Best Practice or Strategic Contingency? An Analysis of the Goal-Practice-Performance Relationship in Manufacturing

This article challenges and advances the extant manufacturing practice-performance research in three ways. First and most fundamentally, we offer a sound theoretical foundation for the proposition that manufacturing practices have competitive value. Second, typical studies do not pay enough attention to the multidimensional nature of performance and often collapse strategic position (performance) into a one-dimensional index. We will show that this does not do justice to the multidimensional nature of operational performance. Third, extant research, aside from a few exceptions, pays little attention to the strategic contingencies involved in adopting and implementing specific practices. The overarching goal of this article is to move us toward better-informed empirical inquiry of the strategic contingency argument in operations strategy research.