**2. Theoretical Foundations of Agility in Supply Chains**

The literature describes strategic agility as the "ability of management to constantly and rapidly sense and respond to a changing environment by intentionally making strategic

moves and consequently adopting the necessary organizational configuration for successful implementation" (Weber and Tarba, [28] (p. 7)). Therefore, strategic agility examines processes, actions, structures, culture, attributes, skills and relationships designed to ensure the organization remains flexible when it faces uncertainties [28]. This is important as De Groote [29] defines flexibility as a hedge against the diversity of the environment. Additionally, Shukla et al. [30] defined it as the ability to change with little penalty in time effort, cost or performance' across four dimensions: temporal, range, intention and focus. Strategic agility gained prominence as current theoretical approaches such as "strategic planning", "competitive advantage" and "resource-based view" were found inadequate and vague for strategic options in the complex business environment and market disruptions [28,31]. The introduction of the concept of the agile enterprise was driven by the emergence of rapid change in the business environment is accelerating and overtaking the abilities of many organisations to adapt [32]. Thus, as enabling, many organisations gained leverage from the strategic agility concept [33]. From the literature, the main thrust of strategic agility is flexibility notably the capacity of the actors and or entities to rapidly sense and seize opportunities, change direction and avoid collusion or failure [30,34–36]. However, the ability and potency to remain sufficiently agile in order to manage and adjust to change caused by strategic discontinuities, business environments and disruptions remain the main crust of the strategic agility philosophy [37]. Thus, strategic agility examines actions, processes, structures, culture, attributes, skills and relationships designed to ensure the organization, the network or the supply chain remains flexible when it encounters uncertainties [28].

However, does strategic agility provide leverage in supply chains? The thrust of strategic agility's relationships with flexibility throughout an organisation or supply chain implies a perspective of reconfiguring resources in an organization or supply chain for optimum performance [38,39]. Thus, as a competitive strategy component that can be pursued in management scenarios, it is the ability to swiftly change businesses and business processes beyond the normal level of flexibility to effectively manage unpredictable external and internal changes in an organisation or supply chain. Strategic agility, therefore, is seen as a concept with broad scope and has "multidimensional constructs" in supply chains and is generally presented as supply chain agility (SCA) [40]. *Sustainability* **2022**, *14*, x FOR PEER REVIEW 4 of 16

> The literature traces the evolution of the concept of supply chain agility to four main aspects: pathways, criteria, scope and objectives [41]. The early proponents restricted it to customer responsive manner [42], thus limiting the concept to a reactive capability of providing speedy responses to sudden changes in demand, to gain leverage [41]. However, after Li et al. [43] work, the concept has been significantly widened with different adaptations. Do et al. [41] capture this evolution in Figure 1. advantage. Thus, improving competitive metrics such as operational performance indicators (i.e., product innovation, lead time reduction and service quality), and strategic performance indicators (i.e., competitiveness, financial, relational and marketing performance) [51–53]. In addition, the literature incorporates supply chain agility in business continuity [54], and opportunity–seeking in times of turbulence [13,55] to serve as riskmitigating factors [38,56,57].

**Figure 1.** Evolution of Supply Chain Agility Concept (Adapted from Do et al. [41] (p. 739)). **Figure 1.** Evolution of Supply Chain Agility Concept (Adapted from Do et al. [41] (p. 739)).

ductions in land productivity and declining agricultural output."

type of product, and the structure and organization of supply chains."

mestic markets, they might be less affected by international trade disruptions*."* 

*2.2. Horticulture Exports Supply Chain Monitoring and Evaluation* 

Research on the global COVID-19 pandemic posits that it is expected to have severe

Vos et al. [9] posited that the COVID-19 pandemic will affect food supply chains in three main ways. These are succinctly captured in Van Hoyweghen et al. [13] (p. 424) as:

i. "disruptions in international trade, stemming from an increase in trade costs due to restrictions in international mobility and quarantine measures, or stemming from trade policy measures, such as export taxes and bans, in response to the crisis." ii. "decline in on-farm labour, stemming from workers being unwilling or unable to work due to contamination risk and various containment measures, leading to re-

iii. "decline in productivity and farm output, caused by disruptions in distribution channels and in the provision of capital inputs and services. Effects likely differ with the

In addition, the literature recognises that the size of production and distribution units, the capital intensity of operations, the level of vertical coordination, the length of the chains, and the level of integration in international markets will be impacted differently resulting in supply chains exhibiting different levels of resilience to the effects of COVID-19 pandemic [49,58,59]. These will affect supply chains differently with distinctions in traditional, transitional and modern supply chains. Van Hoyweghen et al. [13] (p. 424) therefore argued that "as traditional and transitional supply chains are less integrated in international markets on the output side and oriented more toward production for do-

We then proceed to review the literature on monitoring and evaluation frameworks for horticultural supply chains to enable the study to evaluate the effects of the global COVID-19 pandemic measures in the Ghanaian horticultural supply chain. There is a need

*2.1. Horticulture Exports Supply Chain and COVID-19 Pandemic* 

As a pathway, supply chain agility is now conceptualized to include the physical capability of taking reactive and proactive measures, and the cognitive capability of alertness and quick anticipation and detection of opportunities and sensing turbulence [41]. Golgeci et al. [44] expanded these cognitive capabilities to include market learning and innovation. The criteria perspective of supply chain agility expands the speed criterion for response assessment to change to include flexibility [36,39,43,45–47]. The scope perspective ensues supply chain agility expanded to include all sudden changes both internal and external. Li et al. [43] included the immediate and sudden components of change to the scope and other literature includes uncertain, temporary, abrupt and unexpected changes in the short and immediate term [47–50]. Do et al. [41] assert that this attribute of supply chain agility is more pertinent in scenarios such as the COVID-19 pandemic context. From the dimension of the objectives or the overarching goal of the supply chain, Yusuf et al. [47] emphasize that supply chain agility enables firms to attain leverage and competitive advantage. Thus, improving competitive metrics such as operational performance indicators (i.e., product innovation, lead time reduction and service quality), and strategic performance indicators (i.e., competitiveness, financial, relational and marketing performance) [51–53]. In addition, the literature incorporates supply chain agility in business continuity [54], and opportunity– seeking in times of turbulence [13,55] to serve as risk-mitigating factors [38,56,57].
