Manufacturing best practices and performance: The effects of home and host country context

Levente Szász, Krisztina Demeter, Harry Boer

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    Abstract

    There is an impressive body of literature about best manufacturing practices. The question is whether these practices are always best, in every situation. Aimed at investigating the effects of home and host country characteristics on the “goodness” of manufacturing practices, the paper tests whether a) home and host country characteristics moderate the association between manufacturing practices and performance, and, thus, whether b) there are manufacturing practices that are universally best.
    Manufacturing practices and performance are measured using data collected through the fifth round of the International Manufacturing Strategy Survey (IMSS V). The IMSS V database includes data from 725 plants from manufacturing and assembly industries covering 21 different (host) countries. The Global Competitiveness Report of the World Economic Forum is used to operationalize country characteristics. Cluster analysis is used to develop groups of companies based on home and host country development. Exploratory factor analysis is applied to create bundles of manufacturing practices and performance measures. Then, using moderated multiple regressions (MMR) with interaction factor, and separate multiple regression analyses for each group of companies, bundles of manufacturing practices are identified that lead to best-in-class performance improvements. A range of control variables is introduced to help interpret the results.
    The study shows that home and host country context does affect the association between manufacturing practices and performance, and manufacturing practices that are best in one context are not necessarily best in another context.
    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationProceedings of the 18th International Working Seminar on Production Economics
    Number of pages12
    Place of PublicationInnsbruck
    Publication date24 Feb 2014
    Publication statusPublished - 24 Feb 2014
    Event18th International Working Seminar on Production Economics - Innsbruck, Austria
    Duration: 24 Feb 201428 Feb 2014
    Conference number: 18

    Conference

    Conference18th International Working Seminar on Production Economics
    Number18
    Country/TerritoryAustria
    CityInnsbruck
    Period24/02/201428/02/2014

    Keywords

    • manufacturing practices, performance improvement, country context, survey

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