The human architecture of supply chain agility: from individual cognition to system-level adaptation

Supply chains (SCs) today face constant disruption, yet most agility research continues to emphasize technology and process tools while under-specifying how human factors interact to produce adaptive outcomes. While existing literature has identified multilevel drivers of agility, the specific generative mechanisms through which cross-level interactions recursively translate distributed human actions into system-level agility remain insufficiently specified. This paper addresses this gap by developing a multilevel framework that explicates a cross-level generative mechanism of supply chain agility (SCA). Drawing on insights from organizational behavior, human resource management, and SC studies, the framework identifies four interdependent layers: individual cognitive elasticity (introduced in this study) as distributed sensing, team-based collaborative adaptation as coordinated action, organizational leadership as integrative scaling, and emergent system-level agility as a self-reinforcing outcome. The study shows how trust, shared meaning, and feedback loops recursively amplify local responses into scalable and sustainable agility. By specifying how interactions across levels produce emergent adaptability, the paper advances SCA research beyond level-specific explanations and offers a practical architecture for building resilient and adaptive SCs.