Scenario planning as a strategy process to foster supply chain adaptability: theoretical framework and longitudinal case

Despite the decades long use of scenario planning to formulate corporate strategies, its application for making long‐term decisions in operational settings is limited. We present a theoretical model explaining how scenario planning can help address an important and intractable issue in operations and supply chain management (OSCM): supply chain adaptability. The OSCM literature describes what type of flexibility enables supply chain adaptability, but remains largely silent on how the right flexibility is embedded and enacted in supply chains. Building on the attention‐based view, we outline the antecedents and deterrents of supply chain adaptability. We theorize how “excessive focus on operational exploitation” and “operations‐focused cognition” deter supply chain adaptability, and how scenario planning serves as a strategy process to overcome the deterrents. We illustrate the theoretical model with a longitudinal industry–academia collaborative field study that used scenario planning to formulate, implement, and adapt a chemical company's supply chain strategy over 7 years in Asia's dynamic and unpredictable business environment. We hope that this study at the intersection of foresight studies and OSCM encourages scholarly collaboration between these two largely disparate communities, and provides a foundation for future research amid the growing importance of managing supply chains in unpredictable business environments.