Dynamic Analysis for Enterprise Strategic Flexibility using System Engineering Methodology

From a system thinking perspective, the competition / cooperation boundaries govern the evolution of a firm\u27s adaptive strategic behaviour and drive it towards its desired objectives. Strategic flexibility is considered a sustainability advantage in today\u27s global competitive environment. This study explores the strategic flexibility capability that fits with the market requirement and the degree of competition it faces in its market(s). After exploring the link between the manufacturing objectives and their effect on the total industry performance in terms of profitability, product availability and capacity utilization, this study quantify the strategic effect of applying five different strategies on the enterprise strategic flexibility capability. By modeling and analyzing different scenarios using a system dynamic simulation approach and considering the market competitive dynamics, this model introduces the volume flexibility as a macro strategic measure that affects the firm\u27s intended production capacity. The effect of enterprise volume flexibility on its market share is studied and reported. The research explored how operations management theory on volume flexibility can be linked to the dynamic capability theory to develop new macro measures for the enterprise manufacturing strategy. Results show that matching between the firm capabilities and its external environment is a critical factor for organizational success. While the intense of competition govern the product life cycle duration and rate of change, success level is proportional to the competitor simultaneous actions and reactions and the effect differs from market to another. Results show that different product life cycle affects the industry speed and that may change the wining strategies adopted by the competing firms. As a result there are no ultimate right strategies for firms to follow. While tradeoffs between flexibility and cost are confirmed, the competitive advantage occurs when it is unique to the company and matches with the market variables for limited time. In conclusion, for industrial organization to achieve high productivity, efficiency and maximum utilization rate they need to select from a wide range of strategic capabilities rather than concentrating on a single capability or process to match the requirements of the external environment with responsive rate that matches the industry clock speed

An exploration of integrality in project productions and its final outcome : the mobile production cells

Tese de doutoramento. Engenharia Industrial e Gestão. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 200

Incentives and inhibitors of CSR adoption in the manufacturing sector

The thesis determined the incentives and inhibitors of Corporate Social Responsibility in the Manufacturing sector including the way CSR is defined and integrated in the overall manufacturing strategy. CSR provides clear benefits through improved financial, social and environmental performance however it needs to be closely integrated into overall strategic objectives

The Economics of Politics vs the Politics of Economics: Nigerian case

Indeed, the recent emphasis on eco-political governance in Nigeria is unique in that it was initiated by external donors (international organizations) and not by domestic leaders under pressure from their own constituencies. Thus, while Nigeria have embraced the market economy and liberalized their policies; issues related to political participation, democracy and institution building have proven harder to tackle. This paper therefore argued that government must devote resources and political will to overcoming the harsh poverty experienced by the majority of Nigerians. In this regard, the emerging participatory e-development and traditional development strategies should not be seen as mutually exclusive but rather complementary (so as to avert the status of a failed state).politics;economics;corruption;economy;Nigeria; e-development;ICT;participation;governance;policies; development;resources;new economy;financialcrisis;poverty; economicmanagement;electoralprocess;technology

Management of Technological Innovation in Developing and Developed Countries

It is widely accepted that technology is one of the forces driving economic growth. Although more and more new technologies have emerged, various evidence shows that their performances were not as high as expected. In both academia and practice, there are still many questions about what technologies to adopt and how to manage these technologies. The 15 articles in this book aim to look into these questions. There are quite many features in this book. Firstly, the articles are from both developed countries and developing countries in Asia, Africa and South and Middle America. Secondly, the articles cover a wide range of industries including telecommunication, sanitation, healthcare, entertainment, education, manufacturing, and financial. Thirdly, the analytical approaches are multi-disciplinary, ranging from mathematical, economic, analytical, empirical and strategic. Finally, the articles study both public and private organizations, including the service industry, manufacturing industry, and governmental organizations. Given its wide coverage and multi-disciplines, the book may be useful for both academic research and practical management

From one dominant growth mode to another:Switching between strategic expansion modes

In this PhD thesis, chapter 1 narrates the extant literature showing that firms expand through the organic growth strategy, others through the acquisition strategy, and some by a combination of these two modes. It also reveals that firms sometimes switch from one dominant growth mode to the other, but we have limited insight on why top managers switch modes and how these strategic switch processes unfold. After showing that extant literature is silent about these gaps, chapter 2 reveals that behavioral theory of the firm (BTOF) stand a chance to offer plausible explanations but rather through a newly emergent stream instead of the dominant performance feedback. Chapter 3 adopts qualitative, interpretative grounded theory permitting us to tap into the lived experiences of top managers and annual reports to form the basis of emerging theory. While the context of the study is discussed in chapter 4, case-by-case and cross-case data analyses are explored in 5 and 6, respectively. Lastly, chapter 7 offers three theoretical contributions a) performance anxiety as a major driver leading top managers to switch strategies, from one growth mode to another b) explaining this through forward-looking logic (performance prospects) of BTOF, instead of backwardlooking logic (performance feedback), and c) exposing the three phases that bring to bear the situational, action-formation and transformational mechanisms at work, and in doing so reveal the unfolding processes taking place during the formation of a specific switch mode

Manufacturing strategy issues in selected Indian manufacturing industry

This paper presents some findings of Indian manufacturing sectors viz. automobile (especially two-wheeler), tractor and general manufacturing industry. Various manufacturing strategy issues such as competitive priorities, improvement activities, and performance measures, have been identified and assessed in Indian context. Sector wise comparison of competitive priorities, improvement activities i.e. advanced manufacturing technology (AMT), integrated information systems (IIS), and advanced management systems (AMS), and performance measure, is provided. Our results showed that most of the Indian companies are still emphasizing on quality. However, automobile sector has set to compete globally with high innovation rate, faster new product development, and continuous improvement. It is also observed that Indian companies are investing more in AMS as compared to IIS and AMT. Manufacturing competence index is also computed for each sector

Manufacturing strategy in Inter-Firm collaborations: a proposed model

The origin of the project comes from two main aspects. First, considering the concept of Skinner (1968), who stressed the need to attach a crucial importance of manufacturing strategy as a competitive weapon for companies. And second, blending it with the current scenario of relationships between firms all around the world, in response of the aggressive worldwide competition, in which the task of sustaining competitive advantage has become even tougher. The current project attempts to study and analyze the manufacturing strategy field in a context of collaboration between firms, without forgetting the upper levels of strategic planning within a company, and how all this elements interact to each other and affect it. The author will be supported by a theoretical background based on the topic and the classification of different inter-firm collaboration linkages that could take place in this moment. It is been studied the different levels of strategy within a firm, and how each affects the manufacturing level, in a context of cooperation between organizations, based on different approaches to firm’s strategy, which could be valuable to the present work: Relational view, Resource-Based view and Extended Resource- Based view. Related with the case study, the author provides a brief case of U.S. automobile manufacturing firms, being focused in General Motors, which offers with valuable information of the present topic. In order to analyze the manufacturing strategy with more detail, the author considered to highlight the case of the Joint Venture undertook between GM and Toyota, which gives a strong empirical support to the work. In conclusion, this project provides a wide outlook of the scenario of collaboration linkages between firms, being focused on manufacturing decision areas, and taking into account all the elements involved, both theoretical and empirical data. It is basic to state that during the work, operations strategy and manufacturing strategy are treated as synonyms that are referred to the same concept, as it is seen along the bibliography and documents.Ingeniería Industria

A natural resource-based view of climate change: innovation challenges in the automobile industry

In recent years, uncertainty about climate change policies has deeply altered the competitive landscape of the automobile industry, and highlighted the key role that companies can play in reducing global CO2 emissions through technological innovation. Given the complexity of the innovation process in this industry, mainly due to an interactive relationship with the market, this study adopts a socio-technical transition perspective in order to understand the type of technological innovations that automobile companies have developed for reducing CO2 emissions from their products during a period of regulatory uncertainty. The Natural-Resource-Based View is used as a novel framework to categorize technological innovations into two important sets: product stewardship and clean technology. Product stewardship innovations are characterized by incremental changes in product components, with no substantial modifications of the core product concept. Clean technology innovations are characterized by significant alterations to existing product functionalities, infrastructure and consumer patterns, and imply major restructuring of both manufacturing processes and market acceptance. Under regulatory uncertainty, findings show that significant reductions of CO2 emissions from vehicles have been due to clean technology innovations. The benefits from clean technologies persist over time. In addition, complementarities between product stewardship and clean technology innovations have occurred, with positive effects on further CO2 emission reductions. These latter benefits, however, show only short-term effects, suggesting that continuous innovation in product stewardship is necessary in the next few years in this industry to survive in a carbon-constrained market.This work was supported by Grant #ECO2013-46091-P from Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. Part of this work was performed while the first author was visiting faculty (2012-2014) at Pompeu Fabra University, Department of Economics and Business, Barcelona (Spain)