An international comparison of the effect of manufacturing strategy-implementation gap on business performance

• Published in: International journal of production economics Vol. 70; no. 1; pp. 89 - 97
• Main Authors: Rho, Boo-Ho, Park, Kwangtae, Yu, Yung-Mok
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier B.V 03.03.2001; Elsevier; Elsevier Sequoia S.A
• Series: International Journal of Production Economics
• Subjects: Business performance; Comparative studies; Comparative study; Discriminant analysis; Empirical study; Gap analysis; International; Manufacturing; Manufacturing practices; Manufacturing strategy; Studies; Business performance; Discriminant analysis; Empirical study; Manufacturing practices; Gap analysis; Comparative study; Manufacturing strategy
• ISSN: 0925-5273; 1873-7579
• DOI: 10.1016/S0925-5273(00)00049-9

This study has the purpose of empirically testing the importance of consistency between manufacturing strategies and practices in achieving better business performances. An empirical test has been conducted and compared on the data sets from three different nations, each of which seems to have quite different manufacturing capabilities and competitive environments. The empirical test result implies that the gap variable indicating inconsistency between manufacturing strategy and implementation practices plays a more important role than the strategy or implementation variable in discriminating the superior from the inferior performance groups. For those data sets from the US and Korea, the gap variables of flexibility, quality and/or cost show more significant contribution in discriminating business performance groups. But none of the gap variables outperform other strategy or implementation variables in discriminating performance groups in Japan.