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從動態競爭觀點審視作業流程管理的創新與改進
2
1. Introduction
When developing an operational process (either manufacturing or service), a firm may
face incumbents with well-established processes that are current industry standards.
Operations management and organization researchers have long investigated the effects of
process improvement and innovation on firm performance (Kim, Kumar, and Kumar, 2012;
Rahmandad, 2012). Although progress has been made in this domain, the existing literature
has a major limitation. While much research has examined a firm
ʼ
s decision to invest in
process improvement capability for short-term survival, or in process innovation capability
for long-term growth (Peng, Schroeder, and Shah, 2008); very few studies have explored
how a new best-practice process emerges to replace an industry
ʼ
s existing best-practice
process (Shepherd and Patzelt, 2013). Well-known examples of best-practice processes
include Craft Production (CP) versus Mass Production System (MPS), and MPS versus
Toyota Production System (TPS). This paper addresses this limitation and argues that
competitive pressure imposed by the existing best-practice process can negatively impact a
follower firm
ʼ
s capability-development trade-offs for building a new best-practice process.
The core proposition that we propose in this study is grounded in two distinctive
theoretical perspectives. The capability theorizing perspective suggests that a firm
ʼ
s
improvement capability facilitates the achievement of its full potential within the current best
practice but that innovation capability creates new industrial operating frontiers (Schmenner
and Swink, 1998; Peng et al., 2008). Various studies have examined the firm
ʼ
s capabilities as
a primary construct to explain firm heterogeneity and sustainable advantage through
effective process management (Boyer, Swink, and Rosenzweig, 2005; Swink and Hegarty,
1998). However, these arguments are problematic as they are based primarily in settings
where capability development trade-offs is determined within the boundary of a single firm
and overlooks the strategic importance of inter-firm competition. Chen (1996) proposes that
the key driver of any competitive action is a set of strategic variables centered on awareness,
motivation, and capability to manage interfirm rivalry. This competitive dynamics
perspective suggests that process failure occurs when firms are unaware of and/or incapable
of coping with possible retaliations from rivals (Schmenner and Swink, 1998; Ferrier, Smith,
and Grimm, 1999). It is the missing piece in the operations management literature that
captures the competitive dynamics of process improvement and innovation.
This study views the dynamics of process development and management as an
evolution of
process competition
; that is, a firm improves and innovates its processes by
considering rivals
ʼ
reactions and their resulting effects on its operations strategy. This notion