Enablers, barriers, and a contingency framework for enterprise agile adoption: A cross-industry comparative case study

Abstract

Agile management now extends well beyond software development, yet the organizational conditions for its systematic adoption across enterprise projects remain insufficiently explained. The aim of this study is the identification of the core agile principles, the organizational enablers and barriers, and the elements of a contingency framework for enterprise agile adoption across industries. A qualitative multiple comparative case study design was applied to six peer-reviewed case studies (2018–2026) selected through structured database search and eligibility screening. The cases cover telecommunications, manufacturing (two cases), hardware product development, enterprise software, and IT services and involve Scrum, Kanban, Lean, and hybrid configurations. Within-case thematic analysis, cross-case synthesis, and cross-methodology comparison produced twelve themes. Cross-functional collaboration, iterative development with continuous feedback, and methodological flexibility emerged as principles that transfer across industries, although their operationalization differed substantially between software and physical-product contexts. Leadership commitment, step-wise transformation, and organizational readiness were the recurring enablers, whereas risk aversion, resistance to change, coordination overload, and domain-specific constraints were the recurring barriers and favored hybrid rather than pure agile configurations. Reported outcomes included coordinated large-scale distributed development, organization-wide cost savings, a 53% reduction in product components, and more effective risk mitigation. The findings indicate that agile effectiveness depends on organizational context and that coordination mechanisms must evolve as enterprises scale. The resulting framework combines staged adoption, sustained leadership engagement, investment in training and coaching, hybrid governance where physical or regulatory constraints apply, and periodic review of coordination mechanisms, offering managers practical guidance for context-sensitive adoption.