Is digitalization necessary? Configuration of supply chain capabilities for improving enterprise competitive performance

Ning Li, Qi Yao, Hongjuan Tang and Ying Lu

Journal of Business Research, 2025, vol. 186, issue C

Abstract: The advent of the digital economy era has provided significant opportunities to establish new supply chain networks. However, many manufacturing enterprises struggle to effectively allocate their digital and non-digital supply chain resources. This study explores the interplay between digital supply chain capabilities (DSCCs) and traditional supply chain capabilities (TSCCs) and analyzes combinations of these supply chain capabilities that can enhance enterprise competitive performance (ECP). Based on a qualitative comparative analysis of 221 cases of manufacturing enterprises, the study reveals three capability configurations leading to high ECP: non-digital, TSCCs-centered, and DSCCs- and TSCCs-balanced. The findings indicate that for most firms, digitalization is an important factor, and they achieve high ECP with the DSCCs- and TSCCs-balanced capability configuration; however, some small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in particular industries can also enhance ECP without digitalization when their TSCCs are high.

Keywords: Digital supply chain capabilities; Traditional supply chain capabilities; Enterprise competitive performance; Fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296324004764
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:186:y:2025:i:c:s0148296324004764

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2024.114972

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Research is currently edited by A. G. Woodside

More articles in Journal of Business Research from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().