Andrea Gelei

Lean production and leadership attributes – the case of Hungarian production managers

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate leadership attributes that contribute to or inhibit the successful adaptation of lean techniques. Design/methodology/approach – Using leadership attributes of the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE) project, this paper develops an ideal leadership profile of a production manager who aims to develop a lean production system (based on Liker’s seminal work in 2004). Five hypotheses related to contributor and inhibitor leadership behaviors and their associated leadership attributes are analyzed using survey data based on a PLS model. Findings – According to the results, the proposed conceptual leadership profile, in which leadership attributes are divided into two sets (contributors and inhibitors), required modification. The authors identified five distinct leadership behaviors (specific interrelated sets of leadership attributes). Two of the five leadership behaviors (communicative and micromanager) for production managers...

New Insight into the Competitiveness of Supplier Firms: Aligning Competences and Customer Expectations

The focal issue of the paper is firm competitiveness and the way in which operations can contribute to it. The problem of firm competitiveness has been extensively researched in operations strategy, mainly using the concept of strategic fit, but there has been little discussion in the literature of the criteria that should be used to guide the selection of strategic capabilities to be acquired. We argue that this selection should be guided by the expectations of external stakeholders with special emphasis on customers′ expectations. We develop and test a theoretical model of expectations-based operational competitiveness, building on the concepts and terms developed by two important management approaches, the theory of customer value and the capability-based theory of the firm. To test the model, statistical analysis is carried out using the database of the research programme “In global competition - competitiveness of the Hungarian enterprise sector” at the Competitiveness Research Centre of Corvinus University of Budapest. The model developed is a useful instrument for gaining a deeper insight into firm competitiveness. We define three kinds of operational competences: production, adaptation and supply chain management competence. Our empirical analysis reveals that Hungarian companies in the manufacturing industry possess a well-developed capability base as far as production competence is concerned. However, they usually cannot effectively internalise adaptation and supply chain management competences and cannot utilise them as sources of improved operational performance.

Mutual trustworthiness as a governance mechanism in business relationships — A dyadic data analysis*

Based on a literature review, we develop a research profile that illustrates that survey-based, trust-related empirical research has severe limitations. It usually carries out general relationship analysis using single end or quasi two-sided sampling and classic statistical constructs. We designed and carried out an empirical research that was highly situational, applied dyadic operationalisation, pairwise sampling, and dyadic data analysis – a special statistical approach and toolset developed by psychologists and used to analyse interdependencies in relationships. Our main contribution is methodological and theoretical since the paper gives a structured overview on the methodological challenges in analysing mutuality in trust, but also in other relational attributes. The paper not only makes these methodological problems explicit, but also offers a potential solution to overcome some of their limitations.

Bizalom az üzleti kapcsolatokban. A diadikus adatelemzés egy alkalmazása

A tanulmany arra a feltevesre epul, hogy minel erősebb a bizalomra meltosag szintje egy adott uzleti kapcsolatban, annal inkabb igaz, hogy nagy kockazatu tevekenysegek mennek vegbe benne. Ilyen esetekben a bizalomra meltosag a kapcsolatban zajlo esemenyek, cselekvesek iranyitasi eszkozeve valik, es azuzleti kapcsolatban megjelenik a cselekvesi hajlandosagkent ertelmezett bizalom. A tanulmany felhivja a figyelmet a bizalom es a bizalomra meltosag fogalmai kozotti kulonbsegre, szisztematikus kulonvalasztasuk fontossagara. Bemutatja az ugynevezett diadikus adatelemzes gazdalkodastudomanyi alkalmazasat. Empirikus eredmenyei is igazoljak, hogy ezzel a modszerrel az uzleti kapcsolatok tarsas jellemzőinek (koztuk a bizalomnak) es a kozottuk levő kapcsolatoknak melyebb elemzesere nyilik lehetőseg. Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) kod: C49, D22, L20, M20.

Competence Based Taxonomy of Supplier Firms in the Automotive Industry

In the last 15-20 years companies went through a series of heavy economic blows in Hungary: first, the paternalistic state disappeared and they had to start to manage themselves and their own capital. Second, the collapse of the Russian industry forced most of them to find new markets for their products in order to survive. Third, the accession to EU brought competition much closer to them than ever before. Although a lot of companies disappeared during these years and even more were founded, we can say, that they have to improve themselves continuously to adapt to the changing conditions in order to remain competitive. Thus competitiveness is and was a focal issue in the Hungarian economy. Today, with the accession to EU, the key to competitiveness for Hungarian companies is to what extent they are able to join European or even global supply chains. How can they discover the requirements of various customers and how can they improve their internal operations to fit these requirements? These are very general questions, but the answers are different company by company. We believe, however, that there must be some general patterns behind the scene, which might be useful for companies to know how to position themselves in the supply chain. Several OEMs have started business in the automotive industry in Hungary and in the neighbouring transition economies providing chance for Hungarian suppliers to join their supply chains. Furthermore, due to the intense global competition and the matured stage in the life cycle in automotive companies supply chain management practices are vital. That is why we selected this industry as the basis of our research. We believe that similarly to portfolio models which segment suppliers, we can build taxonomy on various customer values and supplier competences. Our paper discusses this focal question by using a general model of competitiveness for a series of interviews from the Hungarian automotive industry. In this paper we concentrate on the competence side of the model and use interviews as an empirical base. The structure of our paper is the following: first we go through the relevant literature. Next the model of competitiveness and our research method is introduced. Then we describe the cases shortly and analyze the information we got. Finally our taxonomy is developed and conclusions are drawn.