The mediating impact of sustainability on the relationship between agility and operational performance

Agility and sustainability are two philosophies that the North American manufacturing industry invested heavily in, since the beginning of the twenty-first century. The impact of the two philosophies go beyond operations and extend to innovation, employees, communities, and customer. This paper iden...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Raed El-Khalil, Mohamad Ali Mezher
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier 2020-01-01
Series:Operations Research Perspectives
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214716020300610
_version_ 1819055633899454464
author Raed El-Khalil
Mohamad Ali Mezher
author_facet Raed El-Khalil
Mohamad Ali Mezher
author_sort Raed El-Khalil
collection DOAJ
description Agility and sustainability are two philosophies that the North American manufacturing industry invested heavily in, since the beginning of the twenty-first century. The impact of the two philosophies go beyond operations and extend to innovation, employees, communities, and customer. This paper identified the lack of empirical research investigating the relationship between agility and sustainability as well as their combined interactions with operational performance metrics. Very few researchers investigated this relationship with limited depth and breadth. Therefore, this paper investigated the interaction between sustainability, agility, and their influence/impact on operational performance in the United States (US) automotive manufacturing Industry. Based on the literature review conducted and after consulting several particulars from the US automotive manufacturing industry a survey was developed, this survey reflects a comprehensive list of agility practices, sustainability practices, and top-five performance metrics utilized by the US automotive industry. A survey was carried out with a total of 212 respondents. Respondents are all top managers at 152 manufacturing facilities including assembly/manufacturing, Powertrain, and component plants. We established a comprehensive list that includes seven agility categories with 52 factors and identified the top five performance metrics. The results identify a significant and positive relationship between agility and sustainability, agility and operational performance, and sustainability and operational performance. The result shows a significant correlation between agility practices and sustainability. An agility performance index was determined by combining the analytic hierarchy process and partial least square. Utilizing the partial least square method, sustainability was identified as a mediator on the relationship between Agility and operational performance.
first_indexed 2024-12-21T13:10:38Z
format Article
id doaj.art-0106522dfbac4cc4906bfbc4aa1e20cb
institution Directory Open Access Journal
issn 2214-7160
language English
last_indexed 2024-12-21T13:10:38Z
publishDate 2020-01-01
publisher Elsevier
record_format Article
series Operations Research Perspectives
spelling doaj.art-0106522dfbac4cc4906bfbc4aa1e20cb2022-12-21T19:02:54ZengElsevierOperations Research Perspectives2214-71602020-01-017100171The mediating impact of sustainability on the relationship between agility and operational performanceRaed El-Khalil0Mohamad Ali Mezher1Corresponding author.; Information Technology and Operations Management Department, Adnan Kassar School of Business, Lebanese American University, Beirut, LebanonInformation Technology and Operations Management Department, Adnan Kassar School of Business, Lebanese American University, Beirut, LebanonAgility and sustainability are two philosophies that the North American manufacturing industry invested heavily in, since the beginning of the twenty-first century. The impact of the two philosophies go beyond operations and extend to innovation, employees, communities, and customer. This paper identified the lack of empirical research investigating the relationship between agility and sustainability as well as their combined interactions with operational performance metrics. Very few researchers investigated this relationship with limited depth and breadth. Therefore, this paper investigated the interaction between sustainability, agility, and their influence/impact on operational performance in the United States (US) automotive manufacturing Industry. Based on the literature review conducted and after consulting several particulars from the US automotive manufacturing industry a survey was developed, this survey reflects a comprehensive list of agility practices, sustainability practices, and top-five performance metrics utilized by the US automotive industry. A survey was carried out with a total of 212 respondents. Respondents are all top managers at 152 manufacturing facilities including assembly/manufacturing, Powertrain, and component plants. We established a comprehensive list that includes seven agility categories with 52 factors and identified the top five performance metrics. The results identify a significant and positive relationship between agility and sustainability, agility and operational performance, and sustainability and operational performance. The result shows a significant correlation between agility practices and sustainability. An agility performance index was determined by combining the analytic hierarchy process and partial least square. Utilizing the partial least square method, sustainability was identified as a mediator on the relationship between Agility and operational performance.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214716020300610AgilityManufacturing industrySustainabilityOperations performance metrics
spellingShingle Raed El-Khalil
Mohamad Ali Mezher
The mediating impact of sustainability on the relationship between agility and operational performance
Operations Research Perspectives
Agility
Manufacturing industry
Sustainability
Operations performance metrics
title The mediating impact of sustainability on the relationship between agility and operational performance
title_full The mediating impact of sustainability on the relationship between agility and operational performance
title_fullStr The mediating impact of sustainability on the relationship between agility and operational performance
title_full_unstemmed The mediating impact of sustainability on the relationship between agility and operational performance
title_short The mediating impact of sustainability on the relationship between agility and operational performance
title_sort mediating impact of sustainability on the relationship between agility and operational performance
topic Agility
Manufacturing industry
Sustainability
Operations performance metrics
url http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214716020300610
work_keys_str_mv AT raedelkhalil themediatingimpactofsustainabilityontherelationshipbetweenagilityandoperationalperformance
AT mohamadalimezher themediatingimpactofsustainabilityontherelationshipbetweenagilityandoperationalperformance
AT raedelkhalil mediatingimpactofsustainabilityontherelationshipbetweenagilityandoperationalperformance
AT mohamadalimezher mediatingimpactofsustainabilityontherelationshipbetweenagilityandoperationalperformance