| The retailing industry experienced significant impacts due to the sudden outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.In the current highly-volatile social and business environment,retailers should quickly respond to market changes to maintain a competitive advantage.Supply chain agility is considered a source of competitive advantage that has received extensive attention in retail.In recent years,more and more retailers have taken mining the value of big data analytic as a strategic goal to obtain a more agile supply chain operational mechanism,so as to achieve more benefits.However,the focus of big data analytics by many retailers remains at the initial stage of using it as a tool,without forming a comprehensive and systematic understanding of how to effectively realize the value of big data analytics.Therefore,understanding how to build a more substantial big data analytics capability,and how to activate big data analytics capability for practical application value at the supply chain and organization level are the main problems that retailers need to solve urgently.Grounding on these problems,this study conducts relevant research toward the impact of big data analytics on supply chain agility and firm performance.The main research contents are as follows:First,through exploratory case studies,the process mechanism of big data analytics affecting supply chain agility and performance is explored.Based on the presupposition of resource-based theory,dynamic capability theory and value theory,this study summarizes the causes and consequences of the application of big data analytics on the three studied retailers,A,B,and C,with the use of the method of grounded theory and coding in case analyses.Then,it divides the process conducting big data analytics affecting supply chain agility and performance into two stages: the formation stage and the function stage of big data analytics capability.Using the formation stage effectively enriched the existing literature that focuses on the function stage.Next,this research analyzed various cases of operation in detail and compared the differences in their value creation results caused by differences in applying big data analytics.A process mechanism diagram was developed based on the analysis to provide a theoretical basis for subsequent empirical analysis.Second,this research explored the influencing factors of big data analytics capability.With the consideration of the resource-based theory,combined with the decisive factors of forming the big data analytics capability referring to the case description,the influencing factors are assigned into data resources and non-data resources.The impact of the two types of resources on developing the big data analytics capability is discussed to expand the classification method of resources.The results show that data resources have a more significant impact on big data analytics capability.In addition,this study found that firm size has a nonlinear regulatory effect on the relationship between data quality and big data analytics capability.This claries the boundary condition of the transition from a resource to a capability.Then,this article analyzes and verifies how a retailer could use big data analytics capability to develop supply chain agility.Following the hierarchical perspective of the dynamic capability theory,this study proposes the intermediate operational capability is needed to develop low-ordered dynamic capability into high-ordered ones.On the basis of previous studies on the direct relationship between big data analytics capability and supply chain agility,this study proposes a theoretical understanding that supply-side capability,demand-side capability and process collaboration capability turn big data analytics capability into performing supply chain agility.At the same time,in the current globalization situation,supply chain connectivity of firms plays a moderating role in the process of improving the supply chain agility through big data analytics capability.The new influencing path presents the value-adding process at the supply chain level after the formation of big data analytics capability.Finally,this study focuses on the path analysis and verification of the impact of supply chain agility on firm performance in the context of big data analytics.The existing research rarely distinguishes the difference between financial performance and non-financial performance when testing the connection between supply chain agility improving by big data analytics capability and firm performance.Based on the technology environment perspective of dynamic capability theory,big data analytics may gradually face an increasingly turbulent technology environment after the stage of joint promotion by retailers.This research found that the impact of supply chain agility on non-financial performance is more evident than financial performance,especially in a turbulent big data analytics technology environment.Additionally,the non-financial performance as a mediation variable further improved the financial performance,which deepens the understanding of the influencing mechanism of financial performance. |
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