Operations managers’ individual competencies for mass customization
International Journal of Operations & Production Management
ISSN: 0144-3577
Article publication date: 4 October 2019
Issue publication date: 22 November 2019
Abstract
Purpose
The development of mass-customization capability (MCC) is crucial for a growing number of manufacturing firms nowadays and presents great challenges, especially in the area of operations management. The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into which individual competencies (ICs) of an operations manager (OM) are important to the MCC of the manufacturing organization the OM works for.
Design/methodology/approach
A multiple-case study was designed, involving eight machinery manufacturers in one European country, to collect data on their MCC and on the ICs of their OMs. Empirical case data were triangulated with analytical conceptual arguments grounded in the existing literature.
Findings
The study provides empirical evidence of, and logical explanations for, the fact that OMs working in high-MCC manufacturing organizations use the ICs of negotiation, information seeking, efficiency orientation, analytical thinking and pattern recognition significantly more often than OMs employed by low-MCC organizations.
Research limitations/implications
Future research could replicate this study in other industries and countries, as well as for other managerial roles.
Practical implications
The study provides indications for OM selection and training in companies that are pursuing a mass-customization strategy.
Originality/value
While the literature on technological and organization-level enablers of MCC has grown considerably, the understanding of its individual-level enablers is still limited and concerns mostly the workforce. This is the first study that relies not on practitioners’ opinions, but on data regarding manufacturers’ MCC and their managers’ ICs to shed light on which managerial competencies are important to a manufacturer’s MCC.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank the anonymous review team of this journal for their constructive and insightful comments, which have helped improve an earlier version of this paper. The authors are also grateful to all the managers who devoted some of their precious time to this research. Finally, the authors acknowledge the financial support from the University of Padova, project ID BIRD172577 and project ID DOR1737878/17.
Citation
Trentin, A., Somià, T., Sandrin, E. and Forza, C. (2019), "Operations managers’ individual competencies for mass customization", International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 39 No. 9/10, pp. 1025-1052. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOPM-10-2018-0592
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited