The influence of training in supply chain management on competitiveness / Arawati Agus, Za'faran Hassan and Zulridah Mohd. Noor

This paper examines the relationship between training in supply chain management (SCM) and
competitive advantage of manufacturing companies in Malaysia. The study measures senior SCM
managers’ or production managers’ perception of training in SCM practices and level of
competitiveness in the industry. Associations between training in supply chain management and
competitive advantage are analyzed through methods such as Pearson’s correlations, cluster
analysis and structural equation modelling (SEM) utilizing 115 respondents’ data. The findings
suggest that training in SCM has significant correlations with competitive advantage (comprises
of determinants such as product differentiation, employee differentiation, service differentiation
and price differentiation). Specifically, competitive advantage (CA) has high correlations with
training variables such as ‘adequacy of production training among employees’, ‘management
training in supply chain effectiveness’ and ‘employee training in supply chain technologies’. The
SEM result also reveals that training in SCM exhibit direct impact on competitiveness. Findings
of the study provide a demonstration of the importance of training in enhancing competitiveness
in Malaysian manufacturing companies.