The Role of Employees’ Performance and External Knowledge Transfer on the Supply Chain Flexibility

Abstract

In this article structural equation models are reported, which relate four latent variables associated with employee performance, knowledge transfer, and supply chain flexibility, which incorporate 17 observed variables. In addition, the latent variables are related through 6 hypotheses that were tested with data from 269 questionnaires applied to the maquiladora industry in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Moreover, this model was executed in WarpPLS 6.0 software using the partial least squares technique to analyze the direct, indirect, and total effects. Additionally, the results show that the external knowledge transfer is crucial within the supply chains, since it explains 44.6% of the complexity, 19.5% of the employees’ performance, as well as 10.6% of the supply chain flexibility.