How do companies lose orders? A multi-country study of internal inconsistency in operations strategies

摘要

The main purpose of this study is to empirically investigate the order-losing effect of manufacturing competitive factors and shed light on typical patterns of internally inconsistent operations strategies that might lead to lower business performance. To explore our research questions, two different survey databases with similar data structures are used. Both databases contain information about more than 450 companies from more than 20 countries, contributing to the generalizability of our findings. The results of our analysis suggest that costs represent the most frequent competitive factor on which the capabilities developed do not meet the level required for its high strategic priority. Our findings related to internally inconsistent operations strategy configurations are confirmed on both research samples. Results regarding the business performance effects of internally inconsistent operations strategies show that primarily costs, but also after-sales services, have a strong order-losing effect, leading to significantly lower business performance.