“The impact of strategic agility on sustainable competitive advantage: The mediating role of strategic renewal at Jordanian telecommunication companies”

Developing a sustainable competitive advantage has emerged as a pivotal objective for organizations due to the dynamic and constantly evolving business environment, challenges modern organizations encounter, rapid market fluctuations, and intense competition. This study aims to examine the impact of strategic agility on sustainable competitive advantage and the mediating role of strategic renewal within an emerging economy such as Jordan. The study collected data from 217 executives holding senior and intermediate positions in telecommunications companies in Jordan. This paper utilized partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) with SmartPLS4 software to test hypotheses and assess the measurement and structural models. According to the findings, strategic agility has a significant positive impact on sustainable competitive advantage (β = 0.590, t = 8.042, p ≤ 0.000) and high explanation power (R2 = 0.828), which means that 82.8% of the variance in sustainable competitive advantage has been explained by strategic agility and strategic renewal. Moreover, strategic renewal partially mediates the relationship between strategic agility and sustainable competitive advantage. In addition, the study revealed that the model’s predictive power was medium. This paper contributes to the body of knowledge and existing literature about the impact of strategy renewal and agility on sustainable competitive advantage in Jordanian telecommunications companies. Organizations incorporating strategic agility and renewal into their strategy can manage uncertainties, swiftly adjust to changes, and attain sustainable competitive advantage.


INTRODUCTION
Organizations are facing growing challenges in maintaining a competitive advantage, where short product life cycles, short design cycles, emergence of new technologies, frequent entry by external entities, repositioning by incumbents, and significant transformations in the market boundaries resulting from the merging of diverse industries can threaten market stability due to hyper-competition (D' Aveni, 1994).As a result, organizations must consistently strive toward enhancing their competitive advantage, where merely being the costleader is insufficient as rivals typically engage in initiatives to reduce their costs, which compels organizations to focus on both quality and cost to enhance their competitiveness (Wheelen et al., 2018).
The telecommunications industry is widely acknowledged as a growing sector worldwide; however, given the intense level of competition and the rapid pace of business environment transformations, some companies choose to merge or exit the market soon after entering due to difficulties in achieving a competitive edge (Mugo, 2020).Additionally, Jordanian telecommunications companies play a vital role in the economic and technological advancement of the country; they generate a significant revenue of 1.075 billion Jordanian dinars.However, organizations face various obstacles due to the imposition of high tax rates, making it challenging to provide high-quality services at reasonable prices (TRC, 2022).In their quest to achieve sustainable competitive advantage, Jordanian telecommunications companies realized that strategic agility is crucial for survival in a complex and unpredictable market environment by enabling quick reactions to ever-changing market fluctuations (Weber & Tarba, 2014).Furthermore, strategic agility is vital in attaining sustainable competitive advantage and ensuring survival in a fiercely competitive environment where it is commonly recognized as a critical capability that enhances performance and enables the achievement of sustainable competitive advantage (Barahma et al., 2021).
In addition, organizations can develop strategic renewal capabilities to maintain their success and survival within the current competitive environment (Ahmed et al., 2023).Utilizing strategic renewal to enhance an organization's core capabilities contributes to its competitive advantage, which usually affects every level of the organization and leads to long-term survival (Issah et al., 2023).
Jordanian telecommunications companies strive to achieve sustainable competitive advantage amid a turbulent business environment.Therefore, there is a need to clarify the organization's capability to adapt to unforeseen changes through developing strategic agility to achieve sustainable competitive advantage.Moreover, the unexplored mediating role of strategic renewal requires further investigation.

LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESES
Numerous scholars have extensively studied strategic agility as a critical topic that has received substantial attention, particularly under the uncertain business environment's volatile and unpredictable dynamics (de Diego & Almodóvar, 2022).
The term "agile" was first introduced in 1991 by a group of academics from Lehigh University's Iacocca Institute, who presented a new manufacturing system called "agile manufacturing" and found that agile organizations have a common infrastructure requirement regardless of the type of industry (Nagel & Dove, 1991).
Strategic agility is a fundamental concept in strategic management; it is vital for global competitiveness by adopting responsiveness, adaptation, and rapidity in corporate strategy considering uncertainty and the dynamic nature of the environment (Ahammad et al., 2021).Additionally, strategic agility is defined as the capacity of an organization to predict, perform, and react strategically to internal strengths and weaknesses as well as significant external opportunities and threats (Nkuda, 2017).
The notion of strategic agility at the organizational level was popularized by Doz andKosonen (2007, 2008a); it includes continually modifying and updating the direction of strategy in a business context and developing innovative services, products, and creative strategies that add additional value for an organization.
Essentially, an agile strategy necessitates an entirely novel adaptability and flexibility in thought and action, and the capacity to respond swiftly to seize untapped opportunities or defend against rapidly arising threats, as well as, above all, a clear longterm vision to direct everything in the right direction (Abshire, 1996).In manufacturing, strategic agility is defined as an organization's ability to deliver products at the right time, price, and place (Roth, 1996).In strategic management, it focuses on maintaining agility by responding and adapting quickly to the changing environment and available opportunities according to a specific and clear strategic goal (Long, 2000).
Although the concept of strategic agility is still developing, academic scholars are becoming increasingly interested in it; strategic agility is described as the ability of organizations to anticipate, respond to, and adapt to rapid external changes, to be sustainable, and to continuously add value, which requires updating the business strategy and reviewing the competitive and operational plans (de Diego & Almodóvar, 2022).Similarly, the concepts of organizational adaptation (reactive strategy) and flexibility (proactive strategy) are associated with the notion of strategic agility (Zulkifli, 2022).
Strategic agility can be categorized into three dimensions widely acknowledged as capabilities organizations should prioritize to develop and sustain strategic agility: strategic sensitivity, resource fluidity, and leadership unity (Doz & Kosonen, 2008a, 2008b, 2010).First, strategic sensitivity refers to an organization's capacity to comprehend and assimilate both its external and internal environment, effectively recognizing and responding to changes through a stance of openness, perception, interpretation, and an ability to capitalize on opportunities ahead of its competitors (Hamed & Fisal, 2022).It involves several steps, including facilitating an "open strategy" approach by promoting open strategic discussions, enhancing strategic awareness, facilitating business development research, establishing effective internal dialogue, and implementing mechanisms to ensure internal connectivity and collaboration (Morton et al., 2018).
Second, resource fluidity refers to an organization's internal capability to swiftly reconfigure its capabilities and reallocate its resources upon the establishment of a new strategic direction, which entails the alignment of strategy and structure, the rotation of personnel, and the utilization of modular systems and processes that can be rapidly restructured (Doz & Kosonen, 2008b).
Third, leadership unity (also called collective commitment) enables the senior management team to rapidly make decisive decisions upon recognizing a new strategic change that entails interdependence, cooperation, and an integrative leadership approach (Reed, 2021) Strategic management literature has seen an increasing debate regarding the relative significance of firm resources and industry structure in achieving a competitive advantage (Galbreath & Galvin, 2008).Many scholars support the concept of industry structure (Porter, 1980) and emphasize the importance of the external environment and the ability of organizations to control the five competitive forces through the utilization of one of the generic strategies: cost leadership strategy, differentiation strategy, and focus strategy as the optimal approach to achieve sustainable competitive advantage (Dulčić et al., 2012).From another perspective, the proponents of the resource-based view argue that sustainable competitive advantage can be achieved by possessing a unique set of resources characterized by value, rarity, inimitability, and non-substitutability (Barney, 1986).
Due to their static nature, the industry structure and resource-based view models are ineffective in a dynamic business environment characterized by continuous change (Eisenhardt & Martin, 2000).Hence, the need arises for an alternative strategic management framework that can effectively tackle the ever-changing and volatile business landscape.In this regard, Teece et al. (1997) emphasized the significance of dynamic capabilities as the most effective means to attain sustainable competitive advantage through: • sensing and continuously searching, scanning, and exploring across markets and technologies for new opportunities; • seizing and shaping opportunities and threats by addressing the newly sensed opportunities through new products, services, and processes; and • reconfiguration through continuously combining and reconfiguring organizational structures and assets (Teece, 2007).
Generally, an organization gains sustainable competitive advantage over rivals when a successful strategy is implemented and when average profitability exceeds the industry average, leading to better profitability and profit growth (Hill et al., 2020).Furthermore, sustainable competitive advantage can be achieved by exploiting gaps in business structure, leveraging power and regulations, and delivering quality, efficiency, innovation, and responsiveness to customer needs (Coyne, 1986).Sustainable competitive advantage requires new thinking and strategic insights that differ from traditional approaches due to its multifaceted and diverse nature (Barney & Wright, 1998).
However, Hill et al. ( 2020) identified the following highly interrelated four building blocks to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage, resulting from how various value-chain activities are performed within the organization to differentiate its range of products, thereby enhancing the value provided to customers and reducing the cost structure.First is superior efficiency, which is measured by the inputs required to generate a particular output.Consequently, reducing these inputs will reduce expenses which will lead to increased efficiency that can provide a competitive advantage (Kang, 2019).
Second is superior quality, as customers typically assess the quality of a product by considering two key attributes, excellence and reliability, which are crucial for maintaining value and consistency.Therefore, product quality is essential for business survival (Hosseini et  Based on the literature review, this study aims to analyze the impact of strategic agility on sustainable competitive advantage and explore the role of strategic renewal as a mediating variable for Jordanian telecommunications companies.Accordingly, the proposed research model in Figure 1 reflects higher and lower-order constructs.The research hypotheses are depicted as follows: H1: Strategic agility has a significant positive impact on sustainable competitive advantage at Jordanian telecommunication companies.
H2: Strategic agility has a significant positive impact on strategic renewal at Jordanian telecommunication companies.
H3: Strategic renewal has a significant positive impact on sustainable competitive advantage at Jordanian telecommunication companies.
H4: Strategic renewal mediates the relationship between strategic agility and sustainable competitive advantage at Jordanian telecommunication companies.

METHOD
The study relied on the quantitative approach (descriptive and analytical).The study population consisted of all top and middle management managers in three Jordanian telecommunications com-

RESULTS
Table 1 shows that all variables followed a normal distribution, with Skewness being very low and not exceeding the threshold (±1.0) and kurtosis between +2 and -2 (Hair et al., 2022).
The current study adopted a reflective model based on the classical test theory because various measured indicators reflect the hidden latent variables that affect them; therefore, the effect is from the latent variable to the indicators (Hair et al., 2022).
The measurement model analysis has excluded all higher-order variable values, such as strategic renewal and sustainable competitive advantage, as they lack meaningfulness; these values are solely used to replicate lower-order indicators to define them (Sarstedt et al., 2020).
To assess the measurement model, the first step is to evaluate the outer loadings of the indicators, then assess their reliability and ultimately validate them (Hair et al., 2022).     of concepts among indicators.Consequently, they serve as valid measures for distinct concepts.
According to Hair et al. (2022), the HTMT ratio values should be below 0.85 when the variables are conceptually similar and below 0.90 when the variables are conceptually different.Table 4 indicates that all values are acceptable and below 0.90, meaning all variables in the measurement model achieved discriminant validity.
After verifying the reliability and validity of the measurement model, the study assessed the structural model using the coefficient of determination R², the effect size f², the predictive relevance Q 2 , and the statistical significance of the structural path coefficients (Hair et al., 2022).The structural model analysis has excluded all lower-order variable values (sub-dimensions), as they lack meaningfulness since these values were solely used to define the higher-order variables only, such as strategic agility and sustainable competitive advantage (Sarstedt et al., 2020).
The VIF coefficient indicates no evidence of multicollinearity among the dimensions of the study variables in the structural model.The results presented in Table 5  Note: SA = strategic agility, SCA = sustainable competitive advantage, SR = strategic renewal.
Table 6 shows that the model's dependent variable, sustainable competitive advantage, has an R 2 value of 0.828, which means that strategic agility and strategic renewal can explain 82.8% of the variation in sustainable competitive advantage in Jordanian companies.In contrast, the remaining variation is due to other factors.
The value of R 2 proves the high model's power in explaining sustainable competitive advantage; values exceeding 0.65 provide further evidence to support this assertion (Hair et al., 2022).The findings demonstrate that strategic agility accounted for 43.1% of the variability in strategic renewal in the surveyed companies.These values validate the adequate explanatory power of the structural model.Note: SA = strategic agility, SCA = sustainable competitive advantage, SR = strategic renewal.
The predictive power of the model was assessed using the PLS predict procedure.Table 8 demonstrates that the values of Q 2 predict for all dependent variables are statistically significant and satisfactory, as they exceed zero (Hair et al., 2022).The analysis compared the RMSE values with the naïve LM benchmark for Q 2 predict values to assess the mod-  Note: SQ = superior quality, SE = superior efficiency, SI = superior innovation, SCR = superior customer responsiveness.
The study employs partial least squares through structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) utilizing Smart PLS 4 software to evaluate the four primary hypotheses.PLS analysis and path coefficients are used to evaluate the significance of relationships in the structural model.According to Figure 2, all path coefficients are significant.Moreover, to validate the hypotheses, the direct impact of strategic agility on sustainable competitive advantage and the direct impact of the independent variable (strategic agility) on the mediating variable (strategic renewal) were investigated.Also, the indirect impact of strategic agility on sustainable competitive advantage through strategic renewal was investigated.

CONCLUSION
This study has examined the mediating role of SR in the relationship between SA and SCA, where the study's findings indicate that organizations exhibiting SA through the mastery of strategic sensitivity, ensuring the fluidity of resources, and fostering leadership unity, coupled with their proactive approach to sustaining SR, are more inclined to achieve SCA.Ultimately, the adoption of SR emerges as a crucial approach for companies to reinforce their competitive advantage and smoothly navigate market shifts.Moreover, SR improves a company's ability to innovate, research, and enhance product quality, resulting in SCA.Furthermore, the continuous process of SR, which assesses an organization's ability to evaluate and modify its strategies regularly, has been identified as a mediator in the relationship between SA and SCA.
This study has identified limitations and highlights the need for further research to examine the relationship between variables such as strategic agility, sustainable competitive advantage, and strategic renewal in the communications and information technology sector.Although the current study primarily focused on Jordanian telecommunications companies, it is recommended that future studies include other service and industrial sectors in Jordan to enhance the generalizability of the results.
Moreover, other dimensions for strategic agility and sustainable competitive advantage can be explored, as it is possible to study strategic agility through other dimensions such as strategic clarity, strategic responsiveness, and commitment unity.Also, it is possible to study sustainable competitive advantage through other dimensions, such as the value of resources, their scarcity, non-imitation, and organized resources.
Other mediating variables, such as strategic ambidexterity, strategic vigilance, and strategic foresight, can also be investigated to comprehensively understand the topic.Finally, while the data collection in this study involved a questionnaire, it is suggested that other methods, such as interviews and quantitative approaches, should be used to avoid any limitations that may arise when distributing questionnaires.

Table 2
Table 3 indicates that the Fornell-Larcker values (square root of AVE) are greater than its highest correlation with any other variables in the measurement model.Therefore, the study variables are distinct and different from each other, and there is no overlap

Table 2 .
Reliability and validity

Table 8 .
Values of the predictive relevance Q 2

Table 10 .
Significance test for the path coefficients (direct effects)

Table 11 .
Significance test for the path coefficients (specific indirect effects) Note: t value is more than 1.96; SA = strategic agility, SCA = sustainable competitive advantage, SR = strategic renewal.

Table 12 .
Khan et al. (2021))or the total effects In addition, AL-Romeedy and Mohamed (2022) showed that SR is concerned with the ability of contemporary organizations to embrace innovation, develop their capabilities, and reach new markets, which is generally reflected in the SCA.Moreover,Issah et al. (2023)supported the idea that SR focuses on changing the organization's core competencies that contribute to competitive advantage, and this gradually affects organizational levels and permits it to survive in the long term.The results of the fourth hypothesis revealed that SR mediates the relationship between SA and SCA at JTCs.When SA is combined with SR, the competitiveness of JTCs is enhanced.SA is the company's ability to implement changes and adapt quickly, while SR is the improvement of the company's processes, experiences, products, and services.Therefore, SA allows these companies to discover and react rapidly to competitive opportunities, whereas SR ensures consistent exploitation of opportunities and the capability of an organization to adjust in dynamic situations.These findings align with the research conducted byShah et al. (2019), which demonstrated that SR plays a significant role in mediating the relationship between networking competence and businesses' long-term sustainability.Consistently, this outcome aligns with the findings ofShah et al. (2020), who utilized a moderated mediation model and discovered that strategic orientation and renewal enhance strategic performance.In addition,Khan et al. (2021)discovered that achieving SA has an immediate impact on improving SR within manufacturing SMEs in Pakistan.This echoes the study of Al-Zu'bi (2022) that found a significant statistical impact of SA on SR in five-star hotels in Jordan.
Note: t value is more than 1.96; SA = strategic agility, SCA = sustainable competitive advantage.