The influence of supply chain management training on personnel differentiation: The case of manufacturing companies in Malaysia

Effective training is increasingly recognized as a critical factor in enhancing the skills and knowledge of employees or personnel in an organization. This paper presents the findings of an empirical research which examines the relationship between training in Supply Chain Management (SCM) and personnel differentiation of manufacturing companies in Malaysia. Primary data were obtained from questionnaires administered to 126 company-respondents sampled from the Directory of Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers .The associations between training in SCM and personnel differentiation dimensions were analyzed through Pearson’s correlations and Multiple Regression techniques. The findings showed that specifically, personnel differentiation had high correlations with training in SCM. The Multiple Regression results also revealed that two training variables, namely, ‘Employee training on production skills’, and ‘Employee training on supply chain technologies’ exhibited high influences on personal differentiation which comprised employee and service differentiations. Training on production skills would inculcate skills and knowledge for employees to do the required job efficiently and subsequently reduce spoilt work, misuse of machines and physical risks, while training on supply chain technologies would provide employees with skills to deal effectively with the complexity of creating successful strategic supplier partnerships, customer feedbacks, responses and involvement, and timely, accurate and quality information exchanges in the supply chain.