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This study aims to analyze the determinants influencing Chinese manufacturing companies in implementing lean manufacturing (LM).

The determinants to be explored in this study consist of technological, organizational and environmental (TOE) dimensions. A questionnaire survey was conducted on Chinese manufacturing companies, and 208 samples were analyzed.

The findings show that the relative advantage of LM and organizational support have significantly positive effects on Chinese manufacturing firms’ adoption of LM. The complexity of LM, quality of human resources, organizational readiness, customer pressure, international situation, governmental support and environmental uncertainty do not have significant effects.

This paper contributes to the literature by using the TOE model to explore the factors influencing LM adoption in the Chinese manufacturing industry.

The purpose of this paper is to study the operational competitiveness and identify the development route of Chinese high‐tech manufacturing companies by comparing with other similar international manufacturing companies of global manufacturing strategies database.

The preliminary analytical models for competitiveness analysis are used to analyze the operational competitiveness strategies in three different types of Chinese high‐tech manufacturing companies based on the weights of the multi‐criteria manufacturing strategies, which are calculated using analytic hierarchy process method. Benchmarking between case companies and leading companies of prospector, analyzer and defender groups is applied to evaluate the manufacturing strategies further.

As a result of the case studies, it is possible to understand operational competitiveness manufacturing strategies for the case companies, to show one development route for Chinese high‐tech manufacturing companies to be competitive in their markets.

Chinese high‐tech manufacturing companies have their own operational strategies in different development phase. The different weights of important factors such as quality, cost, time and flexibility make the case companies to have some advantages in prospector, analyzer and defender. The preliminary analytical models are effective for Chinese high‐tech manufacturing companies to calculate their operational competitiveness under the influence of Chinese culture and macro‐control.

Benchmarking of operational competitiveness is presented to evaluate the manufacturing strategies in this paper. One development route of Chinese high‐tech manufacturing companies, which is under the influence of Chinese culture and macro‐control, is promoted.

The purpose of this paper is to attempt to explore service needs in the Chinese manufacturing industry and address the research question: what clusters of service needs exist in the Chinese manufacturing industry?

The data on service needs were collected between 2006 and 2007. The data collection was done through personal interviews with senior manufacturing executives. The data are analysed through factor and cluster analysis.

This paper explores five different clusters on service needs: highly price‐sensitive on basic service needs; highly sensitive on logistic performance of basic service needs; preventing product breakdowns for very reasonable prices; knowledge seeking; and seeking for cost‐efficient outsourcing partners.

The study is based on 172 companies, but the external validity (generalizability) of the findings could not be assessed accurately.

The findings have important management implications in terms of aligning the service organisation with the Chinese service needs.

The paper contributes to the existing research in two different ways. First, the study demonstrates the value of factor and cluster analysis as a segmentation approach in industrial markets even in the particular context of Chinese business culture. Second, the exploration of service needs describes idiosyncrasies of Chinese manufacturing industry from a complementary, service management perspective.

Recently, total quality management (TQM) has attracted increasing interest throughout Chinese manufacturing industries and its programs have been widely implemented. Currently, there are few studies conducted about TQM implementation by small manufacturing firms in China, even though small firms are still dominant in many areas of manufacturing industries in China. This study analyzes survey results of Chinese small manufacturing firms to investigate the present status of TQM and its perception and development among them.

This study has empirically tested the relationships between business environment, manufacturing capability and performance using a sample of Chinese manufacturers. The results of this research show that in response to the changing economy, the Chinese manufacturers have emphasized the capabilities that have been adopted by many firms in the industrialized nations. The results also suggest that the business environment has a substantial impact on the choice of manufacturing capability focus. Additionally, we have found that high performance Chinese manufacturers adopt different competitive priorities in response to environmental stimuli than do low performance Chinese manufacturers.

This study examines the innovation-efficiency linkage for Indian and Chinese manufacturing and service firms.

We applied the stochastic production and cost frontier approach to determine the output and cost efficiency of the firms surveyed in World Bank enterprise surveys. We then used both unconditional and conditional propensity score matching (PSM) estimation techniques to examine the effects of innovation as well as R&D on output and cost efficiency of the firms surveyed.

The study results suggest that innovation-efficiency linkage varies between countries and sectors. Innovations significantly raise output and cost efficiency of Indian manufacturing firms, whereas innovations in Chinese manufacturing firms are cost-oriented and negatively affect output efficiency. For the service firms of both countries, innovations are significantly positively linked with output and cost efficiency. The study also suggests that R&D acts as a crucial moderator for innovation-efficiency linkage for Chinese manufacturing firms but not for Indian firms, and the interaction effects of innovations are not substantially higher in magnitude than their individual effects. Finally, conditional PSM results suggest knowledge spillover for effective innovations of Indian firms, whereas R&D is a must for substantial innovation-efficiency linkage in Chinese firms.

This study offers quite a few crucial policy decisions concerning the relationship between innovation and efficiency as well as the moderation effect of R&D on innovation-efficiency linkage. It concludes that the effects of innovation on firms' efficiency and the role of R&D as a moderator of the innovation-efficiency relationship differ between India and China across the manufacturing and service sectors.

Quality has been identified as a key competitive weapon in the global market. Chinese firms are making considerable effort in implementing quality management in order to gain global competitiveness. The purpose of this study is to compare and contrast manufacturing strategies and business practices between TQM and traditional (or non‐TQM) firms in the Chinese manufacturing industry. This study explores the differences that may exist between TQM and traditional non‐TQM firms in manufacturing strategies and business practices by analyzing survey results of 243 Chinese manufacturing firms. Differences between TQM and traditional non‐TQM firms are investigated in several respects.

The objective of this paper is to identify the reasons behind the recent issues of Chinese manufacturing quality. This paper aims to discuss the influence of American managers as well as Chinese business cultural effects on Chinese manufacturing quality.

In this paper, two survey questionnaires have been prepared for the study based on literature review. Survey instruments were sent to American and Chinese business owners and managers who have a considerable amount of professional experience in the manufacturing area.

It is found that both American managers and Chinese business culture have influence on Chinese manufacturing quality.

This paper contributes to an understanding of the reasons behind the recent quality issues in Chinese manufacturing.

Past research has suggested the influence of family‐oriented collectivistic culture on the behavior and performance of traditional Chinese manufacturing firms. However, insufficient empirical research has been conducted to empirically test the influence. More importantly, insufficient research has been conducted to test how the collectivistic culture in Chinese societies would affect the performance of manufacturing firms. This paper addresses these issues by comparing the behaviors and performance of two groups of firms in China, i.e., investment from overseas Chinese firms and investment from non‐Chinese Western firms, in one of China's fast‐growing manufacturing industries. Interesting differences are found between the overseas Chinese firms and those from other foreign countries. The findings support the influence of societal culture on firms' behavior and performance, but do not support the predictions on performance based on the arguments of cultural distance. This paper concludes with a discussion on implications of the findings for both researchers and practitioners.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the simultaneous effects of two process variables: functional involvement in strategy formulation, and manufacturing improvement programs, on manufacturing performance and financial performance of manufacturing firms in China.

Rigorous empirical research methods are used to ensure proper data collection process, and reliability and validity of constructs. Structural equation modeling is used to examine the relationships between functional involvement, improvement programs, manufacturing performance and financial performance.

It was found that involvement of marketing, finance and operations in strategy formulation have an effect on cost and quality whereas the involvement of emerging functions such as human resources, public relations, research and development and information technology have an effect on all aspects of manufacturing performance.

Studies of manufacturing strategy have primarily focused on choices and plans that denote strategic intent, rather than on the process of formulating and realizing strategy. Typical studies have used data from developed countries, such as Europe and North America. Insufficient attention has been paid to the process variables of manufacturing strategy and their effects on manufacturing performance. The study addresses these gaps in the literature using data collected from Chinese firms.