The Impact of the Supply Chain Practices on Competitive Advantages and Organizational Competitiveness (Case Study: Iran Khodro Company)

The role of the supply chain at competitiveness in various industries including automotive industry; have been examined by many researchers in recent years. The automotive industry is considered as one of the main development indicators of the countries. The major objective of Iranian automobile manufactures is to reach production of three million units per year up to the next 10 years. With this regard, the more prominent role of the supply chain in achieving goals will be highlighted. This study aimed to identify practices of the supply chain and examine their impact of mentioned practices on competitive advantages and organizational competitiveness. Therefore, due to the importance of automotive industry, the statistical universe of supply chain was selected including SAPCO (as the supplier), Iran Khodro Company (as the manufacturer) and ISACO (as after Sales Service Company). The expertly opinions of 110 business executives were collected. In this study, structural equation modeling technique was applied to analyze the data. The results indicate that the supply chain power has a significant and positive effect on the organizational competitiveness and it also has a significant and positive effect on competitive advantage. Needless to mention that the manufacturing Factors of supply chain has the most significant relationship with supply chain power. With this respect the prominent role of technology in the supply chain was approved.