فرایند دانش سازمانی و استراتژی تولید: تجزیه و تحلیل مبتنی بر منابع مشاهده شده

The current competitive environment is characterized by new sources of information, new technologies, new management practices, new competitors, and shorter product life cycles, which highlights the importance of organizational knowledge in manufacturing companies. We integrate some of those knowledge-based approaches seeking to understand how aspects related to cross-functional orientation, new technologies, and increasing access to information affect manufacturing strategy. In this paper, “know-what” (where to find the needed information) and “know-how” (how to run operations smoothly) are considered key components of organizational knowledge in the process of manufacturing strategy formulation. Assuming that knowledge accumulation may lead to competitive advantage, we propose a model of manufacturing strategy process from a resource-based view perspective. We used a survey to collect field data from 104 companies. The results indicate that cross-functional activities integrate manufacturing knowledge and contribute to the creation of valuable and rare product characteristics.

Modern manufacturing strategy has evolved from two broad schools of thought. Early literature links strategic planning concepts and the trade-off approach (Skinner, 1969 and Wheelwright, 1984), and highlights the “manufacturing task” or how manufacturing should align decisions with the company's business strategy. Those proposals highlighted the “manufacturing task” or how manufacturing should link their decisions to the company's business strategy. Currently, anecdotal references have stated that a rigid process of strategic planning is not enough under the dynamic environmental conditions. More recent literature on manufacturing strategy pertaining to the cumulative capability model posits that the competitive criteria are related to each other. (Ferdows and De Meyer, 1990, Roth, 1996a, Boyer and Lewis, 2002 and Rosenzweig and Roth, 2004). Manufacturing tasks, in this view, should follow a sequence of improvement in order to build manufacturing capabilities more effectively (Schmenner and Swink, 1998). Nevertheless, Flynn and Flynn (2004) did not find evidence supportive for the Ferdows and De Meyer's (1990) sandcone model. Thus, the current competitive landscape has created the need for new research on manufacturing strategy formulation. St. John et al. (2001) argue that a resource-based view is a theory fitted to the current competitive trends and provides a frame for manufacturing strategy research. Furthermore, Amundson (1998, p. 10) states that the resource-based view provides research in manufacturing strategy “a more fine-grained understanding of how competitive advantage is provided through the resources generated by operations”. Marucheck et al.'s (1990) exploratory study showed that manufacturing strategy formulation is not a static process. Rather, it is an iterative process that involves the formulation, gathering, and creation of organizational knowledge. In the last decades, new studies using the capability-based approach view manufacturing as a strategic resource (see for example Hayes and Upton, 1998). This article follows this stream of research in manufacturing strategy by empirically analyzing the process of manufacturing strategy using a resource-based perspective. Like in past studies (Voss, 1992, Fine and Hax, 1985, Giffi et al., 1990 and Marucheck et al., 1990), we identify the core elements, such as cross-functional orientation, new technologies, and increasing access to information, which are related to the formulation process of manufacturing strategy; however, we follow an empirical approach, testing a theoretical model based on the resource-based view of the firm. Also, in contrast to traditional view of trade-offs, this study focuses on the resources related to the process of manufacturing strategy. In this process organizational knowledge is considered a key resource. This article is structured as follows: Section 2 provides the theoretical background of manufacturing strategy, organizational knowledge, and the resource-based view; Section 3 describes and explains the proposed theoretical model; Section 4 presents the general theoretical premises; Section 5 discusses the research methodology; Section 6 presents the empirical results; finally, Section 7 discusses the results.

The results of this study suggest that knowledge as an organizational resource allows the manufacturing function to seek a higher integration with other functional areas under current environment conditions. This finding corroborates manufacturing strategy proposals related to a more proactive role of manufacturing in strategic decisions (Wheelwright, 1978 and Hayes and Wheelwright, 1985), and a new manufacturing managerial profile (Hayes, 2002). Diversely from the first references on manufacturing strategy, this article explored the role of manufacturing knowledge as a key strategic resource. In this manner, manufacturing will be able to participate more proactively in strategic decisions because it knows the goals, the threats and the opportunities in the marketplace, and knows which competencies are key to the support of competitiveness. In short, manufacturing attains a higher level of organizational knowledge. Instead of seeing the process the manufacturing strategy as a decision process related to trade-offs or sequence of capabilities creation, the model proposed showed the integration of resources related to this process. This occurs through the information sources and the cross-functional orientation. Given that knowledge integration leads to a higher level of knowledge (Grant, 1996), there is an interactive process between manufacturing knowledge and cross-functional activities. Management activities, like participatory processes in strategic planning, play a double role: they both build up the firm's manufacturing knowledge and also provide the right conditions for the development of a cross-functional view within the company. Like other current studies, such as Hult et al. (2006), and Modi and Mabert (2007), a high level of knowledge present in the process of manufacturing strategy lead to a better results. This study also suggests that manufacturing cross-functional integration is positively related to resource-based orientation. It is not surprising that more integration among distinct functional areas allows the creation of product characteristics that are valued by clients and not easily found. Internal competencies, it must be reinforced, are not restricted to a specific area, but are the output of an integrated effort among different functions (Dyer and Nobeoka, 2000 and Germain et al., 2001). Therefore, companies that are strengthening cross-functionality should obtain better results in more dynamic environments. In this case, a resource-based orientation is not restricted to manufacturing but results from a coordinated effort with other functional areas to maintain or increase competitive advantage. At the same time, manufacturing knowledge allows managers to better explore their internal resources, creating and sustaining their company's competencies. Although the results of this study should be viewed with a certain degree of caution, considering the limitations of sample size, they nevertheless offer some relevant theoretical contributions to the process of manufacturing strategy formulation. The most important finding is the central role of knowledge in this process. Through organizational knowledge, manufacturing will be able to develop activities that are more highly integrated with other areas and, consequently, to achieve or sustain greater competitive advantages. Several areas for future research may be identified from these results. Given that we used companies from different industries, one might ask whether there are distinct strategy-formulation processes and information sources used in different industries? Do different product life cycles influence the issues considered in this research, either manufacturing cross-functional or resource-based orientation? Is it possible to relate certain elements of the proposed model to companies’ performance? Answers to these questions would complement the results presented here and provide management with further tools to succeed in today's dynamic manufacturing environment.