ABSTRACT The research paper aims to examine the direct effects of exploratory supply chain innovation (ERSCI) and exploitative supply chain innovation (ETSCI) on digital supply chain practices (DSCP) in a sample of manufacturing SMEs in Jordan. The current study also presented other objectives and contributions in examining the potential causal relationships of industry 4.0 technologies (I4Ts) and studying their moderating effect between ERSCI, ETSCI, and DSCP. To achieve the research mentioned above objectives, 203 responses were collected from the organizational and managerial levels in manufacturing SMEs; purposive sampling was used in collecting data, and then the partial least squares‐structural equation modelling (PLS‐SEM) approach was employed in analyzing the data obtained. The empirical results reached a set of results, some of which were expected and others surprising. It was found that there was a positive and strong effect of ERSCI, ETSCI, and I4Ts on DSCP, and these variables were able to explain the variance occurring in DSCP by 54.8%. I4Ts also played a moderating role in the relationship between ETSCI and DSCP, while the results revealed that the interaction between ERSCI and I4Ts was not positive; in addition, this effect was not statistically significant. The results of this study had a clear contribution to filling the research gaps based on ambidexterity theory, as the current paper addressed a set of ambiguous causal relationships in the SC literature that had not previously been revealed in past literature. Thus, the current study expanded the discussion space about the interplay nexus between these relationships.
Al‐Khatib et al. (2026) studied this question.