Configurational methods in operations management contingency research - overview and the introduction of multidimensional scaling as a possible new application

摘要

In this paper we examine different applicable methods for analyzing configurations of manufacturing practices and contingency factors. The paper consists of two main parts.udWe first review those methods that can be used for investigating configurations based on Venkatraman (1989) and Venkatraman – Prescott (1990): gestalts, profile deviation and covariation, and we introduce another method for configurational analysis, namely the multidimensional scaling (MDS). The second part provides an empirical comparison of between some of these methods by using the fifth wave of IMSS database which contains 725 valid observations from 21 countries from the ISIC 28-35 industries. We give an example for the joint use of factor analysis and multidimensional scaling, and also of cluster analysis and multidimensional scaling.