ABSTRACT
Agility was first conceptualized as a focus of business in the U.S. in 1991. As described in earlier chapters, the precepts were built from industry first hand through active efforts of trying to survive within turbulent environments. This chapter reviews the development of the topic of Agility towards building a new paradigm for business operations. To date, literature on Agility falls into four areas: description, case study, concept development, and implementation tools. The bulk of this literature is description and largely based upon press articles. While, academic articles abound on many topics considered critical to agility; they only rarely use or cite the term, Agile. In short, the academic acceptance of the concept of agility has been tenuous. Although the topic is receiving increased attention and concept development more case study research is being called for and consulting groups are attempting to develop diagnostic and implementation tools for agile concepts.
