Manufacturing flexibility, business model design, and firm performance

Zelong Wei, Xi Song and Donghan Wang

International Journal of Production Economics, 2017, vol. 193, issue C, 87-97

Abstract: With the increasing significance of the business model in a connected economy, a new stream of literature has turned to explore the antecedents of business model design. Beyond external antecedents derived from a rational positioning view, little research has investigated the role of internal manufacturing flexibility. Based on theory of constraints and business ecosystem theory, this examines how manufacturing flexibility affects efficiency- and novelty-centred business model designs and consequent firm performance. We propose and test eight hypotheses using data from one hundred and eighty-six manufacturing firms in China. The results indicate that manufacturing flexibility promotes both efficiency- and novelty-centred business model designs and subsequent firm performance. Furthermore, the relationship between manufacturing flexibility and an efficiency-centred business model design is strengthened by competitive intensity but weakened by demand heterogeneity. In contrast, the relationship between manufacturing flexibility and novelty-centred business model design is weakened by competitive intensity but strengthened by demand heterogeneity.

Keywords: Business model design; Manufacturing flexibility; Competitive intensity; Demand heterogeneity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (41)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925527317302104
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:proeco:v:193:y:2017:i:c:p:87-97

DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpe.2017.07.004

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Production Economics is currently edited by Stefan Minner

More articles in International Journal of Production Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().