مطالعه مقایسه ای از فن آوری های پیشرفته تولید و سرمایه گذاری در زیرساخت های تولید در سنگاپور و سوئد

This empirical study compares the advanced manufacturing technology (AMT) investment, the manufacturing infrastructure investment, and the interaction effect between these two types of investments using data from a sample of firms in Singapore and Sweden. The results suggest that the interaction of AMT investment and manufacturing infrastructure investment has a positive impact on the firm profit and growth in Sweden, but does not have a positive impact on firm profit and growth in Singapore. In addition, this study shows that the AMT investment has significant positive correlation with infrastructure investment and firm performance in Sweden but not in Singapore.

The phenomenon that the investment on advanced manufacturing technology (AMT) has been growing steadily in the past decades has led to several important research questions. For example, does the investment in AMT really pay off? How can firms make better use of the investment in AMT? Previous research that has studied AMT investment includes Waldeck (2007), Tan et al. (2006), Diaz et al., 2003 and Diaz et al., 2005, Laosirihongthong and Paul (2004), Machuca et al. (2004), MacDougall and Pike (2003), Das and Jayaram (2003), Kotha and Swamidass (2000), McDermott and Stock (1999), Sun et al. (1999), Swamidass and Kotha (1998), and Boyer et al. (1996). Boyer et al. (1997) show that, in US, balancing the AMT investment and the manufacturing infrastructure investment results in better firm performance such as profit and growth. In this paper, we compare the AMT investment and manufacturing infrastructure investment in Singapore and Sweden in order to see whether the effect of AMT investment and manufacturing infrastructure investment follows the same pattern as that in US. There are several reasons for this comparative study. First, because Sweden and Singapore have quite different business environments, the relative importance of AMT investment and manufacturing infrastructure investment might be different. While Sweden is a developed Western European country, Singapore is a newly industrialized Asian country. The investment in AMT and manufacturing infrastructure played a significant role in Singapore's high level of economic growth and enhanced its position as a manufacturing leader in the Pacific rim (Zhao and Co, 1997; Ward et al., 1995). Second, there are several compelling reasons to suspect that the use of AMT might differ between developed countries and newly industrialized countries (Zhao and Co, 1997). One reason is that companies may face different challenges during the implementation of AMT in developed countries and newly industrialized countries. Another reason is that lower labor costs in the newly industrialized countries might make the economic justification of AMT implementation more difficult. This study contributes to both the academic literature and industry practice. This study enhances the AMT research stream by testing the generality of the findings in Boyer et al. (1997). Since the discovery of the interaction effect between AMT investment and manufacturing infrastructure investment in United States (Boyer et al., 1997), no research has studied this relationship in other countries. While theory building is important to our field, there appears to be a lack of theory-testing studies. One of the few recent theory-testing studies in operations management is the research by Frohlich and Dixon (2001), which convincingly argue the necessity of testing existing theories. This study seeks to fill a gap in the literature by providing an empirical test of the relationship among AMT investment, manufacturing infrastructure investment, and firm performance across different countries. From a managerial view point, understanding the relative importance of AMT investment and manufacturing infrastructure investment on firm profit and growth is important for maximizing the investment returns because all companies have limited resources. As such this study hopes to build on the findings of Boyer et al. (1997) and Jonsson (2000) and provide additional insights on the implementation of AMT in developed as well as newly developed countries. As Sutton and Staw (1995) point out, “Empirical evidence plays an important role in confirming, revising, or discrediting existing theory and in guiding the development of new theory” (page 373). We expect that this study will add generality to several findings in Boyer et al. (1997) and as such make a contribution to theory. The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 reviews the literature of AMT, manufacturing infrastructure, and firm performance. In Section 3 we develop the research hypotheses. The research methodology is presented in Section 4. Section 5 provides the analysis results. We discuss the research results in Section 6 and conclude the paper in Section 7.

This research compares the investments in AMT and manufacturing infrastructure between Sweden and Singapore. The major finding is that the interaction effect of the AMT investment and manufacturing infrastructure investment has a positive impact on firm profit and growth in Sweden, but does not have a positive impact on firm profit and growth in Singapore. This suggests that the importance of balancing AMT investment and manufacturing infrastructure investment to improve firm performance might be contingent on other factors. In addition, this study finds that AMT investment has significant positive correlation with manufacturing infrastructure investment and two firm performance measures in Sweden but not in Singapore even if the measurement items for all scales are identical for Sweden and Singapore. Although this study makes significant contribution to both academia and practice, there are several limitations which present opportunities for future research. First, our surveys do not have data on national culture or other potential contingency variables such as lean manufacturing practices. While this study is able to address an important research issue on the impact of the interaction effect between AMT investment and manufacturing infrastructure investment on firm performance, it cannot empirically identify and test the factors that contribute to the difference in interaction effect. Future research can use this study as a basis to collect data on culture and other important contingency variables to explain the difference in interaction effect between the two countries. Second, this study uses cross-sectional data. Some of the differences between Singapore and Sweden may be due to the varying stage of economic development of these two countries. A longitudinal study can further explore whether the interaction effect of AMT investment and manufacturing infrastructure investment will become important for Singapore after its industrialization development has reached a certain level. Many authors have recommended longitudinal studies (Yoon, 1988; Adam and Swamidass, 1989; Leong et al., 1990; Snell and Dean, 1992). One such research is Boyer's (1999) longitudinal study of patterns of investment in AMTs and financial performance. Meredith and Vineyard's (1993) longitudinal research study examines the evolution of three FMS systems over a span of several years. Such longitudinal research may be difficult due to the data collection cost and data availability especially in an international study, but it has the potential to provide valuable insights in AMT investment in a dynamic world.