The Impact of Supply Chain Quality Management on Firm Performance in Manufacturing Business: The Moderating Role of Digital Intelligence

Facing growing uncertainty and rapid technological change, traditional supply chain management can no longer meet the complexity and performance needs of manufacturing firms. Consequently, supply chain quality management (SCQM) has gained increasing attention as a key approach. At the same time, supply chain quality integration (SCQI), supply chain strategy (SCS), supply chain capability (SCC), and digital intelligence (DI) are recognized for their potential to enhance coordination, adaptability, and value creation across the supply chain. In this study, we investigate the impact of SCQM on firm performance (FP), focusing on the mediating roles of SCQI, SCS, and SCC and the moderating role of DI. Based on survey data from Chinese manufacturing enterprises, structural equation modeling (SEM) is employed to analyze these relationships. The results reveal that SCQM positively affects FP and significantly enhances SCQI, SCS, and SCC. Furthermore, SCQM influences FP indirectly through SCQI and SCS, underscoring the key mediating roles of the latter. DI is also found to significantly moderate the SCQM–FP relationship, strengthening the dynamic interaction among these variables and offering practical insights for improving FP via DI in SCQM frameworks. In this research study, we build a new theoretical model grounded in the Structure–Conduct–Performance (SCP) paradigm, filling a gap in the existing literature. For the first time, we jointly explore the mediating effects of SCQI and SCS and the moderating role of DI in the SCQM–FP link, providing an innovative contribution that enriches both academic understanding and managerial practice.