Master Thesis Exposé · 2018-11-29 · Master Thesis Exposé - David Bermejo - What is an agile...

What is an agile city? Developing a new concept based on supply chain and manufacturing

agility in the sustainable city context

David Bermejo Gutiérrez

Kassel

31/10/2018

Master Thesis Exposé

Master Thesis Exposé - David Bermejo - What is an agile city?

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ABSTRACT

Title: What is an agile city? Developing a concept based on supply chain and manufacturing

agility in the sustainable city context.

Keywords: agility, supply chain, manufacturing, attributes, agile city, sustainable city,

sustainability.

Background: The concept of agility has been and is still being studied in many different fields,

such as supply chain, manufacturing, sports or military sciences. Agility is a term composed of

different attributes and capabilities that are inherent to concepts like flexibility, alertness or

responsiveness. However, in these days of continuous changes and uncertainties surrounding

the modern world, agility has not been studied in the sphere of the city, more precisely the

sustainable city. The importance of the city and its relationship with sustainable development

have increased substantially in the last century, being a critical fact for the governing

institutions, companies and the society in general. Supply chain and manufacturing agility,

which have been thoroughly studied, are therefore the best starting points to implement the

existing knowledge to develop a first step in the agile city aspect, basing the study in the context

of the sustainable city. The attributes and capabilities of the agile supply chain and

manufacturing systems will be extrapolated to the sustainable city in order to test if they are

applicable in the same way to define what is an agile city.

Purpose: This study aims to develop a definition for city agility, or what can be understood as

an agile city. It will be done by framing the study in the context of the sustainable city and

identifying the attributes and capabilities that are considered relevant and suitable. That will be

done based on the previous studies done and the knowledge acquired in the supply chain and

manufacturing field, that are the most similar systems that a city can be compared or related to.

The lack of literature regarding city agility is an extra motivation to do a first step in this field.

Methodology: A quantitative research will be conducted through a self-administered online

questionnaire that will be sent to three different groups of respondents, being divided into

respondents from Spain, Germany and Italy. The target group selected for this study is adult

respondents born from 1980, also known as Millennials or Generation Y, because is the

generation that is more familiar with the atmosphere of agility and sustainability. The data

collected will be analyzed with a specific software in order to give the best conclusion possible.


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................... 2

List of Figures ............................................................................................................................ 4

List of Tables ............................................................................................................................. 4

1. INTRODUCTION/BACKGROUND ................................................................................ 5

2. PROBLEM STATEMENT ................................................................................................ 6

3. RESEARCH MODEL ....................................................................................................... 7

4. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND / HYPOTHESIS ....................................................... 8

Supply Chain Agility ............................................................................................................. 8

Manufacturing Agility ........................................................................................................... 8

Capabilities and attributes of Agility: .................................................................................... 9

Selected Attributes and Capabilities .................................................................................... 11

City ....................................................................................................................................... 14

Sustainability........................................................................................................................ 14

Sustainable City ................................................................................................................... 15

Sustainable City Characteristics .......................................................................................... 16

First definition of the Agile City .......................................................................................... 17

5. RESEARCH QUESTION ................................................................................................ 17

6. REVIEW OF LITERATURE .......................................................................................... 18

7. METHODOLOGY .......................................................................................................... 22

8. OVERVIEW OF CHAPTERS ......................................................................................... 24

9. PLAN OF WORK ............................................................................................................ 25

References ................................................................................................................................ 26


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List of Figures

Figure 1. Conceptual Research Model. Own elaboration .......................................................... 7

List of Tables

Table 1. Attributes and capabilities of agility. Own elaboration. ............................................ 11

Table 2. Attributes and Hypothesis. Own elaboration. ............................................................ 17

Table 3. Review of Literature. Own elaboration ..................................................................... 22

Table 4. Plan of Work. Own elaboration. ................................................................................ 25


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1. INTRODUCTION/BACKGROUND

The importance of the city in this globalized world has increased exponentially in the last

century (Egger, 2003). Nowadays, more than half of the world’s population is living in urban

areas, 55% to be more precise, which contrasts with the 30% of 1950. Moreover, by 2050 the

world’s urban population is expected to reach 68% of the total (United Nations, 2018). This

growth means that cities are growing in detriment of the rural areas (United Nations Human

Settlements Programme, 2002b).

Agility is a contemporary concept that, as the base of this research, will be deeply studied.

Sustainable, green, smart, eco, zero-waste and several other concepts related to development

and modernity are other coetaneous concepts that are now lying on the actuality table and will

be used to give a specific context.

Agility, in the science of competitiveness, has been identified as a key element (Li, Chung,

Goldsby, & Holsapple, 2008) and the need to achieve an agile supply chain, manufacturing and

enterprise systems have been identified as one of the main goals for the industry in the 21st

Century, in a market with a high level of complexity, uncertainty and heterogeneity (Xu,

Besant, & Ristic, 2003). In order to survive and remain competitive in the market, companies

need to respond and be able to adapt to ever-increasing volatility and uncertainty levels in

demand and focus their efforts to achieve a higher level of agility (AMBE, 2010).

The concept of agility has been studied since the 90’s in the world of supply chain management,

manufacturing and firm strategy. Agility was introduced in the field of manufacturing in 1991

by the Iacocca Institute in order to present a new system of manufacturing, agile, in the USA

(Nagel & Dove, 1991). Many authors and researchers have investigated agility in these

particular fields, developing many different and complementary definitions. One of the main

common awareness identified by the organizational entities is the concern and awareness of

change, identified by Yusuf, Y., Sarhadi, M. and Gunasekaran, A. (1999) as the main driver

force behind agility, unpredictability and uncertainty and therefore to make an appropriate

response (Tseng & Lin, 2011).

According to Li et al., (2008) “Agility is the result of integrating alertness to changes

(opportunities/challenges) – both internal and environmental – with a capability to use


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resources in responding (proactively/reactively) to such changes, all in a timely, and flexible

manner.” (2008, p. 421).

Similarly to the supply chain field, manufacturing agility has been defined many times. For

example, as the ability to respond to changes in the market and customer demand (Sharp, Irani,

& Desai, 1999). According to Dove (1994, p. 15), "being agile means being proficient at

change, and allows an organization to do anything it wants to whenever it has to.” As Goldman,

Nagel, and Preiss (1995) identify, there are four dimensions of agility: (1) enriching the

customer, (2) organization to master change and uncertainty, (3) cooperate to enhance

competitiveness and (4) leveraging the impact of people and information.

Nevertheless, agility is not just related to these two fields and is currently perceived as a way

of competing, so the extent increases to all kind of business or enterprises (Kidd, 1996). An

agile corporation, supply chain or manufacturing system can be considered like that when is

able to use the business process reinventing as a core competency (Dove, 1994).

Regarding the sustainable city, which will be used as the context in this study, it is considered

as a learning, sharing and networked city that seeks to conserve, enhance and promote its assets,

patrimony and opportunities at local and global scales. (Haughton & Hunter, 2004). At the

time of building sustainable cities, it requires several investments in key sectors such as

renewable energies, efficient use in water and electricity, affordable and reliable public

transportation, design and implementation of compact cities, recycling systems and green areas

(United Nations, 2013).

2. PROBLEM STATEMENT

The concept of city agility, when searching for academic research in the most known sources,

is not found. For this reason, in this paper, the objective is to do a first step in this field using

the knowledge already developed in the supply chain and manufacturing field mainly.

The reason why supply chain and manufacturing agility are chosen instead of another kind of

agilities, like the agility related to sports or psychology, is because the city as a system is easier

to be compared with the firm as a system. Both face similar uncertainties and changes in the

environment and are managed by groups of individuals that pursue different interests in an

interconnected world. For this reason, agility and sustainability are two concepts the studied

together can lead to interesting results.


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3. RESEARCH MODEL

For a better understanding of the research, Figure 1 shows graphically the procedure that will

be followed. First, a research process will collect information about the concept of agility from

the supply chain and manufacturing field in order to collect the most important definitions,

attributes and capabilities of agility. Second, a selection of the most important ones that are

suitable for the research purpose will be used as a base for a first definition of agility in the

sustainable city context and to formulate different hypotheses and assumptions based on the

information previously collected and that will be tested using a questionnaire. Thirdly, a final

definition will be developed after analyzing the data collected from the questionnaire and that

will serve to extract some learnings and conclusions from the empirical research.

Figure 1. Conceptual Research Model. Own elaboration


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4. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND / HYPOTHESIS

This section will explain in detail the main concepts that this study aims to focus on. In the first

part supply chain and manufacturing agility will be described, followed by an extensive

compilation of their main attributes and characteristics. After that, a selection of the most

important ones that are suitable for the research purpose will be explained and a hypothesis

will be developed in each of them. The last part of the theoretical chapter is dedicated to frame

the concepts of city, sustainability and sustainable city.

Supply Chain Agility

The concept of agile supply chains was introduced to transfer and apply the winning strategy

of agility to that of supply chains (Harrison, Christopher, & van Hoek, 1999). Supply chain

agility has been defined as the ability to have visibility of the demand, with quick and flexible

response and synchronized operations (Aitken, Christopher, & Towill, 2002), the ability to

react quickly to short-term changes both in the demand and supply (Lee, H. L., 2004) or as an

emerging concept focused in responsiveness to dynamic, changing and turbulent markets and

demand (van I. Hoek, Harrison, & Christopher, 2001).

A supply chain in order to be agile must have some characteristics, among we can find some

such as market sensitivity, network orientation, process integration, and virtualness. (Li et al.,

2008).

Li et al. (2008) also identify two key dimensions in the supply chain agility which are the

alertness to changes and the ability to respond to them at three different levels: strategic,

operational and episodic.

Manufacturing Agility

According to Sharifi and Zhang (2001), the concept of manufacturing agility includes two main

factors, which are responding to anticipated or unexpected changes correctly and in time, and

exploiting and taking advantage of changes as opportunities.

Historically, the competitive advantage has changed from the massive production system to

one based on quick responsiveness and flexibility, agile (Lee, W. B. & Lau, 1999). For

Dahmardeh, N., & Banihashemi, S. A. (2010), manufacturing agility means being able to use

market knowledge and virtual corporation in order to exploit opportunities in a volatile and full

of uncertainty marketplace. The importance is crucial, as uncertainty in the business


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environment has been identified and recognized as the cause of a significant number of failures

in the manufacturing industry (Small & Downey, 1996).

Capabilities and attributes of Agility:

In this section, Table 1 compiles a set of attributes and capabilities identified with agility in the

supply chain (SCA) and manufacturing (MA) field. This list will help to create a broad idea of

the composition of agility.

Item Author Field Key Aspect

Accesibility Gligor, 2013 SCA Ability to access relevant data.

Adaptability SWAFFORD,

GHOSH, &

MURTHY, 2006

SCA Ability to change from one state to

another state in a timely and cost-

effective manner.

Lin, Chiu, & Chu,

2006

SCA Ability to implement different

processes and apply different

facilities to achieve the same goals.

Alertness Gligor, 2013 SCA Ability to quickly detect changes,

opportunities, and threats.

Competency Zhang & Sharifi,

2000

MA Extensive list of abilities that provide

a company with productivity,

efficiency, and effectiveness in

achieving its aims and goals.

Decisiveness Gligor, 2013 SCA Ability to make decisions resolutely.

Effectiveness Charles, Lauras, &

van Wassenhove,

2010

SCA Doing all the right things.

Flexibility Gligor, 2013 SCA Ability to modify the range of tactics

and operations to the extent needed.


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Prater, Biehl, &

Smith, 2001

SCA The degree to which the firm is able

to adjust the time in which it can ship

or receive goods.

Christopher, 2000 MA Automation to enable rapid change

and thus greater responsiveness to

changes in product mix or volume.

Toni & Tonchia,

2005

SCA Ability to change or react with little

penalty in time, effort, cost or

performance.

Zhang & Sharifi,

2000

MA Ability to carry out different work

and achieve different objectives with

the same facilities.

Reactiveness Charles et al., 2010 SCA Ability to evaluate and take needs

into account quickly.

Reliability

Charles et al., 2010 SCA Doing the right thing.

"SCOR® supply

chain operations

reference model,"

2008

SCA The ability to perform tasks as

expected. Reliability focuses on the

predictability of the outcome of a

process. Typical metrics for the

reliability attribute include: On-time,

the right quantity, the right quality.

Responsiveness

Zhang & Sharifi,

2000

MA Ability to identify changes, respond

rapidly to changes either reactively or

proactively, and recover from

changes.

Golden & Powell,

2000

SCA Ability to respond to change within

an appropriate time frame.

"SCOR® supply

chain operations

reference model,"

2008

SCA The speed at which tasks are

performed. The speed at which a

supply chain provides products to the

customer.

Sensitiveness Christopher, M., &

Towill, D. R., 2001

SCA Capable of reading and responding to

real demand.


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Quickness/

Speed

Prater et al., 2001 SCA Measure of the time it takes to ship or

receive a good.

Zhang & Sharifi,

2000

MA Ability to carry out tasks and

operations in the shortest possible

time.

Lin et al., 2006 SCA Ability to complete an activity as

quickly as possible.

Swiftness Gligor, 2013 SCA Ability to implement decisions

quickly.

Table 1. Attributes and capabilities of agility. Own elaboration.

Selected Attributes and Capabilities

In this section, we can find the attributes and capabilities that are considered more relevant and

suitable for this research and will be used in order to develop the hypothesis that will be

assessed in the questionnaire.

Alertness:

Alertness has been studied in many different fields apart from the ones that this research aims

to, like sports or military sciences, and this dimension of agility is captured within two stages,

observe and orient, and is a prerequisite to an agile response (Gligor, 2013). According to the

definitions, it is clear that alertness is strongly related with the sensitiveness attribute in the

sense of reading the real demand.

Some researchers in the military field describe this capability as situational awareness and refer

it as the perception of environmental and surrounding elements concerning time and space

(Dekker, 2006).

Within the business dimension, alertness covers different aspects, such as listening to

customers, monitoring real demand and sensing market trends (Li et al., 2008).

This study will try to test if alertness is perceived as a key characteristic of an agile city. For

this reason, a hypothesis will be developed:

H1: alertness positively affects the agility perception within the sustainable city context.


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Adaptation of constructs like the following will be used in the questionnaire as an item: “My

firm can rapidly detect changes in its environment” (Gligor, 2013) or “My firm can rapidly

detect opportunities in its environment” (Gligor, 2013).

Accessibility:

Different authors agree that after being aware of a change, opportunity or threat, the firm must

be able and have access to relevant and essential data that enable to take or perform an agile

response (Gunasekaran, 1998; Jain, Benyoucef, & Deshmukh, 2008; Sharp et al., 1999).

According to Goldman et al. (1995), a fundamental requirement of agility design is creating an

environment in which data, especially relevant data, can be accessed. Overby, Bharadwaj, and

Sambamurthy (2006) assure that supply chain members can only detect changes or trends in

customer’s needs with real-time access to relevant information.

The hypothesis developed for this capability is the following:

H2: accessibility positively affects the agility perception within the sustainable city

context.

The constructs that will be adapted for the questionnaire will have the following structure: “We

always receive the information we demand from our suppliers” (Gligor, Holcomb, & Stank,

2013, p. 104) or “My firm can acquire the information it needs to respond to threats in its

environment” (Gligor et al., 2013, p. 104).

Flexibility:

Regarding supply chain agility, the existing literature recognizes the flexibility role in terms of

providing an agile response (Gligor, 2013). For example, Swafford, Ghosh, and Murthy (2008)

state that supply chain flexibility impacts in a positive way the supply chain agility. Flexibility

has a similar meaning and englobes the concept of adaptability, which focuses on the ability to

implement changes from one state to another to achieve the desired goals.

When it comes to manufacturing agility, flexibility is identified as one of the capabilities that

an agile firm must have (Sharifi & Zhang, 1999). To highlight the importance of this attribute,

Christopher (2000) roots the origins of agility in Flexible Manufacturing systems (FMS).

In the sports field, a study made by Wong, Chaouachi, Lau, and Behm (2011), finds that

flexibility training can improve the agility performance substantially. Similarly, flexibility is

considered a key factor in agility and is an essential component for an agile military response

(McNaugher, T., Johnson, D., & Sollinger, J., 2000).


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In order to test if flexibility is perceived as a key aspect of agility in our research, a third

hypothesis is developed:

H3: Flexibility positively affects the agility perception within the sustainable city context.

An example of a construct that will be used and adapted for the research purpose is “When

needed, we can adjust our supply chain operations to the extent necessary to execute our

decisions” (Gligor et al., 2013, p. 104).

Responsiveness:

Perhaps, responsiveness is one of the most important characteristics that an agile supply chain

or manufacturing system must have. As van I. Hoek et al. (2001) states, agility is all about

creating responsiveness and mastering uncertainty. Responsiveness can be related to the

reliability and reactiveness capabilities, that focus on doing the right thing and take needs into

account quickly.

Responsiveness capability can be strategic, operational and episodic. Strategic responsiveness

is focused on addressing the needs of new markets, operational is centered in the

reconfiguration ability and episodic enables the supply chain to recover rapidly from non-

expected setbacks (Li, Goldsby, & Holsapple, 2009).

Sharifi and Zhang (1999) have identified different items related to responsiveness and its

relation with changes, that are sensing and perceiving changes, reacting and recovering from

them.

The hypothesis to assess responsiveness is the following:

H4: Responsiveness positively affects the agility perception within the sustainable city

context.

The constructs used in the questionnaire will have the following structure: “The firm is able to

reconfigure supply chain resources in a timely manner to respond to changes in supply/

demand” (Li et al., 2009).

Swiftness:

Swiftness is identified with different terminology depending on the research article. It can be

named as quickness, rapidness, speed or velocity and is mostly recognized as a key component

of agility (Gligor, 2013). For example, Kumar and Motwani (1995) refer to swiftness as the

ability to accelerate activities on a critical path.


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This capability is suggested to be required in an agile supply chain and can be defined as the

ability to perform an activity or task as fast as possible (Christopher, 2000). Also is identified

as a key factor of agility by many authors (Lin et al., 2006; Sharp et al., 1999).

In the military and sports field is also proved that the function of swiftness plays an important

role in enhancing agility (Gligor, 2013).

The hypothesis developed to test if swiftness is perceived as a key aspect in this research is the

following:

H5: Swiftness positively affects the agility perception within the sustainable city context.

The constructs will be adapted from the model developed by (Gligor, 2013) and can have this

shape: “We can rapidly address opportunities in our environment” (Gligor et al., 2013, p. 104)

or “My firm can quickly respond to changes in the business environment” (Gligor et al., 2013,

p. 104).

City

Due to the extreme diversity of the urban areas all over the world, there is no a globally

accepted and satisfactory definition of what is a city, that is in fact an elastic concept, as each

country defines it according to its own criteria (Haughton & Hunter, 2004; United Nations,

2013).

This study will use the definition developed by the EC–European Commission (2012) and

Eurostat, that defines a city as a municipality or local administrative unit (LAU) where the

urban center has a population greater than 50.000 inhabitants.

Cities are centers where the exchange of products, services and ideas is possible and can

provide many benefits by agglomeration of this elements, lowering unit costs (United Nations,

2013). The city is considered as a system that has to adapt and evolve in response to

uncertainties and externalities (Egger, 2003), similarly to the supply chain and manufacturing

system.

Sustainability

Regarding the concept of sustainability, many international organisms have taken part in the

development of definitions and descriptions. For example, World Commission on Environment

and Development (1987), known as the Brundtland Report, defines sustainability as “a process

of change in which the exploitation of resources, the direction of investments, the orientation


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of technological development, and institutional changes are made consistent with future as well

as present needs’’. The United Nations Human Settlements Programme (2002b) describes it

remarking the lasting in time characteristic for the social, economic and physical achievements.

The Brundtland Report (1987) says that preserving the future generations’ capacity to meet

their needs should be preserved in a sustainable system.

Regarding the belonging of every entity to the same whole that is our planet, any system and

in particular the city can only be considered as sustainable if it recognizes and accepts the

indivisibility of the planet (Egger, 2003).

Sustainable City

After explaining both city and sustainability concepts, is time to define what is a sustainable

city. In this dynamic era, the idea of what a sustainable city is will change over time, as it will

occur with the general understanding of the environment, that becomes more sophisticated and

advanced (Haughton & Hunter, 2004).

The UN Sustainable City Program has defined the sustainable city as “one that is able to retain

the supply of natural resources while achieving economic, physical, and social progress, and

remaining safe against the environmental risks that can undermine any development

achievement” (United Nations Human Settlements Programme, 2002a).

Regarding the sustainable city term, Theodoridou, Papadopoulos, and Hegger (2012) refers to

it as a self-sufficient city and is organized in a way that permits its inhabitants to meet their

needs without damaging the environment or the living conditions in the present or the future

(Burnett, 2007).

An important concern regarding the sustainable city is its disposition, as it can adopt different

shapes. The city can be a large concentrated center with a high population density, a

decentralized but concentrated group of settlements that are well linked by public

transportation, or dispersed and self-sufficient communities or nodes (Frey, 1999).

A sustainable city must recognize the impacts, objectives, management and development of

the environmental, social and economic factors to meet the sustainable goals (Egger, 2003;

Rogers & Gumuchdjian, 1997; United Nations, 2013). The need of a sustainable city is not to

negate its fundamentals but to adapt creatively (Haughton & Hunter, 2004).


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According to Egger (2006), the fundamental parameters of the structural city’s sustainability

are its potential, connectedness and resilience, that are the city’s capability, the self-control of

the destiny and the recovery ability from unexpected conflicts, respectively.

In the Sustainable City Manifesto, Haughton and Hunter (2004) state that the sustainable city

involves a broad and participatory programme based on radical change that encourages

individuals to take more responsibility in the managing of the city and to improve the ways

they are managed.

Sustainable City Characteristics

For the research purpose, is essential to identify practically which are characteristics that a

sustainable city should have in order to assess the respondent’s perception of the agility

attributes that the study is based on. The key elements of a sustainable city according to Oxfam

(2017), one of the most important organizations specialized in urban development among many

other aspects are:

- Access to public resources: ease and guaranteed access to health care and education system,

public transportation, garbage collection systems and safety.

- Urban renewal actions: renovation and restoration of public spaces as streets, squares,

parks. Also modernizing and improving waste management practices.

- Air quality and reduction of CO2 emissions: shifting towards renewable energies systems,

vertical gardens and promoting alternative means of transport in order to reduce pollution.

- Favoring and promoting ethical consumption: reducing the over-consumption trends in

order to stop the depletion of resources, promoting local food production and fair trade that

supports local producers and supply chains.

- Recycling, reusing and reducing programmes: promoting recycling awareness, ease for the

citizen to recycle and creation of minimal waste infrastructure.

These characteristics will be the ones taken into account and adapted at the time of designing

the questionnaire. They will be grouped in a way that the respondent identifies the specific field

easily and can give the most accurate answer possible. For each characteristic, the attributes

and capabilities of agility previously selected will be assessed to measure the importance of

each in the respondents’ perception and therefore lead to a conclusion from the learnings

achieved between the first and the final definition of the agile city.


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First definition of the Agile City

After the research carried out identifying and selecting the most important and suitable

attributes and capabilities of agility, I develop the first definition of an agile city in the context

of the sustainable city, that after the questionnaire analysis, will be adjusted depending on the

results:

“In the sustainable city context, a city is agile when is perceived to possess the capabilities of

alertness, accessibility, flexibility, responsiveness and swiftness towards changes, threats and

opportunities in its environment.”

5. RESEARCH QUESTION

The Research Question in this study is:

What is an agile city in the context of the sustainable city?

The hypothesis used to assess the perception of the attributes and capabilities of an agile city

based in the supply chain and manufacturing are:

Attribute Hypothesis

H1 Alertness Alertness positively affects the agility perception within the

sustainable city context.

H2 Accessibility Accessibility positively affects the agility perception within the


H3 Flexibility Flexibility positively affects the agility perception within the


H4 Responsiveness Responsiveness positively affects the agility perception within the


H5 Swiftness Swiftness positively affects the agility perception within the


Table 2. Attributes and Hypothesis. Own elaboration.


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6. REVIEW OF LITERATURE

In this section, I provide a list of the most relevant papers related with agility in the different

fields that the research is interested in like supply chain agility, manufacturing agility, firm

agility, city sustainability and scale development.

# Title Author (Year),

Published Contribution

1

The Concept of

Supply Chain

Agility:

Conceptualization,

Antecedents, and the

Impact on

Firm Performance

Gligor (2013)

PhD diss.,

University of

Tennessee.

Historical development of the concept

of agility.

Identification of ambiguity and

inconsistencies among definitions

within the business domain.

Identification of the elements of the

firm supply chain agility and the

relations among them. Five dimensions

of supply chain agility are alertness,

accessibility, decisiveness, swiftness

and flexibility.

Clarification of the differences between

the concept of agility and other closely-

related terms such as flexibility,

adaptability, responsiveness and

resilience.

Development of a comprehensive

definition of agility.

2

International Supply

Chain Agility:

Tradeoffs Between

Flexibility And

Uncertainty

Prater et al. (2001),

International

Journal of

Operations &

Production

Management

Identification of limiting factors of the

firms‘ supply chain agility.

Identification and explanation of the

concepts speed and flexibility, which

are considered inherent to the definition

of agility. These two concepts have to

be incorporated into the physical

components of the supply chain:

sourcing, manufacturing and delivery.

Establishment a relationship between

the concepts of supply chain agility and

external vulnerability as supply chain

exposure.

3 Agile Manufacturing:

The Drivers,

Yusuf, Y., Sarhadi,

M. and

Explanation of the origin of the concept

of agile manufacturing.


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Concepts and

Attributes

Gunasekaran, A.

(1999),

International

Journal of

Production

Economics,

The paper tries to address, as possible,

the basic requirements to achieve agility

in this particular field.

Exploration of the definitions of

manufacturing agility regarding the

outcome, operationalization, as well as

identification of the scope and a

comprehensive definition of the term.

Identification of the attributes of an

agile organization related to the specific

decision domain.

4

The Agile Supply

Chain: Competing in

Volatile Markets

Christopher (2000),

Industrial

Marketing

Management,

Detailed explanation of the differences

between agility and leanness, which in

some contexts can be confused.

Identification that the origin of agility

lies in the concept of Flexible

Manufacturing Systems (FMS).

Identification of characteristics needed

in a supply chain to be “truly agile.”

Inventory management-related:

importance of the decoupling point in

situations driven by demand or driven

by forecasts.

5

21st Century

manufacturing

enterprise strategy

report. An Industry-

Led View

Nagel and Dove

(1991)

Enterprise Strategy

Explains an implementation plan

developed by a group of industry

leaders, government and academe

representatives in the U.S with the aim

of make the industry leader again.

Describes the chance that American

industry has to recover competitiveness

in the world market through a transition

to agile manufacturing as a new system.

Recommendations and advice for the

industry in order to reach an agile

manufacturing system.

Creation of AMEF (Agile

Manufacturing Enterprise Forum) as a

result.

6 Modeling agility of

supply chain

Agarwal, Shankar,

and Tiwari (2007)

Compilation of several organizational

agility definitions.


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Industrial

Marketing

Management

Identification and explanation of agility

variables in the supply chain.

Brainstorming among five experts that,

after being provided with the

appropriate literature about supply

chain agility variables in order to

develop new ones: a total of fifteen, that

were studied with the aim of

establishing the relationship among

them.

7

Analysis of the

structural measures

of flexibility and

agility using a

measurement

theoretical

framework.

Giachetti, Martinez,

Sáenz, and Chen

(2003)

International

Journal of

Production

Economics.

Presentation of a framework to analyze

measures related to agility and

flexibility with a mathematical

foundation in the field of the enterprise

strategy.

Identification of different problems and

issues to overcome when design and

manage different enterprise systems.

8

A Review of

Enterprise Agility:

Concepts,

Frameworks, and

Attributes

Sherehiy,

Karwowski, and

Layer (2007)

International

Journal of Industrial

Ergonomics

Identification of the terms “adaptivity”

and flexibility as main attributes

concerning enterprise agility.

Explanation of the conceptual

frameworks of agile manufacturing

according to the principal authors in the

field.

Investigations of the attributes of agility

in the workforce. Speed and

responsiveness were found as the most

important ones.

9

A Multidisciplinary

Approach to Supply

Chain Agility:

Conceptualization

and Scale

Development

Gligor et al. (2013)

Journal of Business

Logistics

2013

Classification of dimensions in supply

chain agility according to two different

types: cognitive (alertness, accessibility

and decisiveness) and physical

dimensions (swiftness and flexibility).

Scale adaptation and development in

order to assess the different dimensions.

Not proved that the abovementioned

dimensions are distinct dimensions of

supply chain agility, but belonging.


21

10

Agile manufacturing:

a strategy for the 21st

century

Kidd (1996)

IEE Colloquium on

Agile

Manufacturing

Identification of the keywords and the

main points related to the agile

paradigm.

European point of view of the agility

concept, identifying the two main

competitors: the US and Asia.

Introduction to the European Agility

Forum that was going to be launched

and the actions that it was made for.

Identification of Germany as the most

aware country about agility at that time

in Europe.

11

Supply chain agility:

scale development

Li et al. (2009)

The International

Journal of Logistics

Management

Development a scale to measure supply

chain agility with a high degree of

confidence in the validity and

reliability.

Extensive examination of supply chain

agility literature.

Identification of two key components of

agility: alertness and response

capability, which each of them has three

dimensions: strategic, operational and

episodic.

The result is a scale with 12 items.

12

The paradox of the

sustainable city:

definitions and

examples

Hassan and Lee

(2014)

Environment,

Development and

Sustainability

Acknowledgement of the contradictions

of the concept of sustainability through

the study of its history and definitions.

Adjust the terminology related to

sustainability in the aspect of

sustainable urban development.

Argues that the term “sustainable city”

could limit the potential of future

enhancement and proposes “transition

towards the sustainable city.”

13

Sustainable Cities

Haughton and

Hunter (2004)

Regional policy and

development series

Explains the concept of Sustainability

and Urban Development, Pollution and

Policies related to the problem-solving

of urban problems extensively.

Holds that the sustainable city is not an

endpoint but a direction.

Presents the Sustainable City

Manifesto, where defines the


22

sustainable city and provide

characteristics, attributes and

requirements of it.

14

The Sustainability of

Cities: Determining

an appropriate model

(Egger, 2003)

Environmental

Modelling &

Software

Identification of city as a system, that is

a reflection of the society more than just

a physical container of people, goods

and knowledge.

Cities can be adaptive or maladaptive

systems, as they are not isolated but

belonging to a global system of cities

that are interconnected through

different linkages such as trade,

migration or capital.

Identification of key aspects to build a

model of a sustainable city.

Table 3. Review of Literature. Own elaboration

7. METHODOLOGY

Participants

The target group chosen for this research is the so-called Generation Y or Millennials. The

reason why this group has been selected is to follow a “chronologic coherence”: both agility

concept and this generation origin belong to the same time frame: 80’s-90’s.

The people considered as Millennials are those born in the last two decades of the past century

(Gligor, 2013; Lin et al., 2006; McDonald, 2015). Similarly as cities, millennials are more

numerous, better educated and more ethnically diverse (Keeling, 2003).

Another variable of the target group is the nationality. The questionnaire will be addressed to

respondents of three countries: Germany, Italy and Spain. The main reason for this selection is

the ease of data collection in comparison with other nationalities.

Research Design

For the purpose of the research, a self-administered online questionnaire will be launched in

order to carry a quantitative analysis. Some advantages of the self-administered questionnaire

over other methods are: is cheaper and quicker to administer, no interviewer effects and

variability and convenience for respondents (Bryman & Bell, 2011). Another reason why this


23

kind of questionnaire is chosen is the impossibility for the researcher to go on the field to the

target countries. The chosen software for the questionnaire design and data analysis is Sphinx.

The size of the sample of this research is based on a 95% confidence level, 5% of margin of

error and a population of 20.000. The result is a sample of around 375 respondents, which

means about 125 respondents per country. This sample size has been calculated using Raosoft,

an online sample size calculation software.

The questionnaire will be developed in English and translated to the languages of the target

group: German, Italian and Spanish in order to facilitate as much as possible respondent’s

answer convenience.

The questionnaire structure will be divided into two parts. First, a sociodemographic question

where the age, gender and nationality will be asked to filter the target group (Millennials from

Spain, Germany and Italy). Second, the main body of the questionnaire will be conducted,

dividing into different sections according to the sustainable city characteristics, in which the

different attributes and capabilities of agility will be assessed.

Procedure

The participants will receive an online link that leads to the questionnaire through different

social media means. At the beginning of the questionnaire, a brief introduction of the purpose

of the research will be explained emphasizing the fact that is completely anonymous and that

the questionnaire will not take more than five minutes to be completed.

Scale

The constructs used in the questionnaire will be assessed adapting the procedure suggested by

(Dillman, 2000) that consists of the respondents’ perceptual evaluation on a 7 point Likert

scale. However, the scale will use a 5-point Likert scale in order to facilitate the respondents’

choice, and will be anchored as follows:

1- Strongly disagree

2- Disagree

3- Neither agree or disagree

4- Agree

5- Strongly agree


24

8. OVERVIEW OF CHAPTERS

Abstract

Table of content

List of Figures

List of Tables

1. Introduction

2. Problem Statement

3. Research Model

4. Theoretical Background:

4.1 Supply Chain Agility

4.2 Manufacturing Agility

4.3 Attributes and Capabilities of Agility

4.4 Selection of attributes and Hypothesis

4.5 City

4.6 Sustainability

4.7 Sustainable City

4.8 Sustainable City Characteristics

4.9 First definition of the Agile City

5. Research Question

6. Review of Literature

7. Methodology

4.1 Participants

4.2 Research Design

4.3 Procedure

4.4 Scale

8. Data Analysis

9. Research Findings

10. Conclusions and limitations

Bibliography

Appendix


25

9. PLAN OF WORK

Period Activity Completion

10/09 – 31/10 Exposé Done

31/10 – 14/11 Questionnaire Design and Launch Partly done

15/11 – 15/12 Collect data and thesis writing To follow

16/12 – 1/1 Data Analysis To follow

2/1 – 21/1 Final Thesis To follow

Table 4. Plan of Work. Own elaboration.

PERSONAL AFFIRMATION IN LIEU OF OATH

I hereby confirm that this master thesis was independently authored by myself, using solely the

referred sources and support. I additionally assert that this thesis has not been part of another

examination process and that it has not yet been published in any kind.

Signature Kassel, 31st October 2018


26

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