Presenting a pattern for agile supply chain by meta synthesis approach

Organizations in dynamic commercial environments, use agile supply chain as the key strategy for confronting market instability. The purpose of the present research is to have a systematic review of Agile Supply Chain literature using meta-synthesis method in order to provide an overall model in this field. Meta-synthesis technique is implemented in this study utilizing the seven-step method of Sandelowski and Barroso (2006). After taking the respective steps of this method and upon analyzing various articles, 41 articles are finally inspected and 167 codes are derived. Eventually after categorizing the codes, three groups including agility consequences, agility enablers and agility drivers, which affect and are affected by agile supply chain, have been introduced to presenting a pattern. Finally, a general concept of competitive advantage for agility consequences, six concepts of market sensitivity, information/technology integration, flexibility, integration, strategic partnership and leadership for agility enablers and five general concepts of economic, market & competition, environment, social and technology for agility drivers have been identified.