International supply chain agility - Tradeoffs between flexibility and uncertainty

Firms operating in an international environment face a host of uncertaintie s that make it difficult to meet deadlines reliably. To be reliable in an u ncertain and changing environment, firms must be able to quickly respond to changes. The ability to do this in a useful time frame is called agility. Unfortunately, measures taken to increase agility often lead to increases i n complexity which works against agility. We propose a theoretical construc t linking elements of uncertainty with aspects of agility, pointing out the two-edged nature of the requisite capabilities. We illustrate our points w ith examples from five case studies.