Investigating the Antecedents and Consequences of Supply Chain Agility in Nigerian Manufacturing Firms: A Dynamic Capabilities Perspective

This dissertation investigates the antecedents and performance consequences of supply chain agility in Nigerian manufacturing firms, employing dynamic capabilities theory as the primary theoretical lens and developing an original model that accounts for the distinctive institutional and infrastructure characteristics of the Nigerian operating environment. Supply chain agility, defined as the ability to rapidly reconfigure supply chain operations in response to market changes and disruptions, has attracted substantial theoretical attention globally; however, empirical research examining its antecedents and consequences in sub-Saharan African manufacturing contexts is virtually absent, limiting the transferability of existing knowledge to Nigerian practitioners. This research develops an original supply chain agility model specifying internal dynamic capabilities, inter-firm collaborative capabilities, and institutional navigation capabilities as three categories of agility antecedents theorised to interact with Nigeria-specific environmental moderators including infrastructure quality, regulatory complexity, and security environment. The model is tested using a national panel survey of three hundred and seventeen manufacturing firms across all six geopolitical zones, with two waves of data collected eighteen months apart to enable causal inference on the antecedents of agility development. Hierarchical regression and structural equation modelling analyses confirm that all three capability categories are significant antecedents of supply chain agility and that infrastructure quality moderates the relationship between inter-firm collaborative capabilities and agility outcomes. Agility is confirmed as a significant predictor of both financial performance and market share growth. Keywords: supply chain agility, dynamic capabilities, institutional context, panel study, Nigerian manufacturing