Operational flexibility refers to the managerial capabilities that can be deployed quickly in order to provide a rapid response (speed) to environmental changes that are familiar: routine capabilities.
Structural flexibility refers to the managerial capabilities to adapt the current structures and processes to suit changing conditions of the environment. Structural flexibility is characterized by a wide variety of managerial capabilities, but these are slowly deployed. Volberda (1996, p. 363) defines strategic flexibility as the managerial capabilities that can be deployed to face "unfamiliar changes that have far-reaching consequences and need to be responded to quickly". These are nonroutine capabilities and firms needs variety and speed of managerial capabilities in order to have strategic flexibility.