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Organizational Elements In Service-Enhanced Manufacturing Enterprises

Posted on:2013-01-04Degree:DoctorType:Dissertation
Country:ChinaCandidate:Q Q ShenFull Text:PDF
GTID:1119330374463668Subject:Business management
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
As the environment for manufacturers is shifting from industrial to post-industrial, market competition is increasing competitive, resulting in the profit margins declining of physical products, which to some extent means that the effectiveness of current product differentiation strategy has been greatly declined. Meanwhile, the focus of customer needs is shifting from price and quality of physical products to related services. This makes it difficult to rely solely on physical products to meet the diverse needs of customers. Many forward-looking companies such as IBM, GE, Haier, Broad, Huawei, are getting increasingly profit growth by service innovation. However, current studies in innovation field mainly focus on technology innovation and product innovation, while just a little attention is paid to service innovation, let alone service enhancement of manufacturing enterprises. Therefore, it is very significant to study service enhancement of manufacturers in terms of both theory and reality. The research can guide Chinese manufacturing enterprises out of the trap of vicious competition and enhance the competitiveness of enterprises through the continued service innovation, and finally realize the upgrading of manufacturing industries. Therefore, using "environment-strategy configurations" and organizational management theories as reference, this thesis studied systematically the patterns of services strategies and their changes, and how to improve the performance by appropriated organizational parameters. This thesis is a empirical and theoretical research through combination of horizontal and vertical questionare data. Based on the revew on the present studies of contents, patterns, organization paramenters, and strategy of services enhancement, the research work of this thesis are as follows:Firstly, according to environment-strategy configuration theory, this thesis finds the patterns of services strategy in Chinese manufacturing enterprises, which can give implications to the implementation of service strategy.(1) Using8differentiating factors such as competitive intensity, market growth, customer needs, customer's price sensitivity and so on, the paper classifys the market environment of Chinese manufacturers into four groups by cluster analysis of SPSS17.0.(2) By7differentiating factors of competitive positionings and service products of Chinese manufacturers, the paper and then classifys service-enhancement strategy of Chinese manufactures into4types;(3) Using an exploratory factor and cluster analysis for testing Chinese manufactures, the study highlights four different service strategies. Those4types of configuration can be interpreted as:aftersale service provider, maintenance service provider, business operation service provider, and R&D service provider; customer's price sensitivity between them are very different, not all types of service strategy need to focus on price competition; Also, just to provide basic services (such as product consulting, delivery, installation, commissioning, etc.) can not produce service differentiation.Secondly, according to the previous classification of China business service strategy, the paper use2008and2010longitudinal data of service-enhanced strategy for SPSS17.0cross-table analysis, and identifies5kinds of strategic change patterns: from "aftersale service provider" to "maintenance service providers", from "aftersale service provider" to "business operation service provider", from "maintenance service providers" to "business operation service provider", from "maintenance service providers " to "R&D service provider", from "business operation service provider" to "R&D service provider".Thirdly, the paper analyzes the direct and indirect effects of key organizational elements on the level of organization performance.(1) After reviewing literatures on organization parameters, the thesis analysis six key organizational elements that is closely related to service strategy:top management commitment to and leadership of services, service rewords, service technology, across-function communication of service employees, services training, customer treatment.(2) According to the closeness of product and service, the paper seperates those four service strategies into two types:services:service-oriented service enhancement strategy (services in support of the client's actions, SSC) and product-oriented service enhancement strategy (services in the support of the product, SSP).(3) Through theoretical analysis, the paper constructs assumptions on the relationship between organizational parameters and two types of service-oriented, including the12direct effects and11indirect effects; then use the partial least squares (PLS) in SPSS17.0and questionnaire data to exam these effects by nested model method. Finally the thesis finds some very interesting results, such as SSC can promote product sale but cannot increase service sale, SSP can promote the sale of service but cannot promote product sale; senior leadership's commitment to service can only improve SSP orientation but can not improve organization's SSC orientation; and organization paraments such as service technology, service rewords can increase both SSC orientation and SSP orientation. These findings are very instructive and can enhance the performance of service-enhanced strategy.With depth analysis of the the mechanism of how services-enhanced strategy can help manufacturing enterprises gain competitive advantage, the thesis extend existing researches in the following aspects:(1) the thesis builds a theoretical framework of how manufactructuring enterprises can choice a proper service strategy from "environment strategy fit" perspective;(2) through analysis of competitive strength of market environment, customer service needs, price sensitivity, market growth and other characteristics, the thesisi identifies what types of service enhancement needs are customers asked for;(3)and by using competitive positioning and service products as two differention parameters, the thesis identifies4categories of service enhancement strategy of Chinese manufacturers and analyzes their characteristics;(4) according to matching theory, the paper identifies four matching categories between service strategies and envirnoment, and discusses the meaning of these patterns;(5) by combining organization theory, innovation management and strategic management theory, the paper analyzes how manufacturing companies can improve performance level by choicing propal organizational elements.
Keywords/Search Tags:Service Enhancement, Strategic Pattern, Strategic Change, Organizational Elements
PDF Full Text Request
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