master thesis exposé · 2018-11-29 · master thesis exposé - david bermejo - what is an agile...
TRANSCRIPT
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
sustainable city context.
H3 Flexibility Flexibility positively affects the agility perception within the
sustainable city context.
H4 Responsiveness Responsiveness positively affects the agility perception within the
sustainable city context.
H5 Swiftness Swiftness positively affects the agility perception within the
sustainable city context.
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.
Master Thesis Exposé - David Bermejo - What is an agile city?
20
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.
Master Thesis Exposé - David Bermejo - What is an agile city?
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
Master Thesis Exposé - David Bermejo - What is an agile city?
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
Master Thesis Exposé - David Bermejo - What is an agile city?
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
Master Thesis Exposé - David Bermejo - What is an agile city?
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
Master Thesis Exposé - David Bermejo - What is an agile city?
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
Master Thesis Exposé - David Bermejo - What is an agile city?
26
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