Research Scholar
Patricia Deflorin, Department Management Science
Peter Ward, Faculty advisor
Biography
Patricia Deflorin currently holds the position of a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Management Science at The Ohio State University. Her research stay will last one year and is sponsored by the Swiss National Foundation. Patricia has submitted her thesis at the University of St. Gallen, where she received her master of business administration with a focus on strategy and organizational behaviour. After her master studies, she joined Siemens Switzerland Ltd. as corporate auditor in order to gain experience in process knowledge. Her current research topic lies in manufacturing strategy, action programs (lean production, JIT, TQM, etc.) as well as the development of capabilities.
About the Research
As a consequence of shortened product life cycles, increased demand for product customization, and globalization pressure, manufacturing companies are facing dramatic changes in their business environments. Especially the companies in western countries—known for their high quality products, but also high-cost production—are facing increasing competition from so called low-cost countries. As a result, western companies seem to face a trade-off dilemma by being forced to focus on enhancing their overall efficiency and flexibility at the same time.
From a theoretical perspective, this simultaneous focus on quality, flexibility, dependability, innovation, service and cost management has been declared a contradiction by the trade-off assumptions. However, this theory has also been disproved by various authors, declaring that it is perfectly possible that companies compete successfully with multiple competitive priorities at the same time. These authors developed various typologies describing different ways companies compete, but the question of how exactly to implement a multi-faceted strategy has been left unanswered. Therefore, identifying so called hybrid manufacturing strategies and describing the capabilities needed for successful hybrid strategy management forms the subject of this research. By further analyzing the relations between the different organizational capabilities required, an explanation for the successful implementation of hybrid strategies is shown.
To get an initial understanding about which types of hybrid manufacturing strategies exist, a quantitative analysis with a sample of 64 companies was conducted as a first step. It has lead to a taxonomy of hybrid manufacturing strategies. For a further in-depth investigation about the organizational capabilities necessary for successful hybrid strategy management, a qualitative approach is applied as follows. First, an explorative case study analysis with 4 companies will bring out the different capabilities that are relevant and required. Second, to get an understanding about the interdependencies between these capabilities, the methods of causal loop diagrams (CLD) are used. This explorative approach leads to propositions about how companies are able to compete simultaneously on multiple competitive priorities.
Due to the fact that existing research hasn't answered the questions about how companies cope with multiple competitive priorities simultaneously, the explanative model of hybrid manufacturing is intended for theory building. Besides closing a research gap, the research will also lead to managerial implications: The identification of capabilities that are required to successfully bring hybrid manufacturing strategies into action will provide guidance for firms facing trade-off dilemmas among competitive dimensions.
