The relationship among customer demand, competitive strategy and manufacturing system functional objectives

Purpose: To ascertain the relationship between the operation system function goal decision making and customer demand and competition strategy, can better discover and integrate all available resources (including important capital resources) to achieve business opportunities, the establishment of sustainable competitive ability. Because, to achieve business development lead policymakers take great uncertainty, which led to the investment behavior required for the operational activities of resources also bear the enormous risks. Design/methodology/approach: Through principal component analysis on the data collected by questionnaires, the manuscript obtains dominant factors for customer demand, competitive strategy and manufacturing system functional objectives respectively. By these factors, it tests its three hypotheses with the data from northeast of China and draws some conclusions. Findings: The results show that customer demand have a significant positive effect on competitive strategy; competitive strategy have positive influence on manufacturing system functional objectives; customer demand affect the functional objectives, by competitive strategy. Research limitations/implications: In this research, competitive strategy and manufacturing system functional objectives are influenced by customer demand. The conclusion of the research can provide theoretical guidance for Chinese enterprises which carry out manufacturing system functional objectives. Originality/value: In this research, a new measure questionnaire of competition strategy, customer satisfaction and operating system function goal was used, analyzed the influence factors of time, quality, cost, efficiency, service and environment, on the operation of the system. The study shows that the effect of competition strategy and customer demand has a direct impact on the operating system functions, customer demand through competitive strategy of indirect effects operating system functions.Peer Reviewe

HRM in Service: The Contingencies Abound

[Excerpt] Despite the rapid growth in the diversity of service consumers—both abroad and domestically—theoretical developments regarding this diversity in the service world have lagged far behind those that have characterized the world of manufacturing. With regard to international services, Knight (1999) conducted a review of the literature and concluded that there is an alarming paucity of research on international services management despite the importance of services in the global economy. A large proportion of the research that has been conducted on international services has focused on marketing issues rather than human resource management (HRM) issues. This means that little is known about the cross-cultural applicability of service HRM theories, which have hitherto been developed and tested almost exclusively within the West (mostly within the U.S. context). Similarly, there has been little research on the HRM implications of the growing diversity of service consumers within the U.S. domestic market. Again, much of the research focuses on the challenges associated with simultaneously marketing services to a multicultural customer base, with little or no work focusing on the implications of these challenges for HRM in service firms. Thus, the purpose of our chapter is to introduce a preliminary discussion of the HRM implications of both increased internationalization and domestic diversity for service firms. We begin by presenting a brief synthesis of the services management literature that has been established to date. Readers will note in the synthesis that a number of contingencies with regard to HRM practices have already been introduced especially via definitions of what constitutes service and the role of customers in service production and delivery. We then discuss the potential cross-cultural applicability of these services management principles abroad, and when doing so, we focus primarily on the aspects of services management theories that are laden with Western cultural principles. Next, we discuss parallel challenges faced by service firms as a result of increased diversity within the domestic marketplace and we conclude with some thoughts about the necessity to more explicitly explore the contingent nature of HRM practices

On the Interface Between Operations and Human Resources Management

Operations management (OM) and human resources management (HRM) have historically been very separate fields. In practice, operations managers and human resource managers interact primarily on administrative issues regarding payroll and other matters. In academia, the two subjects are studied by separate communities of scholars publishing in disjoint sets of journals, drawing on mostly separate disciplinary foundations. Yet, operations and human resources are intimately related at a fundamental level. Operations are the context that often explains or moderates the effects of human resource activities such as pay, training, communications and staffing. Human responses to operations management systems often explain variations or anomalies that would otherwise be treated as randomness or error variance in traditional operations research models. In this paper, we probe the interface between operations and human resources by examining how human considerations affect classical OM results and how operational considerations affect classical HRM results. We then propose a unifying framework for identifying new research opportunities at the intersection of the two fields

The Viability of Alternative Call Center Production Models

[Excerpt] The central question of this paper is whether a mass customization strategy coupled with high involvement work practices is an economically viable model for service and sales call centers. If so, under what conditions and why? To answer these questions, in the next section, we describe alternative models of call center management. In section III, we present a conceptual framework for understanding the relationship between management practices, workers reactions to those practices, and performance outcomes. We then review empirical evidence on these relationships, focusing primarily on studies of call centers or related service workplaces. In section IV, we draw on evidence from two recent quantitative studies of call centers to examine the performance outcomes of high involvement practices in this context. We close with a discussion and critique of existing evidence and suggestions for future research

Managing Customer Services: Human Resource Practices, Turnover, and Sales Growth

This study examines the relationship between human resource practices, employee quit rates, and organizational performance by drawing on a unique nationally representative sample of 354 customer service and sales establishments in the telecommunications industry. Multivariate analyses show that quit rates are lower and sales growth is higher in establishments that emphasize high skills, employee participation in decision-making and in teams, and HR incentives such as high relative pay and employment security. Quit rates partially mediate the relationship between human resource practices and sales growth. These relationships also are moderated by the customer segment that frontline employees serve

Human Resource Management, Service Quality, and Economic Performance in Call Centers

This paper examines the relationship between human resource practices, operational outcomes, and economic performance in call centers. The study draws on a sample of 64 call centers serving the mass market in a large telecommunications services company. Surveys of 1,243 employees in the 64 centers were aggregated to the call center level and matched to archival data on service process quality, as measured by customer surveys; call handling time, revenues per call, and net revenues per call. Our path analysis shows that human resource practices emphasizing employee training, discretion, and rewards lead to higher service quality, higher revenues per call, and higher net revenues per call. In addition, service quality mediates the relationship between human resource practices and these economic outcomes. There is no significant relationship between HR practices and labor efficiency, as measured by call handling time; and labor efficiency is inversely related to revenue generation

Value co-creation characteristics and creativity-oriented customer citizenship behavior

For the competitive advantage of service organization, it is important to improve the creative performance of human resources in the organization. For example, when employees perform creatively, in other words, if they generate novel and useful ideas, it will contribute to organizational competiveness. Therefore, there has been an increased focus in identifying its antecedents and consequences. Unfortunately, little is known about the creative performance of customers. According to service-centered dominant logic, customer is the value co-creator, it emphasizes co-opting customer involvement in the value creation process as an additional human resource. In addition, customers can be a valuable resource for service improvement efforts for firms. For instance, companies might benefit greatly from customer feedback and complaints regarding their offerings and can enhance their productivity in terms of quality and quantity. In this paper, the type of novel, creative-oriented customer behaviors highlighted in the preceding paragraph are referred to as creativity-oriented customer citizenship behaviors (CCBs). In the customer value co-creation context, creative-oriented CCBs refer to extra-role efforts by customers with regards the development of ideas about products, practices, services, and procedures that are novel and potentially useful to a firm. According to the intrinsic motivation perspective, the context in which customers create values, influences their intrinsic motivation, which in turn affects creativity-oriented CCBs. The intrinsic motivation perspective suggests that high intrinsic motivation is affected by information from both task characteristics (i.e., autonomy) and social characteristics (e.g., supplier support). Specifically, complex and challenging task characteristics such as high levels of variety, identity, significance, autonomy, and feedback are expected to increase customer intrinsic motivation. Under these conditions, customers should increase the likelihood of creativity-oriented CCBs. Therefore, customers are expected to be most creative when they experience a high level of intrinsic motivation. In contrast, complex and challenging task and social characteristics can have the opposite effect to customers. For example, in a high level of variety task, increased autonomy can lead to increased workload because they must take on related extra responsibilities and accountability. Increased workload, in turn, is expected to lead to decreased likelihood of creativity-oriented CCBs. Therefore, this study attempts to explore the impact of task characteristics and social characteristics on creativity-oriented CCBs. Furthermore, a substantial body of research has examined the possibility that creativity is affected by personal characteristics. As such, in addition to the relevant task and social characteristics, the moderating influence of several trait variables is also considered. This article makes several contributions. First, this study investigates the trade-off effect of the customer value co-creation related task and social characteristics by examining the underlying opposing mechanism of motivation and work overload. Second, this research provides a deeper understanding of contingency factors that systematically strengthen the relationships under consideration. Third, this study may indicate that companies seek to promote the creativity of their industrial customers and should design the tasks and social characteristics of their industrial customers in a way that maximizes their creativity. But, companies should be aware of the negative impact of specific tasks and social characteristics that may minimize the creativity of industrial customers

Global Talentship: Toward a Decision Science Connecting Talent to Global Strategic Success

It is widely accepted that global competitive advantage frequently requires managing such complex situations that traditional organization and job structures are simply insufficient. Increasingly, in order to create a flexible and integrated set of decisions that balance local flexibility with global efficiency, organizations must rely on more social, informal and matrix-based shared visions among managers and employees. Research on global strategic advantage, global organizational structures, and even shared mindsets has suggested that dimensions of culture, product and function provide a valuable organizing framework. However, typical decisions about organization structure, HRM practices and talent often remain framed at such a high level as to preclude their solution. We maintain that there is often no logical answer to such questions as, “Should the sales force be local or global?” or “Should product authority rest with the countries or the corporate center?” However, we propose that embedding business processes or value chains within a Culture and Product matrix provides the necessary analytic detail to reveal otherwise elusive solutions. Moreover, by linking this global process matrix to a model that bridges strategy and talent, it is possible to identify global “pivotal talent pools,” and to target organizational and human resource investments toward those talent areas that have the greatest impact on strategic advantage. We demonstrate the Value-Chain, Culture and Product (VCCP) matrix using several examples, and discuss future research and practical implications, particularly for leadership and leadership development

HR Practices and Customer Satisfaction: The Mediating Link of Commitment

This research examined organizational commitment as a mediator between HR practices and customer satisfaction of 35 job groups from 13 service firm business units. Both commitment level and consensus were predicted to influence customer satisfaction. Results found that commitment level mediated the relationship between HR practices and customer satisfaction

Talep belirsizliğinin Türk imalat firmalarının maliyet yapısı üzerindeki etkisi

Cost rigidity defines the characteristics of cost structure which is defined as the proportion of fixed costs to variable costs of firms. When the proportion of fixed costs are higher than the variable costs, then the cost structure is defined as a rigid cost structure. The structure of operating costs of Turkish manufacturing firms between years 1995 and 2014 is tested in terms of their “rigidity” in this paper. Moreover, the effect of demand uncertainty, as measured by the standard deviation of net sales, on the cost structure of operating costs is also tested. Findings support that higher levels of demand uncertainty are associated with higher portions of fixed costs in the cost structure (i.e., more rigid cost structure). That result contradicts the common wisdom that firms tend to lower the fixed costs in their cost structure as they are confronted with uncertainty