The effect of using information technologies on the chain performance in supply chain management

Nowadays, businesses strive to maintain their existence and create value along with the developing technology. In this context, the most effective method for businesses is to follow current technological developments and choose the most appropriate applications for them. The use of the appropriate information technology will provide businesses with a significant competitive advantage and increase the performance of the supply chain. Within the scope of this study, by means of an extensive literature review it is aimed to examine the effect of information technology usage within the supply chain and to identify other variables that can contribute to get this holistic effect. Since the acceptance of the information technology by the current environment is thought to be quite important, isomorphism is also discussed within the scope of the institutional theory while evaluating this effect. It is thought that explaining the alignment and use of information technologies in the supply chain with coercive isomorphism will bring a different perspective to the literature. Within the scope of the study, individual effects of the variables such as inter-partner information technology alignment, information sharing and collaborative integration have been proved in the literature. In this study, the holistic effects of these variables have been examined. Blockchain technology, which has only recently begun to be examined in the supply chain literature, is also included in the research model. Data from different sectors were collected with a sample of the largest 1000 enterprises from different industries and their suppliers in Turkey, by means of a questionnaire created from currently available scales in the literature. In the analysis of the data obtained from the survey study, regression analysis is carried out separately for both the data belonging to all sectors and to the data obtained from the defence industry that constitute the majority of the responses. As a result, hypotheses were tested and it has been determined that coercive pressures have significant effects on inter-partner IT alignment; IT usage, blockchain application and inter-partner IT alignment each have individual significant effects on information sharing; information sharing has a significant effect on collaborative integration and finally, collaborative integration has a significant effect on SCM performance. Within the scope of our study multiple regression analysis have also been carried out for the relationships that are suitable for such analysis. Although the results for the defence industry are largely comparable with the results of general data set, it has been concluded that this data set creates more significant results for the research model. To sum up, it has been determined that coercive pressures have a significant effect within the supply chain context and it has been suggested that blockchain applications should be used in different sectors of supply chains, especially in the defence industry.