Perceived Moderating Ability of Relational Interaction versus Reciprocal Investments in Pursuing Exploitation versus Exploration in RFID Supply Chains

Abstract

This study looks at the perceived ability of two variables, reciprocal investments and relational interaction, to moderate the relationship between the independent variables, components of IT infrastructure integration and supply chain process integration, and two dependent radio frequency identification (RFID) system variables, exploitation and exploration. Using the moderated regression procedure, this study seeks to test the ability of both reciprocal investments and relational interaction to moderate the relationship between the independent and dependent variables using data gathered from 87 firms using an online survey. Results show that relational interaction is an effective moderator between the dependent variable, exploitation, and the following independent variables: data consistency, cross-functional application integration, financial flow integration, physical flow integration, and information flow integration (Table 1). Neither reciprocal investments nor relational interaction effectively moderated the independent variables, IT infrastructure integration and supply chain process integration and the other dependent variable, exploration.