Survey The impact of knowledge transfer and product complexity on supply chain flexibility

Abstract

This study aims to evaluate the effect of knowledge transfer and product complexity on flexibility of supply chain of SAPCO Company. The study population is employees of SAPCO Company. In this study, the data with sample size 234 are collected using a questionnaire and simple random sampling method.  To evaluate the normality of questions, Kolmogorov-Smirnov method was applied. To evaluate the relationship, Pearson correlation test was used and to test the hypotheses, structural equations method is applied. The results show that internal knowledge transfer and external knowledge transfer have positive and significant impact on supply chain flexibility but the complexity of product has no impact on supply chain flexibility. This study showed that the effect of external knowledge transfer was higher than the impact of internal transfer. Finally, it is proposed that companies should provide the conditions in which the employees can increase supply chain flexibility outside the discussion sessions on proposes, new products ideas with other internal and external sectors, brain storming sessions formation with the presence of external organizational experts and take good strategies to manage the effect of products complexity.