Competitive priorities in the urban mobility sector

Purpose – This study aims to identify the competitive priorities adopted by companies that operate in the urban mobility services sector and analyzes practices and strategies that reinforce the priorities adopted. Design/methodology/approach – An exploratory case study using a qualitative approach, through semi-structured interviews with four participants, was used to develop the research problem. Findings – It was found that technologies used for mobility allows the implementation of innovation based on the perception of the customer's wants, which, in the case of this study, seemed like the central element. The central point identified was the fact that the company being studied used innovation when customizing products to maintain competitive levels of quality and distinction through service innovations. On the other hand, there is a restriction which had a greater impact, which is due to difficulty in controlling the levels of services performed by drivers. Originality/value – The study contributes to a better understanding of the customer's needs in the urban mobility services sector, and in order to ensure higher customer satisfaction and improve the level of quality in the supply of services, resulting in a good performance and competitive advantage for companies in the sector. Keywords - Competitive priorities; quality; services; innovation.

Competitive Priorities, Employee Management and Development and Sustainable Manufacturing Performance in Asian Organizations

This study investigates the relationships between three dimensions of competitive priorities (customer focus, product innovation and delivery) and how Asian manufacturers manage and develop their employees and the consequent effect on sustainable manufacturing performance. Three dimensions of manufacturing performance are considered in this study—quality performance, production flexibility and operations cost. This study uses 259 datasets collected from manufacturers in four Asian countries. Structural equation modeling and mediation analysis are performed to test the relationships. Results show that there is a significant positive and mediating relationship between the competitive priority of product innovation, employee management and development, quality performance, production flexibility and operation cost. However, such significant relationships do not exist with competitive priorities of customer focus and delivery. Organizations are constantly faced with the problem of determining which competitive priorities to focus on. However, different competitive priorities have different effects on how the employees are managed and developed, and ultimately, on organizational performance and competitiveness. There is a need to focus on innovation-led strategies that relate to sustainable outcomes. This is one of the first studies in Asia to understand the multilateral relationships between different competitive priorities and different performance dimensions when employee management and development intermediate.

Operational Perspective of SMEs Performance and Competitive Priorities Practices: Path Analytic Approach

Literature review suggests a close link between operations strategies and organizational performance. Nevertheless, there is dearth of research investigating the association between operations strategies and SMEs performance in a developing country, Pakistan, context. Thus, the paper attempts to fill this gap by finding out the influence of operations strategy on firms’ financial and non-financial performance. In addition, it digs out what predicts the financial and non-financial performance of the firms. Sample data is drawn from 244 manufacturing SMEs and is analyzed by Path Analytical Model of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The results reveal an overall positive and significant influence of competitive priorities on firm performance. However, there is no direct effect of Delivery priority on Financial, and Cost and Flexibility priority on Non-Financial Performance of the firms respectively. Moreover, the financial performance is predicted by focus on Cost, Flexibility, and Quality priorities respectively. By the same token, the predictors of Non-Financial performance are Delivery and Quality strategies in order of importance. The paper is not without limitations and acknowledges the constraints of access to data, time, finance, non-inclusion of important mediating/moderating variables. Practically, it offers implications to managers and policy makers to employ a set of competitive priorities that drives enhanced firm performance in this business setting, and to devise policies in accordance with market demands that lead to improved overall productivity respectively. Theoretically, the paper contributes to a richer and finer understanding on the connection between operations strategy and SMEs performance in a developing country context.

Analytical review on competitive priorities for operations under manufacturing firms

Purpose: To developed and introduced a measurement scale that may be useful to assess the competitive priorities practices in the manufacturing industries. The objective is to investigate the competitive priorities domains’ implementation and its defining measurement items emphasizing manufacturing industries in the Union Territory of Puducherry.Design/methodology/approach: The essential information has been gathered from 350 manufacturing firms by utilizing very much stretchered polls; most part of the data was gathered from best dimension working people like Operations Managers, General Managers and Directors. For analyzing the data the researchers used SPSS and LISREL 8.72 software packages. To find out the result the researchers applied Confirmatory Factor Analysis in this research work.Findings: From the six domains analyzed the result shows that Delivery plays an important role as it occupies the first rank among the domains in competitive priority. Next to Delivery, the majority of the firms fasten more importance to Quality as it ranks second. Cost is ranked as third, while Know-how is ranked as fourth, Flexibility is ranked as fifth and Customer Focus is ranked as sixth.Practical implications: Based on the existing recommendations on scale development literature, authors developed the measurement scale. This measurement scale is helpful for both academicians and practitioners. In this research work authors used the measurement scale to measure the competitive priorities domains.Originality/value: The research paper explains about the manufacturing industries situated in Union Territory of Puducherry. The researchers developed the measurement instrument of competitive priorities practices based on six domains namely quality, cost, delivery, flexibility, customer focus, and know-how. This research work gives innovative literature by recommendations and validating a measurement scale for the competitive priorities. The result reveals that the manufacturing enterprises in the Union Territory of Puducherry.