Investigation of meditating role of supply chain collaboration in the relationship between information technology and innovation

Aim & The main purpose of this study is “to investigate the meditating role of supply chain collaboration in the relationship between information technology and gradual and radical innovation in industrial town manufacturing companies in the Shahrekord city”.
The standard questionnaire was used to measure the variables of the research model. Above-mentioned questionnaire was implemented through the participation of 90 managers in Industrial town manufacturing companies in the Shahrekord city that were selected by the simple random sampling after measurement of validity (face and content validity based on Lawshe’s method, confirmatory and exploratory factor analysis, convergence and divergence) and reliability (Cranach’s alpha method and hybrid). Data analysis was based on two descriptive and inferential statistics (Structural Equation Modeling) which performed by SPSS, Warp PLS and LISREL software.
Findings showed that information technology to radical innovation (β = 0.55) and to Incremental innovation (β = 0.47), and supply chain cooperation (β = 0.82), supply chain cooperation to radical innovation (β = 0.35) and Incremental innovation (β = 0.37), Have a direct effect (p <0.001). Also, supply chain cooperation (including variance 0.34) has mediated the relationship between information technology and radical innovation (Z = 10.17), And finally, supply chain cooperation (including 0.34 variance) mediated the relationship between information technology and Incremental innovation (Z = 10.28).
This study supports the achievement of open innovation, which implies the necessity of acquiring external knowledge to enable companies to develop innovation projects.