Firms should place particular emphasis on developing an innovative product with
high quality, brand identification, advertising, promotion, and control over distribution,
which enables them to differentiate their product from those of competitors and create a product advantage in a competitive supply chain. Tan et al. (2004) test a model that
defines product advantage in terms of a firm’s new product design and development, justin-time
capacity, and total quality management (TQM) capabilities. Product advantages
also can overcome the challenges of unfamiliarity with foreign markets and a lack of
knowledge about foreign cultures and environments. Therefore, supply chain members
with superior products might increase their profitability by expanding their domain of
operations to supply chains, in which they can apply their competitive advantages again.
Hence, we propose:
H3. Firm resource, measured by product advantages, is positively associated with a
firm’s SCM practices.
Research methodology
Questionnaire administration
The cross-disciplinary nature of our research and region-specific (ASEAN) sample
precluded us from indiscriminately adapting the existing scale in the literature.
We used an exploratory study comprising extensive literature review and a series
of in-depth interviews with real-world managers in ASEAN that had experience in
SCM practices. This approach provides grounded and qualitative evidence regarding
the validity of the constructs used in the survey