دیدگاه مدیران درباره الگوی موجودی جدید

The significance of inventories in business operations have never been denied. The actual role of inventories, however, is changing over time, as required by the business environment. This paper provides empirical background to the thesis, which says that the role of inventories in the “Golden Era” of inventory research, which was in the 1950s, was significantly different from that of today because of fundamental changes in business. This development requires new approaches in research as well. After a summary of the antecedents, the results of a survey are analysed, and they support the above thesis. The lack of difference between the inventory performance measured by the turnover rate of those companies, whose managers accept and those who deny the birth of the new paradigm calls attention to the need for the elaboration of a more complex inventory performance measurement.

This paper is a step forward in a research project aiming to establish and analyse a new approach to inventory management in business. In earlier papers, I have proposed the fundamentals of a new paradigm, which according to my view has emerged as a consequence of business developments in the last three or four decades (Chikán, 2007), and I examined the managers’ perception of the role of inventories in today’s business (Chikán, 2009). This paper is built on a major survey of Hungarian managers that detailed the principles and trends governing inventory management. Herein, I have analysed the results of the survey, which are very supportive of the emergence of the new paradigm and at the same time pose a number of new questions.

This paper aimed to analyse the results of a survey on the appearance of a new inventory management paradigm. The survey was conducted in Hungary among 138 managers, most of whom are in top management and have long professional experience. The survey has provided valuable contributions to proving the existence of the new paradigm. Additionally, it has shown that the managers in the sample identify practically the same trends behind the new features because these were suggested by a general evaluation of global trends. This gives good background for further research in the area. Our results call attention to the need of new performance indicators of inventory effectivity, which would correspond to the new paradigm. Further research is needed to find these indicators.