Mass customization: implementing the emerging paradigm for competitive advantage

Article Abstract:

Mass customization is defined as a process employed by firms in utilizing technology and management methods to offer product variety and customization through flexibility and quick responsiveness. Although mass customization is supposedly overriding mass production as the most viable means of gaining sustainable competitive advantage, an analysis of the National Bicycle Industrial Co. (NBIC) shows that a combination of the two paradigms is actually a much more advantageous strategy in maintaining competitiveness. A confluence of the two production approaches facilitates organizational knowledge creation and better strategic flexibility. The NBIC example also illustrates the importance of computer-aided manufacturing technology, highly skilled labor and effective human resources practices in ensuring the effectiveness of mass customization approaches.

Motorcycle, Bicycle, and Parts Manufacturing, Motorcycles, bicycles, and parts, Bicycles, Production management, Bicycle industry, National Bicycle Industrial Co.

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Emergence of entrepreneurs following exogenous technological change

Article Abstract:

A proposed model describes how incumbents choose not to take advantage of technological changes and are thereby replaced by entrepreneurs. In this analysis, the incumbents are completely rational, have excellent foresight and possess an ex ante capability to exploit exogenous technological changes. The model initially employs classical economic assumptions in the context of process innovations. An example that relies on Cournot competition under linear cost and demand demonstrates the mechanisms of incumbent displacement and the welfare impact. Hypotheses were derived to test the fit of the model to industry trends in the data against that of alternative theories. This investigation shows that entrepreneurs can flourish in the context of classical economic theory through an inclusion of a dynamic element to a classically based model of competition.

Analysis, Technological innovations, Entrepreneurship

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Size (and competition) among organizations: modeling scale-based selection among automobile producers in four major countries, 1885-1981

Article Abstract:

An organization and strategic analysis of size, location, and competition in the automobile industry in four countries indicates that a company's distance from the leaders in size affects its ability to survive.

World, Automobile industry

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