

Key words	Organizational Agility, Organizational Competencies and Methodologies
Document Type	Articles and Reviews
Data base	Scopus
Boolean operators*	AND* Organizational Competencies, AND* Methodologies

Using the Scopus database, as a database with broad scientific recognition (Sweileh, 2018), the initial database was identified, without temporal filters. Document type was only articles and reviews because our purpose was to define the research paradigms used in published studies, based on the criteria defined by several authors (e.g., Chen & Hirschheim, 2004; Dwivedi et al., 2008), namely whether the article uses primary data (empirical study or not); the nature of the empirical study developed (quantitative and qualitative); and the methods used. Additionally, inclusion and exclusion criteria were used, such as inclusion of the term organisational agility. This resulted in 203 studies. In a second phase, use of the Prisma method with screening resulted in a final base of 101 articles (Figure 1). Similar studies have used this method of eligibility in the field of management (Rodrigues et al., 2021; Rodrigues & Franco, 2022).

Based on Figure 1, the descriptive analysis, bibliometric analysis and inherent content analysis is presented.

3. Results

3.1. Descriptive analysis

Citations are an important metric in a SLR, and so Figure 2 shows the annual evolution of the number of articles and citations on the subject of analysis.

Figure 2. Evolution of the number of publications and citations.

From 2001 to 2011, there is a small number of publications, 13 in all, with the following years showing an exponential increase, with 84 publications between 2012 and 2019, the last year reaching a peak of 19 studies. At the beginning of 2020 there were 4 studies, making a total of 101 articles, demonstrating the topical nature of the subject. The relevance of studies is noted in the expressive number of citations of the first article from 2001, reaching a peak in 2009 with 503, which shows the importance of organisational agility in the midst of the financial and economic crisis felt in some countries with severe effects on organisations. In the following years, the number ranges between 296 and 62, before falling from 2018 onwards. Figure 3 shows the geographical distribution of articles by country of the main author.

Figure 3. Geographical distribution of studies by country.

Figure 3 shows a total of 18 countries, highlighting the emerging economies of Iran and India, where academics are showing growing interest in the subject.

Table 2 presents the top 10 journals with the highest impact factor (SJR), another measure of the quality of scientific studies.

Table 2. Journals with the highest impact factor.

Author	Journal	Impact Factor
Braunscheidel and Suresh (2009)	Journal of Operations Management	12.97
Braunscheidel and Suresh (2018)	Supply Chain Risk Management: Advanced Tools, Models, and Developments	12.96
O. K. Lee et al. (2015)	Information Systems Research	7.30
Crocitto and Youssef (2003)	Industrial Management and Data Systems	6.91
Rialti et al. (2019)	Technological Forecasting and Social Change	6.90
Fayezi et al. (2017)	International Journal of Management Reviews	6.62
Wilding et al. (2012)	Supply Chain Management	5.66
Chakravarty et al. (2013)	Information Systems Research	5.44
Carvalho et al. (2019)	Total Quality Management and Business Excellence	5.32
Ngai et al. (2011)	Journal of Strategic Information Systems	4.93

Standing out in Table 2 are Journal of Operations Management and Supply Chain Risk Management: Advanced Tools, Models, and Developments, with a high SJR, and as for organisational areas addressed by the studies, the supply chain and information technology are prominent, these being related to the subject matter of the journals identified in this tables.

3.2. Textual analysis

For data extraction, Textual Analysis was used, more specifically Word Clouds and Similarity, using the IraMuteQ program, which involves: basic lexicography, number of word occurrences, multivariate analyses such as hierarchical classification of text segments, analysis of correspondence and analysis of similarity (Camargo & Justo, 2013), with the distribution of vocabulary being organised and visually understandable with graphic representations in the analyses used (Loubère & Ratinaud, 2014). Word cloud analysis organises the words, the frequency of these expression shown by the size and position in the structure created. Analysis of similarity, as highlighted by Flament (1981), allows identification of the frequency of words and the result indicates the connection between phrases through ramification, helping to identify the content structure of a body of text. The final result of this bibliometric analysis was three clusters related to organisational agility, represented by their contribution to excellence in departmental interaction, competences and approaches facilitating this action.

3.2.1. Word cloud and similarity analysis

In this analysis, the importance of terms is expressed by their frequency in the corpus, their size and position in the structure created, with Figure 4 showing the most significant words for the subject to be: “agility”, “organizational”, “chain”, “supply”, “model”, “capacity”, “approach”, “methodology”, “result”, “environment”, “performance”, “business”, “market”, “strategic”, “change”, “objective”, “relationship”, “process”, “technology”, “flexibility”, “information”, “competitive”, “integration” and others.

Figure 4. Structure of the word cloud analysis, generated in IraMuteQ.

The above figure shows that organisational agility was indeed the crucial keyword in the database analysed.

Considering that this analysis aims to show the connection between words for identification of significant themes, Figure 5 shows the direct connection between agility and “organizational”, “firm”, “capacity”, “performance”, “business”, “market”, “result”, “culture”, “development”, “relation”, “process”, “management”, “system” and “technology” which in turn connect to “relationship”, “learning”, “information”, “objective”, “change”, “performance”, “chain”, “supply”, “approach”, “methodology” and “impact”.

Figure 5. Structure of the similarity analysis, generated in IraMuteQ.

Based on the previous paragraphs, three clusters were identified and classified according to the frequency of the terms and connection between words arising from the text analysis, so as to identify content structure. The clusters are related to areas of contributions of organisational agility, competences and approaches that facilitate action in the business environment. These clusters show 4 areas of contributions, 12 competences and 9 approaches facilitating organisational agility, with these being organised in 3 clusters. The analysis made reveals that organisational agility is related to various business factors, for example, culture and technology; which contribute to achieving organisational objectives; its relation with response capacity and flexibility in the business environment. However, for a firm to be agile, this requires business competences and the application of facilitating methodologies with repercussions on integration between departments, promoting improvements in relations, information flows and processes, performance, development, learning, competitiveness, systems and others.

3.2.2. Cluster analysis

Cluster 1 – Areas of Organisational Agility contributing to Strategic Management, with agility’s link to management to establish plans, strategies, performance measurement (Farokhi & Rajaeepour, 2016; Wahyono, 2018) and leadership, since this is a strategic issue in the global era, mitigating imitation behaviour (Muafi & Uyun, 2018). The subtopics addressed in this cluster are:

1. People Management is also an area of contribution, due to the potential of agility in improving organisational performance, which depends on the extent to which managers identify with their company, with transformational leadership and the nature of the working atmosphere (Averineni & Rama Swathi, 2019; Gölgeci et al., 2019), to be able to combine formed personality, experiences and initial values (Salamzadeh et al., 2014) with the scalable workforce, keeping collaborators focused and making necessary reconfigurations (Nijssen & Paauwe, 2012; Shafer et al., 2001). Arunprasad et al. (2022) state that technological orientation, culture, leadership and People Management practices are organisational factors that management can align to achieve the desired results of organisational agility. Dimensions such as leadership, culture, quality systems and analytical thinking are related to results from organisational agility (Sureshchandar, 2022).

This indicates the influence of firms that seek creativity, virtual organisations and collaborators with various competences (Chakraborty et al., 2019), these presenting a positive relation with the capacity to reach higher performance (Pearce et al., 2018), considering aspects of learning, de-centralised decision-making (Alavi et al., 2014) and the creation of adaptable infrastructure for survival in the market (Nijssen & Paauwe, 2012).

• (2) Marketing, an area where the importance of agility is growing for improved response capacity and business survival (Mollahoseini Ardakani et al., 2018). Rapidly changing competitive and technological dynamics in the organisational landscape lead to emphasis on greater agility in organisational areas such as marketing, including ensuring brand consistency (Kalaignanam et al., 2021). However, its successful implementation depends on building socially responsible and innovative relations in the standardisation, response adaptation and anticipation of rapidly changing business, as argued by these authors.

• (3) Supply Chain, where agility is related to the potential to adapt or respond rapidly to market changes and to possible and actual interruptions (Braunscheidel & Suresh, 2009). In this aspect, organisational strategic agility focuses on the organisation’s capacity to respond quickly to changes in demand, thus increasing its competitive advantage (Clauss et al., 2021).

In a global supply chain and complex market environment, organisations need to improve performance and gain competitive advantages, hence the need for strategic agility. Agility in sectors such as the supply chain intervenes in aspects such as financial performance and work team integration (Eslami et al., 2021).

This considers how risk management competence feels, responds to, and determines the efficiency and efficacy of collective efforts, allowing the firm to react in the face of a volatile market (Braunscheidel & Suresh, 2009; Hussain et al., 2018; Malekifar et al., 2014; Wilding et al., 2012). However, the parties involved need to participate in development programmes, in order to maximise performance (Fayezi et al., 2017) and be alert to other crucial matters, such as the dynamics of inter-organisational power, access to information, relations with suppliers, and improvements in structure, human resources, product design and processes (Naughton et al., 2020; Rahimi et al., 2019). Vertical relationships, between the company and its suppliers, build and facilitate inter-organisational agility capacities and have implications for organisational performance (Carmeli et al., 2021).

Cluster 2 – Essential competences to promote Organisational Agility reveal the importance of certain organisational attributes for agile performance of agility, i.e., agile attributes, also called resources, allow organisations to cope rapidly and efficiently with customers’ dynamic demand and intense global competition (Nejatian & Zarei, 2013). Here, certain characteristics should be taken into consideration, such as:

1. Group, rational and development culture, which is related to participation and consensus among collaborators emphasising productivity, competitiveness and market participation, therefore an important element for agility (Mandal et al., 2020), as it supports learning, continuous development and employees’ commitment to achieving objectives (Pathak, 2017; Saputra et al., 2018), effective adaptation to changes in the external environment and to re-organisation of internal structures, in short, being agile (Pantouvakis & Bouranta, 2017; Pantouvakis & Karakasnaki, 2018). Agility, in terms of employee learning, influences organisational innovation (Tripathi & Dhir, 2022).

2. Ambidexterity is defined as the capacity to combine competences to innovate and increase their efficiency (Rialti et al., 2019), highlighting Resilient Agility, which is understood as how the ambidextrous competence detects and acts quickly on environmental changes, and can cope with unfavourable ruptures (Gölgeci et al., 2019). Ambidexterity has an influence on organisational agility and efficiency, and in this relationship social network technology acts as a functional factor for teams to be agile in handling tasks (Herlina et al., 2021).

3. Operational excellence represents the need to go beyond simple cultural adjustment, i.e., to work to develop the potential to cope with constant changes, with frequent use of operational excellence programmes to obtain better performance results (Carvalho et al., 2019). Here, the integration of a culture of excellence and agility represents a natural goal for organisations that seek good action in highly unstable business environments (Carvalho et al., 2018).

4. Knowledge sharing acts together with organisational agility to rise above competitors in a rapidly changing environment, with a positive impact on organisational performance (Khazaei Pool et al., 2017; S. Lee et al., 2017). The implementation of knowledge sharing platforms, within the organisation, facilitates digital knowledge and social learning, which in turn helps to develop the agility and adaptability required in the contemporary digital world (Valk & Planojevic, 2021).

5. In the construct of Intellectual capital, a significant relation is noted between the intellectual capital of collaborators and its dimensions (meta-cognitive, cognitive, motivational and behavioural) and organisational agility (Teimouri, Ardestani, & Kheiri, 2016), where joining them increases the productivity of human resources (Hajevar & Kharazian, 2016). Employees’ cognitive characteristics, such as problem-solving, reasoning and communication skills, influence organisational strategic agility.

6. Psychological acceptance, as highlighted by Babineau and Lessard (2015), is the efficacy of change, of the result of organisational agility, which depends to a great extent on psychological acceptance of it by the people targeted, reinforcing its role in defining change and recognition of its contributions at each stage of its implementation.

7. Flexibility, in environments with markets that emerge, collide, divide, develop and die, strategic agility is a main determinant of a firm’s success, but including the capacity to remain flexible to face new developments, continually adjust strategic direction and develop innovative ways to create value (Sajdak, 2015). In this aspect, the human factor is the key to success, given that competitive intelligence influences organisational agility through strategic flexibility (Atkinson et al., 2022).

8. Entrepreneurship, i.e., having the competence to be an entrepreneur, involves the capacity to act quickly and flexibly, forming one of the attributes of an agile company (Sajdak, 2015), and so a positive and significant relation is noted between entrepreneurial orientation and agility (Nejad et al., 2014).

9. Dynamic capacity, organisational agility is considered a dynamic capacity necessary for organisations operating in a highly competitive environment (Nijssen & Paauwe, 2012), with the potential to combine, transform, create, reconfigure capacities, keep a high level of flexibility, develop learning and transfer knowledge, besides a corporate culture that can adapt to act in contexts of rapid change (Sajdak, 2015).

10. Organisational memory, organisational agility is linked to factors and organisational components such as targets, structures and systems, and so suitable human resource management is necessary, so that knowledge can work favourably, using organisational memory, which presents a positive relation with pro-activeness, adaptability and keeping the information necessary to support choices in a dynamic context (Al-Faouri et al., 2014).

11. Knowledge management and innovation affect the level of agility, by being connected to organisational performance (Kamhawi, 2012), allowing effective responses to the market. Organisational agility, in addition to being impacted, according to (Frare & Beuren, 2021), also influences by being a mediator between autonomy at work and ambidextrous innovation. Organisational agility is configured as an effective capacity for the development of environmental knowledge, which enhances the development of new green products, for successful eco-innovation (Rabal-Conesa et al., 2021).

12. Adaptability, Nejatian and Zarei (2013) state that organisational agility is closely linked to the notions of adaptability and flexibility, being used indifferently to indicate an organisation’s efforts to cope with dynamic, unpredictable changes in the market.

Finally, Cluster 3 – Approaches facilitating Organisational Agility, corroborates Dries et al. (2012), who propose that organisations should incorporate agility mechanisms in their processes. According to Zhang et al. (2022), these influence organisational performance. The search for quality and excellence directs the efforts of firms that wish to improve and obtain competitive advantage, and so the development of agile resources, leadership and partnerships becomes essential so that they can remain competitive and deal with their stakeholders’ new demands (Carvalho et al., 2017; Taji et al., 2016). Aiming to promote and maximise the action of Organisational Agility, some facilitating approaches are highlighted:

1. Interaction networks, the network contract can be used to improve participating firms’ capacity to face the new global competitive environment with shared belief (Cantele et al., 2016). Transparent intra and inter-organisational collaboration has a significant impact on the agility of certain firm activities and for the best possible use of strategies (Almahamid & Hourani, 2015; Tolf et al., 2015). This means there must be an effort to develop and maintain the integration of relations in developing flexibility in organisational activities. This will allow coping with unexpected changes, stimulate business development (Fayezi & Zomorrodi, 2015; Liu & Yang, 2020), give access to external resources and information, increase absorption capacity (Liu & Yang, 2019) and relevant individual capacities (Golgeci et al., 2019). It stands out that the transition from the traditional manufacturing situation to inter-organisational collaboration can be one of the fundamental changes in modern business administration, establishing collaborative alliances through association with various experienced, professional organisations (Mollahoseini Ardakani et al., 2018). However, as argued by Wasesa et al. (2017), the application of inter-organisational systems based on agents requires adjustments in the information architecture or the coordination structure. The greater use of cooperative relationships between organisations, obtaining external knowledge and combating organisational inertia, is associated with organisational agility (Mueller & Jungwirth, 2022).

2. Information technology (IT), there is a causal relationship between organisational agility and information technology, in aspects such as decision and responsiveness (Tomomitsu & de Oliveira Moraes, 2021). Organisational agility represents a critical factor in achieving sustained competitive advantage in IT (El Nsour, 2021). In this field Big Data is found to affect a firm’s agility, by crossing data through various sources to obtain rapid, valuable insights (Rialti et al., 2019) and for better prediction of market demand patterns (Stylos et al., 2021). In addition, IT services are constantly seeking to align with the strategic priorities of agility, improving processes that involve integration, information sharing and coordination (Bi et al., 2013; Gunsberg et al., 2018), through real systems and establishing an effective infrastructure of digital technology and promoting external and internal relations, as well as strategic business alignment (Amayreh & Salleh, 2013; Liu & Yang, 2019; Mircea, 2013; Zain et al., 2005). Manufacturing firms and their suppliers need to develop manufacturer-supplier flexibility, accompanied by well-built, integrated information systems and analytical systems to allow the manufacturer’s agility (N. C. Lee et al., 2020), improving the capacity to manage technological resources (Melián-Alzola et al., 2020), the integration of information (Irfan et al., 2019) and operational alignment, in structural and social terms (Zhou et al., 2018). Consequently, the significant relation is seen between the critical dimensions of the agile, human IT infrastructure (business functions, interpersonal management, experience in technology management) and organisational agility of detection and response (Panda & Rath, 2018).

However, in cluster 3, IT as a factor obstructing organisational agility cannot be neglected, as if expenditure is not appropriately allocated, major, imprudent investment in IT will prevent organisational agility. In this scenario, managers should reckon with situations when assessing the effects of IT competencies (Chakravarty et al., 2013; Panda & Rath, 2018).

Highlighted as IT competencies are:

1. Digital co-creation, which occurs when multiple perspectives are combined through digital technology to create transforming results; (Mihardjo Leonardus et al., 2019). The same authors also consider that this tool has a significant role as a variable intervening in the relation between orientation towards the customer experience, social community and the organisation’s agility and transformational performance. In this aspect, leadership, structures and organisational culture are the main enablers of digital transformation that help organisations achieve performance results, that is, agility (Imran et al., 2021);

2. Methodology of practical alignment, which allows the modelling, supervision and improvement of business processes, where according to Alblas and Notten (2021), digital tools related to learning and the rate of innovation can be used as a source of agility;

3. Agile project approach, a tool of organisational agility that includes stakeholders’ concerns systematically and takes into consideration the inherent complexity of a given situation, by defining and introducing new solutions, managing the capacity of the actors in change, rather than the imposed change. This iterative process of development, validation and adjustment allows the parties involved to consider systematically the necessary adjustments (Babineau & Lessard, 2015);

4. Agile manufacturing, considering that the form of production is related to the response to demanding environments (Bessant et al., 2000). This methodology represents evolution in the manufacturing and remodelling technology regarding products and processes, involving flexibility, speed, quality and efficiency, so that firms react to changes in the environment, increasing organisational capacity, as it leads to high quality products with a shorter life-cycle and delivery time (Mishra, Datta et al., 2014). Agile manufacturing promotes improvements in organisational agility, when it comes to increasing productivity and reducing line rejection (Kumar et al., 2021; Vinodh et al. (2012), concentrating on turbulent market changes and responsive actions by the manufacturing company, in terms of process, tools, materials and trained specialists. By adopting and developing the key elements of agility, firms must overcome the philosophical challenges of a change from mass/lean production to the personalised context of agile production (Hooper et al., 2001). In this approach, the Model to Improve Total Agility (METAL) is perceived, allowing organisations to identify and strengthen the weak criteria of agile manufacturing and improve the value of the total level of agility (Sreenivasa et al., 2013);

5. Agile supply-demand networks, as underlined by Tuominen et al. (2008), are a powerful tool to support decision-making, fundamental for organisational agility, with various resources to analyse demand and supply networks, as well as allowing information to spread significantly through different functional departments and organisations;

6. Scrum methodology is an agile methodology for managing and planning software projects, and although commonly used in software development, it can be applied to almost any project (Mollahoseini Ardakani et al., 2018). This method allows agility in processes and therefore meeting deadlines, accompanying problems and a good communication process; and

7. Tertiarization represents the cost-benefit relation, reduced size, focusing on main activities and specialised work, with a direct influence on organisational agility (Shahin & Azar, 2013).

After content analysis of the three clusters obtained from bibliometrics, a conceptual model is presented next (Figure 6). This results from structuring the content arising from the textual analysis, allowing the interpretation that for quickness of response, adjustment and flexibility in relation to the market (organisational agility), new business competencies must emerge (competencies and tools), contributing to the organisation’s competitive advantage.

Figure 6. Conceptual model.

Figure 6 shows that the interaction between essential characteristics and methodologies facilitates the promotion of agility in the organisational context, which in turn leads to synchronising the organisational structure, with good performance in integrating both internal and external organisational agents and in process flows, modifying and adjusting them when necessary; to flexibility regarding essential and immediate changes, even by adopting resources; to promoting learning and rapid reactions to competitors, due to its strategic value; to problem-solving, with speedy detection of the market and consequently the constant development of improvements, achieving customer satisfaction and holding on to this through the competitive differential. It should be noted that this interaction requires input from the areas of people management, marketing and the supply chain (see cluster 1).

4. Conclusion and future research

The objective of this study, to identify Organisational Agility’s contributions to good interaction in the flow of processes between the company’s departments as well as the approaches that facilitate its performance, involved the use of the IraMuteQ software to operationalise bibliometrics. Agility is seen as a strategic component leading to an adaptable posture in business regarding forms of productivity, process flows, activities and market share to obtain competitive advantage.

Agility is activated through more assertive strategic plans, achievement of objectives, good working relationships, product design and adequate organisational arrangements, greater potential for adjustment and response to target audiences, customer retention, performance and optimised interactions between the internal and external environment. In executing procedures between the business sectors, being agile is essential to achieve a significant position in the chaotic corporate environment, through good synchronisation triggering adaptations and quick responses in the form of products and services that meet customers’ demands and exceed their expectations. In this aspect, several studies show tools and capacities that optimise the performance of organisational agility in order to contribute to competitive advantages for the organisation.

Organisational areas such as marketing, supply chain and people management are positively impacted by organisational agility, in terms of strategic choices, stipulating central points, restructuring, organisational sustainability, quick and satisfactory responses, evaluation and improvements in organisational performance.

As for the methodological approaches that support organisational agility in order to optimise the synchrony between the sectors of the organisation, information technology, collaboration, co-creation and other tools act on specific areas and activities. This makes it possible to overcome changes, obtain and disseminate information, transform results, improve processes, identify necessary adjustments, re-model products, improve the communication process and reduce costs.

For organisations to take full advantage of the performance of organisational agility, among the necessary competencies are the implementation of types of culture, entrepreneurship, operational excellence, intellectual capital, adaptability, customer focus, and organisational memory to manage properly the demands of the public of interest; for improvements in productivity, performance in activities and market share; to ensure the ability to innovate and effectiveness; to outperform the competition, transform capabilities, store supporting information, and deal with dynamic and unpredictable changes.

It is concluded that organisational agility acts as a tool for organisations to optimise the flow of operations between different organisational departments, but to do so, organisations need to be prepared for adaptations and updates both in terms of characteristics and support.

Not addressing the subject of organisational agility in different organisational contexts (for example, hierarchical and participative) is one limitation of this study. The contributions regard the academic and business worlds, bringing knowledge for more assertive decision-making by governance; increasing the level of work; building a healthy culture; encouraging the adoption of organisational tools; stimulating institutional and individual competencies; encouraging business transformation and innovation; creating a balance between stability and the dynamics in the structure, process and people dimensions; correct assessment of the status of orientation and entrepreneurial agility for better performance given the need for added value in products, services and systems.

Thus, the implications for the body of knowledge in this research area lie in presenting aspects of organisational agility, in the form of promoted effects, which allows the perception of organisational attributes that satisfy the demands of the contingency experienced. In practical terms, it shows the profiles necessary for leadership so that organisational agility is stimulated and thus contributes to organisational success, and in social terms it identifies the benefits gained when dealing with crises, when factors such as learning and well-being in the work environment are worked on to build healthy relationships inside and outside the organisation.

Like any study, this one is not without limitations, namely the software used, as many others could have been used, as well as other search terms and simultaneous use of Scopus and ISI. Suggested for a future agenda is: to address organisational agility in specific business contexts (e.g., the current pandemic), to identify response capacity and agility; compare the performance of organisational agility between public and private firms; identify aspects in the business environment that prevent organisational agility. Furthermore, future studies could determine the relation between strategic organisational agility and organisational and individual resilience, which are crucial constructs for firms’ response to the present public health crisis, which has had a severe effect on national economies and consequently their business sector.

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the anonymous referees of the journal for their extremely useful suggestions to improve the quality of the paper. The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from National Funds of the FCT – Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology within the project «UIDB/04007/2020».

Disclosure statement

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