When Information is not Enough: Replenishment Uncertainty and the Value of Decision Information Use in SME Inventory Management

This study examines whether replenishment decision uncertainty (RDU) conditions the association between decision information use (DIU) and perceived replenishment decision effectiveness (RDE) in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Grounded in Organisational Information Processing Theory, a survey of 360 SME respondents in Selangor, Malaysia, using purposive sampling in October 2026 was analysed through standardised composite-score regression, heteroskedasticity-consistent inference and 2,500-resample percentile bootstrap intervals. DIU was positively associated with RDE at mean uncertainty (? = 0.371), and the DIU × RDU interaction was positive (? = 0.115; 95% bootstrap CI [0.017, 0.206]). Adding the interaction increased explained variance from 0.137 to 0.151 (?R² = 0.014). Conditional DIU slopes were 0.256, 0.371 and 0.485 at low, average and high uncertainty. However, the RDU measure exhibited limited measurement quality (Cronbach’s ? = 0.662; composite reliability = 0.683; average variance extracted = 0.433). The findings offer a cautious, decision-specific illustration of uncertainty as a statistical boundary condition rather than proof of causal inventory-performance gains. Further measurement refinement and independent operational outcomes are important for corroboration.