The measurement of manufacturing virtuality

Linking manufacturing and competitive strategies for successful firm performance: a review and reconceptualization

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to propose a framework depicting the dynamic links between a firm’s external environment, competitive strategy, manufacturing strategy, competitive advantage and firm performance. This is followed by articulating expected differences among the the content and process dimensions dimensions of a manufacturing strategy for different competitive strategies.

Design/methodology/approach

Today, manufacturing is widely recognized as one of the most important means of creating and sustaining a competitive advantage. This paper studies the emerging broader view of the strategic role of manufacturing by offering a manufacturing strategy model, showing its impact on competitive advantage and, ultimately, firm performance. This is accomplished by identifying and defining major content and process dimensions of manufacturing strategy and relating them to a firm’s strategic type. The paper uses an integrative competitive strategy typology (Segev, 1989) to clarify differences in manufacturing strategy dimensions and different competitive strategies. The concept of “fit as gestalt” among the dimensions of manufacturing strategy is also introduced. This study presents the implications of fit between manufacturing and competitive strategy and the contribution of content and process dimensions of manufacturing strategy to firm performance and concludes by providing implications for executives and future research issues.

Findings

Differences in content and process dimensions of manufacturing strategy for different competitive strategies are clarified.

Research limitations/implications

Other researchers may propose different frameworks for linking manufacturing and competitive strategies.

Originality/value

This paper presents an integrative view of competitive and manufacturing strategies. It highlights the numerous choices companies must make to ensure fit among the competitive strategic types and their corresponding manufacturing strategies. This integration adds coherence and parsimony to the literature. It provides a basis for conceptualizing manufacturing strategy, thus reconciling different strategic perspectives and reducing a potential source of conflicting research results.

The work–family balance of British working women during the COVID-19 pandemic

Purpose

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected women in unique gender-specific ways, particularly their traditional status as home managers. This study aims to draw on the role theory to examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on women's work–family balance during the lockdown.

Design/methodology/approach

The current COVID-19 pandemic, which has altered the ways in which we live and work, requires specific methodological tools to be understood. The authors, therefore, opted for an interpretive–constructivist and constructivist–phenomenologist approach. The dataset, thus, comprises of semi-structured interviews with 26 working women in the UK.

Findings

The findings illustrate how the COVID-19 lockdown has intensified British women's domestic workload and has, thus, caused unbridled role conflict, which has further been exacerbated by structural and interactional roles undertaken by women, especially during the lockdown. Remote working has contributed to women's role congestion and role conflict and poses severe challenges to role differentiation. Furthermore, we found that the lockdown has facilitated the rediscovery of family values and closeness, which is connected to the decline in juvenile delinquency and low crime rate that has resulted from the lockdown.

Originality/value

Through the lens of the role theory, this study concludes that the cohabitation of work and family duties within the domestic space undermines the ability to achieve work–family balance and role differentiation due to the occurrence of inter-role conflicts. This study enriches our understanding of the effect of remote working on female employees' work–family balance during the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic lockdown.

Design chain visibility

Purpose

Researchers ascertain that the more the activities of new product development (NPD) process are outsourced to partners, the higher the need for integration. The purpose of this paper is to study: the extent to which the amount of information shared with the partners during NPD projects (DC visibility) depends on the degree of outsourcing (DC virtuality), and what are the context variables (product features and business relationship features) that influence this relationship.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper provides two sets of quantitative indexes to measure: the relevance of the activities outsourced during the NPD project (i.e. virtuality), in terms of the spread of the outsourced technological knowledge, and in terms of outsourced workload; and the amount of information that a focal company shares with product development partners (i.e. visibility). Seven NPD projects in different companies have been analyzed to investigate visibility, virtuality, and the implications of contingencies.

Findings

The cross-case analysis shows that the amount of information shared with the partners during the NPD project varies with the relevance of outsourced activities. In particular, the higher the relevance, the higher the amount of information shared with the partner. Partner location and integration, trust, and ICT support have a role in determining the amount of information shared with each single partner.

Originality/value

This study adopts an original network perspective in that the whole set of partners involved in the NPD process is analyzed. New quantitative indexes of visibility and virtuality of NPD projects are proposed, along with original insights about the impact of context variables. The quantitative indexes also provide a useful managerial tool to evaluate whether a focal company has the possibility to build competitive advantages that exploit unique resources beyond the boundaries of the company.

Themes of study in manufacturing strategy literature

Purpose

– A literature review within the manufacturing strategy (MS) discipline with a focus on thematic developments is provided. Based on recent studies, a set of challenges posed to manufacturing enterprise of the future are summarized, and thematic areas are analyzed in relation to meeting those challenges. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Design/methodology/approach

– Based on a select set of 506 articles published in top-ranked refereed international journals in the discipline of operations management, major and subthemes are identified and the publication trends in these themes are provided with time and across geographical regions, namely: North America, Europe, and other parts of the world.

Findings

– MS literature is predominantly focussed on the economic objectives of firms without a due focus on the social and environmental perspectives. MS literature covers 11 major thematic areas, namely: MS components and paradigms, manufacturing capabilities (MCs), strategic choices (SCs), best practices (BPs), the strategy process (SP), supply-chain management (SCM), performance measurement, transnational comparisons, global manufacturing, environmental/green manufacturing, and literature reviews. The research in two areas – SCs, and MCs – has been in decline, while the research in BPs, the SP, and transnational comparisons is growing (in absolute figures). Various research opportunities for future studies are identified.

Research limitations/implications

– The literature review is limited in its selection of articles and journals, however, the identified trends clarify the state of research by the MS research community at large.

Practical implications

– For researchers, multiple new research directions are identified in order to advance knowledge in the field of MS. The publication trends also highlight thematic areas where most of the MS body of knowledge is currently available and can be utilized by practitioners.

Originality/value

– The paper’s novelty comes from: first, a broader and deeper review of thematic areas that has not been researched before, second, trends in thematic areas by time, across geographical regions, and including time-region dyads, and third, coverage provided by MS literature in meeting challenges posed to manufacturing enterprise of the future.

Environments for Virtual Enterprise Integration

The Virtual Enterprise model relies on dynamically reconfigurable collaborative networks, with extremely high performances, strongly time-oriented while highly focused on cost and quality, in permanent alignment with the market, and strongly supported by information and communication technology. Networking and reconfiguration dynamics are the main characteristics of this model, which claim for enabling and supporting environments, assuring cost-effective integration in useful time and preventing the risk of leakage of private information about products or processes. Some existing technologies and Internet-based environments can partially support this organizational model, but the reconfiguration dynamics can only be assured by environments able to manage, control, and enable virtual enterprise creation/operation/reconfiguration. Several environments are introduced in the article, and particular focus is given to the Market of Resources, an environment coping with the requirements of the Virtual Enterprise model.