Enhancing Structural Flexibility of Supply Chains under Frequent Disruptions

Licentiate thesis, 2026

Due to frequent disruptions, companies have developed a stronger interest in resilience and how to achieve it through various capabilities. One key capability is supply chain flexibility. While supply chain flexibility has traditionally been regarded as reactive, companies increasingly design supply chains with structural options to make them more adaptable. This subtype of supply chain flexibility, referred to as structural flexibility, is recognized as vital for future supply chains.

The purpose of this licentiate thesis is to contribute to flexibility, dual sourcing, and adaptive supply network design literature by analyzing how structural flexibility is formed through the design characteristics of dual sourcing and how practices are enabled, while also providing an understanding of how firms can deliberately enhance structural flexibility. Existing research has primarily focused on defining structural flexibility and identifying practices such as dual sourcing, rather than explaining how structural flexibility is formed through these practices. Moreover, limited attention has been given to how such practices are enabled through specific requirements.

The thesis builds on two papers, both based on multiple case studies. The first paper investigates how structural flexibility is formed through the design characteristics of dual sourcing, particularly through variation in integration depth and utilization breadth. The second paper examines how practices of structural flexibility are enabled through meeting strategy-based, dependency-based, and practice-specific requirements across different states referred to as ex-ante, ex-post, and ex-diem. The research follows a qualitative design based on abductive reasoning, systematically combining empirical observations and theoretical development.

The findings show that structural flexibility is formed through differences in how dual sourcing is integrated and utilized within the supply chain. These design characteristics determine which structural flexibility dimensions are formed and how they extend across the supply network. The results further demonstrate that structural flexibility is a multidimensional capability with a hierarchical structure, where different dimensions emerge depending on the level of integration. In addition, the findings show that practices are enabled through a hierarchical sequence of requirements and that enablement is dynamic, as practices can shift between ex-ante, ex-post, and exdiem through re-evaluation.

Overall, the thesis advances the understanding of structural flexibility by explaining how it is formed through practice design and how practices are enabled through structured requirements. By doing so, it provides a more structured understanding of how firms can deliberately design and manage structurally flexible supply chains under conditions of repeated disruptions.