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The Profit Impact of Marketing Strategy (PIMS) database was used to test the relationship between production process type (small batch, large batch/assembly, and continuous) and eight organizational policy decisions (new products, new plant and equipment, finished goods inventory, raw materials/work‐in‐process inventory, capacity utilization, fixed capital assets, manufacturing costs, gross margin). In addition, the effect of six broad industry types on the proposed relationships was also investigated. Overall industries, raw materials/work‐in‐progress, capacity utilization, manufacturing costs, fixed assets, and gross margin varied with production process type while new products, new plant and equipment, and finished goods inventory did not vary. Within each industry, the findings showed less support for the relationships between production process type and the eight organizational policy decisions. Further analysis showed that most of the industries are dominated by a production process type. Suggests a movement away from the traditional differentiation of production process technologies and a shift of research emphasis to the differing uses of a particular production process technology within an industry.

Product innovation is central to the success of most companies. The rewards of a successful innovation programme are highly visible in terms of sales, profits and growth. But not so apparent are the strategies that underlie these product innovation efforts. This monograph is about the ingredients of a winning new product strategy — about strategic decisions on markets, technologies, products — that result in a successful innovation programme.

The objective of this paper is to examine the determinants (i.e. firm size, profitability, leverage, type of audit firm and industry type) of intellectual capital (IC) disclosure in the annual reports of Malaysian listed companies.

The data were collected from the 2006 annual reports of the selected listed companies; and analyzed using descriptive statistics, t‐test, correlation and regression analyses.

The paper found that firm size, profitability, industry type are determinants of IC disclosure (ICD) in the annual reports of Malaysian listed companies, while leverage and type of audit firm did not statistically influence ICD.

The paper only used data from the 2006 annual reports. However, the findings have highlighted the importance of ICD determinants based on data from an emerging economy (i.e. Malaysian economy).

The paper provides empirical evidence on the current practices and determinants of ICD in the annual reports of the Malaysian listed companies. This evidence would help in understanding and determining factors that influence the extent of ICD. Subsequently, it could assist in enhancing ICD in the annual reports.

The paper contributes by extending the limited ICD literature in Malaysia. Furthermore, the paper has tested more determinants, deemed to influence ICD, compared to prior Malaysian studies. In addition, the paper used a larger sample size with a wider industry coverage compared to previous Malaysian literature.

Both inventory investments and structure in a sample of 44 manufacturing companies representing five industry groups in Egypt are investigated. The study reveals that the type of industry is a determinant factor of both the inventory‐to‐total‐assets ratio (AIR) and the inventory structure at the firm level. AIR indicates significant positive correlation with the materials cost ratio (MCR), the finished product inventory ratio (FPR), and the “others” inventory ratio (OTR), but a negative correlation with the raw materials inventory ratio (RMR). The study shows that raw materials and purchased components deserve the most attention in Egyptian industry. The study also shows a negative correlation between RMR and the company′s value added (VAD). With more vertical integration a firm can reduce its RMR. The study confirms the effect of the type of production‐inventory system on the company′s work‐in‐process inventory Requirements (WPR). WPR was relatively low in both the engineering and food groups.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the market share of two competing enterprises from the perspective of consumer preferences on both of their products. For different industrial types, this paper discusses how domestic firms make decisions to compete with the multinational company based on consumer’s preferences on different types of products from different companies.

Considering the different types of equipment manufacturing industries, consumers’ differentiated preferences for Chinese domestic equipment manufacturers and multinational equipment manufacturers, as well as the uncertainty of technological level and dependence on production factor in reality, this paper introduces the interval grey number into the Stackelberg game model and analyzes the market share of two competing enterprises and the consumer preferences for both of their products based on different industrial types.

The results show that when both of the two competing firms are engaged in R&D activities, consumers prefer domestic products, and with the improvement of technological level, this preference grows stronger, but the market share of the multinational enterprise is higher than that of the local enterprises. When the two competing enterprises are engaged in manufacturing activities, consumers are more inclined to choose products of the multinational company, and with the increasing dependence on production factors, the preference becomes stronger. Meanwhile, the market share of the multinational company is higher than the local enterprise. Therefore, from the perspective of consumer preference, China’s domestic equipment manufacturing enterprises should choose technology-intensive or technology and labor-intensive industries (or dual-intensive industries).

In the context of international competition, from the perspective of consumer preference, the research on industrial selection is relatively rare, and does not take into account the influence of the uncertain influence brought by technological-level and production factor dependency. Therefore, this paper analyzes the influence of technological-level and production factor dependency on consumer preference among various types of industries. Based on the concept of consumer preference, and combining with the interval grey number, the improved grey game model is constructed to analyze the influence of the uncertainty of enterprise’s technological-level and production factor dependency on the market share of two competing companies, finally coming up with the direction into which the Chinese equipment manufacturing industries should develop.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the strategy-performance relationship in a multi-industry setting for joint stock firms operating in Pakistan using Miles and Snow typology. The impact of firm size and industry on performance along with strategy is also investigated. The empirical research evidence on strategy-performance relationship for Miles and Snow typology is updated as well.

Scoring methodology is applied for identification of strategic types, including the reactor strategy. The consistency of the firms over time is also checked. Seven year archived financial data of 320 Pakistani joint stock firms from 12 industries are used for analysis. Descriptive statistics and analysis of variance is used for analysis.

Hybrid strategies are practiced by firms rather than pure strategies. The distribution of strategic types is uneven. There are mixed results for performance difference among strategic types for different industries and firm size. Defending and analyzing strategies are better than the prospecting strategies. Reactors performed better in some industries as well.

Proposed scoring methodology can be applied to identify all strategic types including reactors in the longitudinal studies. This can be replicated for other typologies or strategic group classifications. The process for identification of reactor strategy through a consistency check is a unique contribution to the literature, especially when archived financial data are used.

Both inventory investments and structure in a sample of 44 manufacturing companies representing five industry groups in Egypt are investigated. The study reveals that the type of industry is a determinant factor of both the Inventory to total Assets Ratio (AIR) and the inventory structure at the firm level. AIR indicates significant positive correlation with the Materials Cost Ratio (MCR), the Finished Product inventory Ratio (FPR), and the “Others” Inventory Ratio (OTR), but a negative correlation with the Raw Materials inventory Ratio (RMR). The study shows that raw materials and purchased components deserve the most attention in Egyptian industry. The study also shows a negative correlation between RMR and the company′s Value Added (VAD). With more vertical integration a firm can reduce its RMR. The study confirms the effect of the type of production‐inventory system on the company′s Work‐in‐Process inventory Requirements (WPR). WPR was relatively low in both the engineering and food groups.

In recent years, speedy development of Taiwan’s hotel industry intensifies market competition, customers’ demands on hotel services quality also increase with the increase of their consumption consciousness, and their demands on hotel types diversify, therefore hotel industry should concern on their unique management services quality brought by their different hotel types. The current designed service system or service transmission process may fail to meet customers’ demands owing to emphasizing degree gap in service quality. What is worse, it is difficult for hotel industry to actualize complete customer segregation and to provide customized services, therefore comprehensive understanding of customers’ demands on the service quality of different types hotels would contribute to operating management improvement of Taiwan hotel industry. This paper divides Taiwan hotels into three types: international tourism commercial type, holiday type and motel, the general hotels. It studies the emphasize degree gap in service quality between the industry and the customers. Data analysis shows that service quality gap (perceived gap) of hotels of different types exists in several quality aspects; what’s more, the perceived gaps, service quality aspects, and its items of different types of hotel are also different. After an integrated analysis, this paper puts forward a general and customer‐oriented quality item suitable for hotel industry to shorten the perceived gap of service quality, so that the hotel industry could design a service system and service transfer system, which could meet most lodging customers’ demands in the context of pluralized customer sources.

The purpose of the paper is to identify the main characteristics of vertical integration strategies and discuss the effects of those characteristics on companies' ability to compete. Using a sample of 316 parent companies, the study found that industry uncertainty affected companies' decisions regarding their levels of vertical integration, but not companies' decisions to change those levels. The study also suggests that a significant number of companies have disintegrated to become more competitive.

The purpose of this paper is to report and discuss the manufacturing competitive priorities (cost, delivery, quality, flexibility, and innovativeness) practiced by Kuwaiti manufacturers. It also investigates the possible impact of plant size and type of industry on the level of focus at different priorities. In addition, the level of association between different pairs of competitive priorities was investigated. This allowed testing the traditional competitive priorities trade‐off model which was frequently argued by early operations strategy researchers.

The data collection method used in this study is that of the questionnaire that was administrated in 62 Kuwaiti plants working in two different industries, food processing and refractors. Level of focus (on a five‐point Likert scale) at each of the five competitive priorities, type of industry and number of employees were the main research variables. Since ordinal scales are used in the current study to measure the plant focus on the five competitive priorities, Mann‐Whitney test for two independent samples was used to test for the effect of type of industry and Kruska‐Wallis test was utilized to investigate the relationship between plant size and the level of focus on each competitive priority. In addition, testing the level of associations between degrees of emphasis on different pairs of competitive priorities was through the Goodman and Kruskal's γ coefficients.

Empirical evidence is provided that plant size is a useful indicator of the emphasis on some competitive priorities. It shows that small and medium plants place significantly more emphasis on on‐time delivery while medium and large plants are distinguished by their strong emphasis on flexibility. However, difference size groups indicate the same level of focus on quality improvement, cost reduction and innovativeness. Noticeably, the two industrial sectors do not differ significantly in their level of focus on each of the five competitive priorities. The two industries focused on on‐time delivery and quality improvement strategies as the two main competitive priorities. Both flexibility and innovativeness were the least emphasized priorities in both sectors. The preliminary findings do not seem to support the main argument of the competitive priorities trade‐off model.

Owing to the limitation of data, only employment was the only indicator of plant size. Total revenue and total assets could be used in future studies to verify or deny these findings. Moreover, using a better multidimensional construct in measuring the level of focus on each competitive priority represents another way of improving this study.

The paper adds to the scarce body of empirical studies of manufacturing strategies in newly emerged economies. This is especially true in the Middle East and the Gulf areas. The findings augment the development of a better contingency theory of plant competitive priorities to capture the complexity of different plant characteristics.