Academic Thesis for Master's Degree
Business Management, Marketing Orientation
Abstract:
In today's turbulent and changing world, the only thing that does not change is change. In the business world that is increasingly guided by the three words customer, competition and change, companies are looking for a solution to their business problems, based on the literature and information available from the successful companies of the world, it is considered that one of the solutions to solve the mentioned problem is to pay attention and focus on the approach of improving the supply chain performance. Knowledge management in improving the performance of the supply chain with an emphasis on the mediating role of the drivers of organizational innovation. This research was conducted with a descriptive-causal approach using a survey method through the distribution of questionnaires among experts in different parts of the automotive supply chain. Linear and multiple regression analysis was used to check the research hypotheses. Organizational innovation has been shown to apply knowledge and improve supply chain performance. Keywords: competitive forces, supply chain performance, drivers of innovation, knowledge management.Introduction. is Therefore, organizations are looking for new ways to survive in the field of business and effective competition.
One of the ways to achieve effectiveness is to discover and develop assets that have been very effective for organizations, but they have not been used properly. Global organizations are always looking for competitive advantage through creating innovation and new methods. Some of these organizations consider the policy of management and application of knowledge in their organization in order to improve the performance of the supply chain, because the improvement of the performance of the supply chain is one of the critical issues for gaining competitive advantages for companies, and the proper performance of the supply chain plays a key role in the success of an organization and the sustainable achievement of goals, especially profitability. Therefore, companies have to identify the set of opportunities and threats facing the company by examining the various dimensions of the environment and the industry in which they are engaged, so that they can react reasonably to environmental changes. Therefore, it is necessary to examine the competitive dimensions of an industry. On the other hand, since the end of the last century, knowledge has drawn the most attention among the intangible assets of the organization, and knowledge management has become one of the main topics in management research all over the world, whose main goal can be considered as "creating value in order to gain a competitive advantage". Innovation is one of the basic requirements in the implementation of knowledge management in organizations, and the condition of survival in the turbulent business environment is to pay attention to environmental changes, innovation, and understand the various aspects of creating innovation in business (Abbasi et al., 2009, p. 15).
Such things like economic changes, the intensity of competition of new technologies, and changes in the needs of customers have forced current organizations to use advantages such as rapid flow of information, group decision-making, coordination as much as possible, Business partners should benefit from an all-round view that all of these changes can be included in the topic of "supply chain management" whose main goal is to achieve maximum value (Farsijani et al., 2010, p. 72).
The purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of competitive forces in the automotive industry as a driver for the application of knowledge management in improving the performance of the supply chain, emphasizing the mediating role of organizational innovation drivers.
1-3 The necessity and importance of research
Today, companies are facing challenges and severe pressures of the competitive market, including globalization, competition and cooperation, diversity of customer needs and short product life cycle, and the supply chain is considered as an important principle; Also, the increase in competition in the global markets and the increase in customer expectations have made organizations to monitor the supply chain more carefully.
1-3 The necessity and importance of research
Today, companies are facing challenges and intense pressures of the competitive market, including globalization, competition and cooperation, the diversity of customer needs and the short life cycle of the product, and the supply chain is considered as an important principle; Also, the increase in competition in the global markets and the intensification of customer expectations have caused organizations to examine the supply chain more carefully. Therefore, in order to achieve the macro and strategic goals of the company, it is necessary to evaluate the correct and complete implementation of the supply chain in different areas from a functional point of view in order to identify the strengths and weaknesses and to strengthen and improve or eliminate them. took action The presence of active competitive forces in an industry can increase the drivers of organizational innovation, as a result, creating a competitive environment in the industry is one of the ways to promote innovation, and stronger and more active drivers of innovation in the organization can promote the application of knowledge, and the existence of these two can also increase the power of all members of the chain. Automotive industry
Identifying and determining the type of relationship between competitive forces and organizational innovation and knowledge management
Investigating and identifying factors affecting the improvement of supply chain performance in the automotive industry at the level of Gilan Province
1-5 theoretical framework of research
The environment of each industry includes a set of factors that many challenges facing the organization in attracting and obtaining the necessary resources or trying to sell goods and services profitably come from. Various competitive forces are important in shaping competition in the industry. In examining the competitive environment, Porter introduces competitive forces that the collective power of these forces ensures the profitability of an industry, which these five forces are: 1- Bargaining power of suppliers: The more power suppliers have, they can affect the profitability of the industry so that the industry cannot compensate for the increase in cost through price. or their sales depends on the industry compared to their entire activity.
2- Bargaining power of buyers: it means a situation where, for any reason, the customer has a high power vis-à-vis the seller.
3- Threat of substitute products and services: In many industries, companies are in fierce competition with producers of substitute products (belonging to other industries). If the relative price of substitute products and the costs related to the preparation of these products decrease found, in the scene where there are substitute products, the competition becomes intense and the pressures caused by the competition are added. Therefore, close substitutes can determine the price. The obstacles that prevent the entry of new competitors and maintain current competitors are: economy of scale, increasing the level of equipment investment, increasing the level of product diversification, high exit costs, lack of access to distribution channels, government laws and lack of measures.
5- Competition among existing companies: This force has the most power among other forces. Among the most important effects that increase the competition between existing companies in an industry are: the slow growth of the industry, the lack of product diversity, the high number of competitors and the high barriers to exit. Gaining a competitive advantage. Different classifications were made for the driving factors of organizational innovations, Swanson (1994) considered the drivers of organizational innovation in the field of information technology, and Kwon and Zamud (1987) considered the drivers of innovation in the five dimensions of user characteristics, task and operation characteristics, innovation-related characteristics, organizational characteristics, and environmental characteristics (Farsijani et al., 2010, p. 75).
Kelly Hayes and Finnegan (2005) have placed the different factors that create innovation in 4 dimensions "development of information technology tools, decentralization and flexibility in tasks, intensity of competitive price and intensity of concentration in the market (market share)" which these dimensions are related to the technological dimension, internal and external factors (Hayes & et al, 2005, p371).