Modeling Enterprise Flexibility and Competitiveness for Indian Pharmaceutical Firms: A Qualitative Study.

In view of the challenges faced by the present day's volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environment, high level of flexibility is required for the organizations to sustain and stay competitive. Given the dynamic nature of the pharmaceutical industry in India, the need to be flexible is more pronounced. The Indian pharma sector has witnessed tremendous change in the last several years and hence, it is imperative to explore as to how these firms are addressing the critical issue of flexibility and its consequent linkage with their competitiveness by undertaking a qualitative study to structurally model their inter-relationship. In this paper, a detailed conceptual review of flexibility and competitiveness is presented, after which Total Interpretive Structural Modeling (TISM)—a qualitative method is used for the analysis. TISM is an improvised form of Warfield's structural modeling tool which is used to develop a model using different types of enterprise flexibility and competitiveness for better understanding of the relationship between these factors. The findings of this study will highlight the possible implications for practitioners and researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]