مسائل مربوط به اندازه گیری در تحقیقات تجربی : بهبود اندازه گیری استراتژی عملیات و فن آوری های پیشرفته تولید

Our objective in this paper is to examine measures used in survey-based research in operations management. Specifically, we examine measures commonly used to assess operations strategy and advanced manufacturing technology in survey-based research. Examining two measures provides the ability to examine problems common to many of the measures used in operations management research. In addition, the two measures are addressing two different levels of strategic analysis: competitive priorities and a specific structural decision that (should) support these priorities. This should give us a broader understanding of the measurement issues we are facing as a field. We argue that while many of the commonly employed measures display many worthwhile properties, further refinement of measures and methods is needed to improve the field as a whole. Suggestions to improve measures and methods used in the field are then offered.

As our discussion indicates, researchers have started to develop measures with good psychometric properties. In addition, these measures are used by a number of researchers, allowing for comparisons across various studies. However, our discussion also indicates that a great deal more refinement of measures and methods is needed before we can be comfortable that research is actually addressing the constructs of interest both today and in the future. This study addressed four primary areas where deficiencies exist. There is a need for greater variance in the methods we use to develop and validate measures — rather than simply using mail surveys over and over, researchers should consider using some finer grained methodologies such as case studies or focused interviews. In some ways, surveys are similar to a shotgun — guaranteed to hit something, but as knowledge in areas such as operations strategy and AMT improves, researches should use finer grained methodologies which are similar to a rifle — more accurate and likely to uncover more complex insights. Secondly, researchers should strive to better assess managerial perceptions by including multiple and/or more precisely targeted respondents. Third, many constructs should be examined in a more dynamic manner in order to assess how strategy or technology investment changes over time. Finally, researchers should carefully consider the structure of existing measures. Many measures are designed to be generalizable to many environments/industries. Yet, better data can be obtained by carefully crafting measures for specific situations and/or focusing studies more precisely on similar organizations to pinpoint finer grained difference between individual organizations. This study has highlighted the relative strengths and weaknesses of existing measures of operations strategy and AMT. Our goal is to illustrate the good points of existing research, as well as the areas where further refinement of methodology and measures can lead to richer insights in the future. As such, we have offered numerous suggestions for improving existing measures and methodologies. Our list of suggestions is by no means comprehensive, instead it is intended to spur further thought and experimentation. Improving research measures and methodologies is very similar to business process improvement — for the most part incremental improvement is the norm. Ongoing refinement and improvement is a fundamental component of valid research. We hope to encourage critical assessment and refinement of existing measures as a core component of good research on operations strategy and AMT adoption, as well as all areas of operations management.