A configuration study on the relationships between production systems and business strategy in the changing environment

摘要

This paper describes the development and analysis of a numerical taxonomy of the relationships between production systems and business strategy in the changing competitive environment. The taxonomy was developed with a standard method of cluster analysis, and is based on four types of environment, six types of business strategy and four types of production systems. Eighty-two firms were surveyed through face-to-face interviews. Four kinds of relationships between environment, business strategy and production systems were observed. The validity of the cluster analysis is supported in the nonlinear Canonical Correlation Analysis (CCA). Underlying dimensions for the cluster analysis are interpreted as the product or service attribute and the customer focus.