Achieving Mass Customization Through Modularity-Based Manufacturing Practices: A Customer-Driven Perspective

As uncertainty in markets and technology intensifies, organizations are adopting modularity-based manufacturing practices to achieve mass customization and cope with demands for increasingly customized products. Modularity-standardization and substitution principle to product and process design to create modular components and processes that can be configured into a wide range of end products to meet specific customer needs. This study defines customer closeness and modularity-based manufacturing develops instruments to measure these factors, builds a framework that relates customer closeness, modularity-based manufacturing practices, and mass customization, and tests structural relationships in this framework using LISREL

The impact of supply chain management practices on competitive advantage and organizational performance,”

Abstract Effective supply chain management (SCM) has become a potentially valuable way of securing competitive advantage and improving organizational performance since competition is no longer between organizations, but among supply chains. This research conceptualizes and develops five dimensions of SCM practice (strategic supplier partnership, customer relationship, level of information sharing, quality of information sharing, and postponement) and tests the relationships between SCM practices, competitive advantage, and organizational performance. Data for the study were collected from 196 organizations and the relationships proposed in the framework were tested using structural equation modeling. The results indicate that higher levels of SCM practice can lead to enhanced competitive advantage and improved organizational performance. Also, competitive advantage can have a direct, positive impact on organizational performance

Technostress:negative effect on performance and possible mitigations

We investigate the effect of conditions that create technostress, on technology-enabled innovation, technology-enabled performance and overall performance. We further look at the role of technology self-efficacy, organizational mechanisms that inhibit technostress and technology competence as possible mitigations to the effects of technostress creators. Our findings show a negative association between technostress creators and performance. We find that, while traditional effort-based mechanisms such as building technology competence reduce the impact of technostress creators on technology-enabled innovation and performance, more empowering mechanisms such as developing technology self-efficacy and information systems (IS) literacy enhancement and involvement in IS initiatives are required to counter the decrease in overall performance because of technostress creators. Noting that the professional sales context offers increasingly high expectations for technology-enabled performance in an inherently interpersonal-oriented and relationship-oriented environment with regard to overall performance, and high failure rates for IS acceptance/use, the study uses survey data collected from 237 institutional sales professionals

The information systems environment of time-based competitors

Time-based competitors create product development and manufacturing practices that reduce response-time and enhance customization capabilities. These practices require an information-rich, internal environment capable of flexible resource deployment and direct and continuous feedback. These firms should have enhanced information systems planning capabilities, cross-functional involvement in information systems related activities, responsiveness to organizational computing demands, high levels of end-user development, and high levels of information systems performance. Data were collected from 265 manufacturers to develop measures for these information systems variables and to determine if there are relationships between the use of time-based practices and the levels of these variables. Results indicate that firms with high levels of time-based product development practices and time-based manufacturing practices have significantly higher scores across these information systems variables than firms with low levels of these time-based practices

Impact Of SCM Practices Of A Firm On Supply Chain Responsiveness And Competitive Advantage Of A Firm

Today’s supply chains are expected to respond rapidly, effectively, and efficiently to changes in the marketplace to sustain, succeed and create competitive advantage in this increasingly global marketplace by focusing on time, flexibility, and speed of response. The focus of this study is the supply chain responsiveness construct and a firm’s practices to respond to customer’s demands and constantly changing market conditions to create competitive advantage. This research conceptualizes three dimensions of supply chain responsiveness and develops a reliable and valid instrument for measuring this construct. The study further tests the relationships between supply chain management (SCM) practices, supply chain responsiveness, and competitive advantage using structural equation modeling based on 294 responses from industry professionals in the manufacturing and supply chain area. Research findings point out that higher level of SCM practices can lead to improved supply chain responsiveness and enhanced competitive advantage of a firm. Also supply chain responsiveness can have a direct positive impact on competitive advantage of a firm

The Q-Sort Method: Assessing Reliability And Construct Validity Of Questionnaire Items At A Pre-Testing Stage

This paper describes the Q-sort, which is a method of assessing reliability and construct validity of questionnaire items at a pre-testing stage. The method uses Cohen\u27s Kappa and Moore and Benbasat\u27s Hit Ratio in assessing the questionnaire

Trust-Driven Joint Operations Practices to Achieve Mass Customization: A Comparative Study for U.S., Chinese and Japanese Companies

This study builds a model of trust, based on joint operational activities and mass customization using theories of social capital and the resource-based view of the firm. Based on 208 responses from suppliers in the U.S. and China, this study empirically supports the notion that trust positively drives manufacturer-supplier activities in operations. It also supports the claim that joint operations activities contribute to mass customization capabilities in a significant way. Moreover, the level of trust and the degree of joint activities are different for the four types of suppliers used in the study: U.S. brands produced in North America, Japanese brands produced in China, U.S. brands produced in China, and Chinese brands produced in China

Improving end-user satisfaction through technostress prevention:some empirical evidences

Emerging information and communication technologies (ICTs) make it possible for many business end-users to get connected anytime, anywhere. While the pervasive new ICTs have the potential to offer significant end-user performance gains, they also bring some negative side effects such as technostress: a cognitive reaction that an individual experiences when he or she is unable to cope with or adapt to new ICT. Given the importance of end-user satisfaction (EUS) to system success, this paper attempts to explore the impact of a set of technostress creators on EUS, and the effect of some technostress inhibiting mechanisms (e.g. end-user training, end-user help-desk and end-user involvement) on alleviating the negative impact of technostress on EUS. Empirical data were collected through questionnaire survey to help answer the research question

The consequences of technostress for end users in organizations:conceptual development and empirical validation

The research reported in this paper studies the phenomenon of technostress, that is, stress experienced by end users of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), and examines its influence on their job satisfaction, commitment to the organization, and intention to stay. Drawing from the Transaction-Based Model of stress and prior research on the effects of ICTs on end users, we first conceptually build a nomological net for technostress to understand the influence of technostress on three variables relating to end users of ICTs: job satisfaction, and organizational and continuance commitment. Because there are no prior instruments to measure constructs related to technostress, we develop and empirically validate two second order constructs: technostress creators (i.e., factors that create stress from the use of ICTs) and technostress inhibitors (i.e., organizational mechanisms that reduce stress from the use of ICTs). We test our conceptual model using data from the responses of 608 end users of ICTs from multiple organizations to a survey questionnaire. Our results, based on structural equation modeling (SEM), show that technostress creators decrease job satisfaction, leading to decreased organizational and continuance commitment, while Technostress inhibitors increase job satisfaction and organizational and continuance commitment. We also find that age, gender, education, and computer confidence influence technostress. The implications of these results and future research directions are discussed

IT Enablers and Partner Relationship, the Keys to the Practices of Supply Chain Management

Many researchers consider information technology (IT) a great enabler for the practices of supply chain management (SCM). Meanwhile, the practices of SCM depend on good partner relationship, which is built on trust, commitment and shared vision between supply chain partners. This research develops and validates a set of measurements of IT enablers and partner relationship and provides a framework to understand the relationships between IT enablers, partner relationship, and SCM practices. Data for this study were collected from 196 organizations and the relationships proposed in the framework were tested using structural equation modeling. The results indicate that higher levels of IT usage directly lead to better partner relationship and higher levels of SCM practice. Also, partner relationship has a direct, positive impact on SCM practices