The influence of information technology capability on the relationship between corporate communication and internal supply chain management

In today's dynamic business environment, the study of supply chain management has gained interest among companies and the emphasis has also been given to the supply chain activities within the company. This internal supply chain significantly impacts a company's success, mainly ensuring the operations run smoothly and creating a harmonized working environment and efficient workflow. Therefore, this study examines the relationships between corporate communication, internal supply chain capability, and internal supply chain performance. This study also investigates the mediating effect of information technology capability on the relationship between corporate communication and internal supply chain management performance. The study focuses on the SME manufacturing companies located in the northern region of Malaysia, namely Penang, Kedah, and Perlis. The quantitative approach was deemed to be suitable to address the study objectives. Therefore, a set of questionnaires consisting of 34 items was developed and distributed to the target respondents. This study employed stratified random sampling. Hence, 157 companies listed under the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM) 2018 directory have been selected as the sample and a total of 76 questionnaire responses were received, which subsequently been empirically tested using SPSS and SmartPLS. The results showed that corporate communication and information technology capabilities positively influence a company's internal supply chain performance. Overall, there are significant relationships and support for all four hypotheses stated. In addition, the study's results indicated the importance of information technology capability as a mediator for the research framework. In addition, the recommendations given are based on the needs of the current context, as there are still limited studies using mixed-method research design in the SME manufacturing industry.