Enterprise Systems and Organizational Agility: A Review of the Literature and Conceptual Framework <s> II. RESEARCH METHOD <s> A review of prior, relevant literature is an essential feature of any academic project. An effective review creates a firm foundation for advancing knowledge. It facilitates theory development, closes areas where a plethora of research exists, and uncovers areas where research is needed. <s> BIB001 </s> Enterprise Systems and Organizational Agility: A Review of the Literature and Conceptual Framework <s> II. RESEARCH METHOD <s> Agility is vital to the innovation and competitive performance of firms in contemporary business environments. Firms are increasingly relying on information technologies, including process, knowledge, and communication technologies, to enhance their agility. The purpose of this paper is to broaden understanding about the strategic role of IT by examining the nomological network of influences through which IT impacts firm performance. By drawing upon recent thinking in the strategy, entrepreneurship, and IT management literatures, this paper uses a multitheoretic lens to argue that information technology investments and capabilities influence firm performance through three significant organizational capabilities (agility, digital options, and entrepreneurial alertness) and strategic processes (capability-building, entrepreneurial action, and coevolutionary adaptation). We also propose that these dynamic capabilities and strategic processes impact the ability of firms to launch many and varied competitive actions and that, in turn, these competitive actions are a significant antecedent of firm performance. Through our theorizing, we draw attention to a significant and reframed role of IT as a digital options generator in contemporary firms. <s> BIB002 </s> Enterprise Systems and Organizational Agility: A Review of the Literature and Conceptual Framework <s> II. RESEARCH METHOD <s> Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) customization is a major source of concern for organizations implementing or using ERP systems. Customization has been used to explain implementation failures for years. However, the question of which types of customization have negative effects and which types of customizations have positive effects has not been fully explored. Case studies show that lack of customization sometimes causes negative consequences. What is the reason that some customizations are needed while others should be passed by? Using strategic alignment and systems agility as a basis for understanding the impact of customizations, this paper attempts to gain insight into the impacts of ERP customization. <s> BIB003 </s> Enterprise Systems and Organizational Agility: A Review of the Literature and Conceptual Framework <s> II. RESEARCH METHOD <s> In turbulent environments, enterprise agility, that is, the ability of firms to sense environmental change and respond readily, is an important determinant of firm success. We define and deconstruct enterprise agility, delineate enterprise agility from similar concepts in the business research literature, explore the underlying capabilities that support enterprise agility, explicate the enabling role of information technology (IT) and digital options, and propose a method for measuring enterprise agility. The concepts in this paper are offered as foundational building blocks for the overall research program on enterprise agility and the enabling role of IT. <s> BIB004 </s> Enterprise Systems and Organizational Agility: A Review of the Literature and Conceptual Framework <s> II. RESEARCH METHOD <s> Being responsive is an increasingly important skill for firms in today's global economy; thus firms must be agile. Naturally, it follows that an organization's agility depends on its supply chain being agile. However, achieving supply chain agility is a function of other abilities within the organization, specifically supply chain flexibility and information technology (IT) integration. Using empirical data, we find a domino effect among IT integration, supply chain flexibility, supply chain agility, and competitive business performance. Results from this study indicate that IT integration enables a firm to tap its supply chain flexibility which in turn results in higher supply chain agility and ultimately higher competitive business performance. While these results indicate that firms should invest first in IT for integrating information before investing in flexible processes, additional research is needed. <s> BIB005 </s> Enterprise Systems and Organizational Agility: A Review of the Literature and Conceptual Framework <s> II. RESEARCH METHOD <s> Strategic flexibility is a critical organizational competency in today's dynamic global environment. This paper explores the impact of enterprise information systems on an organization's strategic flexibility using the existing strategy and information systems literature to develop a theoretical model. Strategic flexibility is broken down into five first order constructs: operational flexibility; human capital flexibility; information flexibility; supply chain flexibility; and financial flexibility. These constructs are then used to develop a theoretical model and propositions of the impact of enterprise systems on strategic flexibility. <s> BIB006 </s> Enterprise Systems and Organizational Agility: A Review of the Literature and Conceptual Framework <s> II. RESEARCH METHOD <s> Agility has become a key organizational capability today as businesses face an uncertain and volatile environment. Enterprise systems, a key component of IT infrastructure in a majority of orrganizations today, have delivered cost efficiencies, control and consistent execution. Using a case study approach, this research reports on the investigation of the influence of enterprise system-enabled environment on business process agility. According to study, integration, standardization, best practices and process orientation, the key characteristics of ES-enabled environment have mixed and varying effect on business process agility and that is dependent upon the extent and type of standardization and integration implemented in the organization and the nature of business processes. Tight coupling of systems, structures and processes resulting from ES implementation restricts a firm’s ability to reconfigure and deploy business processes. The study found that the standard best practices embedded in an enterprise system do not have any direct influence on process agility. Recognizing that it is not after all necessary for all processes to be agile, study pointed out some of the challenges in identification, configuration and effective deployment of agile processes. <s> BIB007 </s> Enterprise Systems and Organizational Agility: A Review of the Literature and Conceptual Framework <s> II. RESEARCH METHOD <s> Agility has become a key competency today as businesses face uncertain and volatile environment. Organizations operating in highly dynamic environments need agile processes. Existing information technology infrastructure and systems including enterprise systems with their ability to achieve organizational integration pose a serious challenge to process agility, even though they have made business processes cost efficient. With enterprise systems in most of the large and medium sized enterprises, this paper analyses the impact of enterprise system on business process agility. Using a case study approach, this study observes that the characteristics integration and standardization have a varying influence on the firm's ability to build agility. <s> BIB008
The study is based on a structured literature review. A literature review method is suitable for creating a firm foundation for advancing knowledge and theory development BIB001 . To identify relevant articles, we conducted a thirteen-year (1998) (1999) (2000) (2001) (2002) (2003) (2004) (2005) (2006) (2007) (2008) (2009) (2010) The reason to choose the highest ranking journals for the pool of data collection is that those journals represent the most advanced and widely-recognized knowledge of the subject among IS researchers BIB001 . Papers were identified through online database searches of each of the journals. To be included in the review, a paper had to meet the following criteria: 1. Because "Agility," "flexibility," and "adaptability" concepts are used interchangeably in the literature  , papers are included if they contain any of the following concepts in their full text: "organization agility," "organization flexibility," and "organizational adaptability." Further, papers that contain "enterprise agility" and "business agility" in their keywords were included. This process resulted in an initial pool of fiftytwo papers. 2. It is noticeable from the literature that information system and information technology concepts are often used interchangeably. Thus the initial pool of papers was screened for the presence of "information system" or "information technology," either in their abstract or body. This process has excluded eight papers, resulting in forty-four papers. 3. The forty-four papers were further screened in order to determine the extent of engagement of a paper with the concepts of "organizational agility," "organizational flexibility," and "organizational adaptability." Articles that make a passing reference to, and that do not deeply engage with, these concepts were excluded from further analysis. We have established a "rule of thumb" criteria: if either of the three concepts appear in an article less than twice, we treat that article as lacking a deep engagement and excluded it from the review. This process excluded ten articles, resulting in thirty-four relevant papers. 4. Additional articles were identified following the suggestion from BIB001 that, with each selected article, we go backwards to determine the precedence articles that this paper cites, and go forward by using the Web of Science and Google Scholar to identify the papers citing this article for comprehensive coverage of the topic. This process identified fifteen extra journal, conference, and book chapter articles which were not published in the high-ranking journals but do discuss the impact of information systems on organizational agility. The complete list of journals along with the number of papers found based on steps 1-4 is provided in Appendix 1. Although the structured approach described above ensures the comprehensiveness of the coverage, it nonetheless does not guarantee completeness. As a result, we have also referred to a number of articles from non-IS journals, which are related to the organizational agility theme in order to get a deeper understanding of the concepts. These articles were chosen based on their relevance to the topic, that is, theoretical sampling. The findings show that, although there is some research on IS and OA BIB004 BIB002 BIB005 , there are only eight academically published papers on ES and OA BIB003    BIB006  BIB007 BIB008 . In the following section, we discuss the concept of OA and the common perspectives on the link between IS (ES) and OA in the IS literature. Volume 31 Article 8 171