Competitiveness During Covid-19 Pandemic: New Product Development and Supply Chain Agility

Abstract

Different forms of competition are experienced during the Covid-19 pandemic period. Being able to develop and launch new products is one of the competitive strategies. With the Covid-19 outbreak, the importance and urgency of developing new products in some sectors have also emerged. On the other hand, the supply chain must be agile in order to respond quickly to customer and market demands. This is another factor that provides companies with competitive advantage. The main purpose of this study is to examine the effect of new product development and supply chain agility on firms' gaining competitive power during the Covid-19 outbreak. It also reveals the moderator and mediating role of supply chain agility in the relationship between competitiveness and new product development. For these purposes, these concepts discussed theoretically in the study first. Data are collected through a survey to analyze the proposed model and hypotheses. Since the data are collected in the current epidemic period, the study is important in terms of revealing the importance given by firms to these three concepts in this period as well. The population of the study is composed of the manufacturing companies operating in the industrial zone of Gaziantep. Regression analysis based on the bootstrap method was conducted and analyzes were made by using Process Macro. Analyzes results confirm the hypotheses as; during the Covid-19 pandemic period, new product development and supply chain agility have a significant positive effect on competitiveness.

Keywords

• Agility
• Competitiveness
• Covid-19
• Moderating effect
• Mediating effect
• New Product Development

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