On the relationship between business environment and competitive priorities: The role of performance frontiers

Shaohan Cai and Zhilin Yang

International Journal of Production Economics, 2014, vol. 151, issue C, 131-145

Abstract: The current study aims to explore the connections between business environments and firms׳ competitive priorities, which establish the basis for manufacturing strategy. This study explicitly considers the effects of asset and operating frontiers, as well as trade-offs across competitive priorities, a topic which has not been thoroughly studied by prior research. We collected data from 434 Chinese firms and analyzed the data using regression analysis. It was found that the operating frontier is affected by the asset frontier, as well as by environmental forces, such as business costs, competition intensity, and market and institutional dynamism. The operating frontier affects competitive priorities, such as cost, quality, and delivery. The asset frontier exerts direct effects on delivery and flexibility, but indirect effects on cost and quality, through the operating frontier. Environmental factors also exert various effects on the priorities. This analysis suggests that Chinese managers do not consistently follow a specific sequence for improving competitive priorities.

Keywords: Manufacturing strategy; Competitive priority; Asset frontier; Operating frontier (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925527314000450
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:151:y:2014:i:c:p:131-145

DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpe.2014.02.005

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 ().