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Examines quality strategies within the manufacturing strategy. Discusses how the difference and the relationship between order winning criteria and order qualifying criteria is crucial to the understanding of the role of quality in the manufacturing strategy. Asserts that a manufacturing strategy must fully support the market strategy. Emphasizes the need to sustain and improve quality. Concludes that as more companies achieve total quality, this moves them to strategies where quality is a qualifying criterion rather than an order winner. Asserts a strategy of using quality as a qualifying criterion can only be pursued when high levels of quality have been achieved. Contends the necessity to come to terms with this in order to meet the competitive challenges of the 1990s.

This article investigates the relationship between the functional areas of manufacturing and human resources by analysing the practices of human resource management associated with the competitive priorities of manufacturing strategy, e.g. quality, delivery performance, flexibility and cost. Within strategic business management, both the competitive priorities of manufacturing and the practices of human resource management need to be observed by the whole organisation. In this way, this study presents how human resource management practices are aligned to business strategies based on cost reduction, quality, delivery performance and product innovation. These practices may also be arranged in different ways in a particular competitive strategy.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the underlying strategic intent of quality performance. Specifically, the study aimed to examine the individual impact of differentiation and cost leadership as well as their interaction effect on quality performance.

This study employed a data set drawn from 102 managers of Australian manufacturing firms. Multiple regression analysis with moderating effect was used for analysing the relationship between the competitive strategies and quality performance.

The findings indicated that product quality was predicted by differentiation strategy, but not cost leadership strategy. However, the effect of differentiation on quality was moderated by cost leadership whereby the higher the cost leadership, the stronger the effect.

The small sample size which was dominated by small‐to‐medium sized firms (SMEs) was the major limitation of the study. The sample size and distribution also inhibited the comparison of the results between industry sectors.

The results contribute to a better understanding on how quality can be effectively employed as a base for realising competitive strategy. In particular, the positive interaction between differentiation and cost leadership in predicting quality performance suggests the synergy between the two as well as supporting the cumulative view of competitive strategies.

By testing the interaction effect of differentiation and cost leadership in predicting quality performance, this study advances the previous works on the area which looked at the relationship between quality performance and each of the two competitive strategies separately.

This study examines the performance consequences of aligning the competitive strategy of quality differentiation with each of the four fundamental industry life cycle stages: introduction, growth, maturity, and decline. Reports results from a questionnaire survey of CEOs in a mid‐western state in the USA. The findings suggest that small manufacturing firms can achieve a sustainable competitive advantage vis‐à‐vis quality differentiation across three stages of industry evolution: introduction, growth, and maturity.

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 purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between effective strategies to improve the quality and quality management of allocated resources for the successful implementation of the strategies. For this purpose, three quality management resources (human, organizational and technological) and eight different strategies related to quality are considered.

The paper employs the fuzzy analytic network process (FANP) to prioritize and model the interactions between eight strategies, the three types of resources (human, organizational and technological) needed for effective strategy implementation and the ability to enhance quality. Then, Goal Programming (GP) is formulated by the output of the FANP to identify the extent to which each single strategy is inhibited by a lack of (or overloaded by) resources.

The first three priorities of strategies identified by the FANP include continuous management of quality system, continuous use of human knowledge and continuous approach toward target, and the order of resources is as follows: human resources, organizational resources and technological resources. The results obtained showed the largest share of human resources and its crucial role in improving the quality of the products. The contribution of organizational resources amounts to half of the contribution of human resources.

The main contribution of this paper is to employ the FANP to prioritize, whereas in prior studies in this area, priorities were conducted as definitive, and uncertainty in the opinion of experts was not considered. In this paper, the FANP–GP combined method is used.

Strategic quality management represents a state wherein the organization’s total quality management (TQM) system is tightly interwoven with the strategy formulation process, thereby contributing to a sustainable competitive advantage. Numerous models have been proposed to describe how organizations can fully integrate strategy and TQM. Proposes that organizations undergo evolutionary stages on the way to full integration of strategy and TQM. The conceptual bases of the proposed model consist of organizational life cycles, stages of quality maturity and models describing the evolution of strategic management. Gives examples of corporations in the USA and the Asia‐Pacific region which provide preliminary support for the model’s validity.

Various conceptual models are brought together to provide a comprehensive approach for the strategic management of quality at the business level. A synopsis of these models is given, and these are related to each other. Using strategic planning models, implications are drawn for the management of quality control systems, quality cost procedures and organisational procedures.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the problem of optimal product line design in marketing channels where consumers are heterogeneous in both horizontal and vertical dimensions.

This paper develops a model to evaluate when it is preferable for a firm to extend the product line in a vertical or horizontal direction. Consumers are modeled as being vertically heterogeneous with respect to their valuation of quality and horizontally heterogeneous with respect to their preference on the esthetic component of the product. These model characteristics allow us to consider a broader set of product line extension strategies. By considering both a vertically integrated channel and a decentralized channel, this study investigates how channel structure influences optimal product line design. The problem with supplemental numerical analyses is mathematically analyzed.

The analysis shows that a horizontal product line extension strategy that offers the customized product can be used as an alternative to a vertical product line extension strategy. If the fixed cost is not too high, offering the customized product with low quality may be preferred to the quality-based segmentation strategy. Furthermore, the analysis shows that the channel structure is influential as the preference for the horizontal product line extension strategy is more pronounced in the decentralized channel than in the centralized channel.

The analysis presented in this paper is limited by the consideration of full market coverage. Further research is needed to see how the results can be generalized to the case with partial market coverage.

The analysis suggests that a firm may consider product customization as part of its product line strategy. Information regarding market characteristics and channel structure is important when deciding on the optimal product line design.

The model reflects a more realistic marketing strategy and channel structure than previous studies that typically consider product line extension in only one direction and focus on the centralized distribution channel. Combining the standard product line extension and customization strategies also represents an important contribution to the literature. These extensions produce interesting new results and insights into a firm’s optimal product line design strategy.

The purpose of this paper is to explore whether stock selection strategies based on four fundamental quality indicators can generate superior returns compared to overall market.

The sample of stocks comprises the constituents of BSE-500 index, which is a broad based index consisting of highly liquid stocks from all 20 major industries of the Indian economy. Portfolios are constructed on the basis of quality indicator rankings of companies and the returns of these portfolios are compared with the overall market. Excess returns on quality based portfolios are also determined using OLS regressions of quality portfolio returns on market, size, value and momentum factor returns.

The results suggest that two of the four quality strategies, namely Grantham Quality indicator and Gross Profitability have generated superior returns after controlling for market returns as well as common anomalies such as size, value and momentum. Combining value strategies with quality strategies do not yield any significant gains relative to quality only strategies.

For investors looking to invest in the Indian stock market for a long term, this study provides evidence on the performance of some fundamental indicators that can help predict long run stock performance. The findings suggest that investors can distinguish between high-performing and low-performing stocks based on stock quality indicators.

This is the first such study to look into the performance of quality investing in the Indian stock market. As most quality investing studies have been focussed on developed economies, this paper provides out-of-sample evidence for quality investing in the context of an emerging market.