Title: Organisational agility as a competitive advantage: a systematic literature review

Authors: Maria Franco; Leandro Pereira; Ana Simões; Álvaro Dias; Rui Vinhas da Silva

Addresses: ISCTE – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Av. das Forças Armadas, 1649-026, Lisboa, Portugal ' BRU-Business Research Unit, ISCTE – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Av. das Forças Armadas, 1649-026, Lisboa, Portugal ' BRU-Business Research Unit, ISCTE – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Av. das Forças Armadas, 1649-026, Lisboa, Portugal ' BRU-Business Research Unit, ISCTE-Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Avenida das Forças Armadas, 1649-026 Lisboa, Portugal ' Business Research Unit – BRU-IUL, ISCTE – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Av. das Forças Armadas, 1649-026, Lisboa, Portugal

Abstract: Agility is the ability of an organisation to respond dynamically to changes in market demand, to a business climate characterised by a high degree of uncertainty, and to global scenarios that are constantly being updated. The organisation must adopt agile practices as a core value to respond to the changing needs of customers, the environment, and stakeholders, and maintain a better market position against competitors (Butt et al., 2021). Although there are many studies on the definition of agility and how it can benefit organisations through competitive advantage, in the recurrent literature there are still some gaps regarding its conceptualisation, and a lack of commitment to systematic reviews to better understand the "state of the art" of the subject. The objective of this study is to address this gap, study the evolution of investigations on agility as a competitive advantage for organisations, and carry out a systematic review of the literature.

Keywords: agile; agility; organisational agility; competitive advantage; VUCA; volatility; uncertainty; complexity and ambiguity.

DOI: 10.1504/IJASM.2024.138804

International Journal of Agile Systems and Management, 2024 Vol.17 No.2, pp.129 - 152

Received: 30 Oct 2022
Accepted: 09 Dec 2022

Published online: 31 May 2024 *

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