Effect of it resources and core competency on sustainable competitive advantages of Malaysian SMEs

• Main Author: Lahcene, Makhloufi
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English; English; English; English
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: T58.5-58.64 Information technology; HD28-70 Management. Industrial Management
• Online Access: https://etd.uum.edu.my/9607/1/permission%20to%20deposit-not%20allow-95918.pdf; https://etd.uum.edu.my/9607/2/s95918_01.pdf; https://etd.uum.edu.my/9607/3/s95918_02.pdf; https://etd.uum.edu.my/9607/4/s95918_references.docx; https://etd.uum.edu.my/9607/
• Institution: Universiti Utara Malaysia

Sustainable Competitive Advantage (SCA) is one of the pressing issues that face strategic management scholars and is considered one of the primary concerns of managers and entrepreneurs across the globe. How to achieve and maintain SCA so far is still the debate and the critical topic among scientific researchers. Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) performance extensively relies on several important factors such as IT Resources (ITR), IT Capability (ITC), Core Competency (CC). This study addressed one of these strategic issues that emerged in the literature concerning the missing link between the firm’s resources, capabilities, and competencies, which lead to the ambiguous and lack of literature comprehensiveness about the conditions of SCA achievement and its related factors. The objective of this research is to assess the extent of these three categories on the accomplishment of SCA. This study is deductive and quantitative in nature based on primary data. SMEs in the wood-based industry are the population that consists of 879 active firms. This research applied proportionate stratified random sampling and using a survey technique, and the investigation targeted sample size of 388 SMEs in the wood based industry. However, 153 survey is usable for analysis yielding a response rate of 39.4%. Applying PLS-SEM, results supported the direct hypothesized effects of IT resources, IT infrastructure flexibility, and core competency on SCA, whereas IT capability was not supported. This research has a significant contribution to the body of resource based view by incorporating these three main research streams in a single model to introduce the building blocks of SCA achievement. Malaysian policymakers are the most beneficial from the findings of this study since it provides for them the primary platform for Malaysian SMEs in the low-tech industry to move to the high-tech sector within this new era of the fastest technology Industrial Revolution 4.0 and thereby ensuring the survival and the advancement via SCA achievement. Recommendations, the implication of this study, and opportunities for future research were also discussed along with the limitations.