Malaysian manufacturing firms play an important role in the country’s social and economic development. However, the industry faces challenges in productivity and competitiveness due to rapid globalization and economic instabilities affecting countries worldwide. To address these challenges, technological capability has become an essential requirement for a firm’s technological progress to remain sustainable and competitive. This study aims to identify factors that influence the technological capability of food manufacturing firms by using a questionnaire. Using IBM SPSS Statistics 27, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was employed to examine the dataset obtained from the survey and analyze the factors that contribute to a firm’s technological capability. Overall, firms are influenced by knowledge management, organizational learning, and organizational innovation in their technological capability development. By understanding these factors, firms can develop their technological capability and further improve their productivity, ultimately achieving a sustainable competitive advantage in the market.

The increasing urbanization of the world has created new issues and challenges for the modern food industry to meet customers’ changing demands. To address these issues, these firms need to invest in technological capability development. This study examines factors that affect the technological capability of food manufacturing firms. A large-scale survey of a sample of 270 food manufacturing firms in Malaysia was conducted. Structural equation modeling was used to evaluate the observed variables. The result shows that organizational innovation fully mediates the relationship between organizational learning and technological capability. Overall, the findings suggest that food manufacturing firms in Malaysia that want to enhance their technological capability should focus on developing and implementing organizational innovation practices, in addition to other strategies and practices that aim to promote organizational learning and innovation. This research contributes to the development of related theories and has practical implications for the stakeholders in the food manufacturing industry.