Spanning flexibility: supply chain information dissemination drives strategy development and customer satisfaction

Purpose – To respond to an increasingly uncertain environment, firms are seeking to enhance flexibility across the value chain. Spanning flexibility, a critical dimension of value chain flexibility, is the ability of a firm to provide horizontal information connections across the value chain to meet a variety of customer needs. This research organizes literature on spanning flexibility and classifies it according to competence and capability theory. Design/methodology/approach – The study collected data from 273 manufacturing executives related to spanning flexibility. The instruments used to collect these data have been validated via literature review and structured interviews with executives. Structural equation modeling was applied to these data to test relationships among the variables in the study. Findings – This study develops valid and reliable instruments to measure the sub‐dimensions of spanning flexibility. The results indicate strong, positive, and direct relationships between flexible spanning competence and capability, and between flexible spanning capability and customer satisfaction. Originality/value – This paper describes a framework to explore the relationships among flexible competence (supply chain information dissemination flexibility), flexible capability (strategy development flexibility), and customer satisfaction.