Joy M. Field

Supplier relations and supply chain performance in financial services processes

Purpose – This paper aims to empirically test the relationship between supplier relations and satisfaction with overall supplier performance in a services context at a process level of analysis.Design/methodology/approach – Two hypotheses are developed, one predicting a positive relationship between a multi‐dimensional construct of supplier relations and satisfaction with overall supplier performance, and one five‐part hypothesis predicting positive relationships between the underlying components of supplier relations and satisfaction with overall supplier performance. Using a sample of 108 financial services processes, the first hypothesis is tested using regression analysis, and the second hypothesis is tested using correlation analysis.Findings – After controlling for supplier efficiency and responsiveness, use of information technology, electronic information‐sharing, supplier type, and firm size, better supplier relations are associated with satisfaction with overall supplier performance. However, wh...

The use of recycled materials in manufacturing: implications for supply chain management and operations strategy

In this study we explore the implications of using recycled versus virgin materials for supply chain structure and supplier relationships, as well as the broader effects on operations strategy in an evolving sustainable environment. We focus on the corrugated cardboard industry, where vertical integration is common, and non-integrated firms are both customers and competitors of integrated firms. These multiple supplier/customer/competitor relationships provide a complex environment to observe changes in the supply chain with the addition of a reverse supply chain system using recycled materials. Based on the findings from an in-depth case study we posit several propositions related to the use of recycled materials, supply chain structure, supplier relationships, and operations strategy. In summary, because the benefits of the changes in the supply chain and supplier relationships accrue primarily to non-integrated firms, we expect the use of recycled material inputs to be dominated by non-integrated firms, and with decreasing capital costs over time, and the ratio of non-integrated to integrated firms using recycled materials will increase. Further, we expect smaller non-integrated firms to access the market for recycled materials differently from larger integrated firms, with the smaller firms more likely to employ non-price-based means for securing their supply of recycled material inputs. Finally, since non-integrated firms are likely to have different operations strategies than integrated firms, we expect the use of recycled materials to indirectly lead to greater use of non-cost-based operations strategies and facilitate the emergence of new operations strategies in the industry.

Comparing e‐service performance across industry sectors

Purpose – The online retail industry is enormous, covering a great assortment of products and services. Yet, little research has examined whether determinants of success in online retailing are similar or differ by industry sector. The purpose of this study is to examine industry sectors separately to distinguish drivers associated with overall satisfaction for the online consumers in those sectors.Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses ridge regression to examine how e‐service quality dimensions are associated with overall customer satisfaction for several e‐retailing sectors.Findings – While several e‐service quality dimensions exhibit a similar impact across all sectors, several other dimensions exhibited sector‐by‐sector differences. The drivers that frequently differ across sectors include price perceptions, ease of returns and refunds, and privacy experience.Research limitations/implications – As an exploratory study, research opportunities and limitations derive from the public source of data...

Work team performance over time: three case studies of South African manufacturers

In this paper, we report on three case studies of South African manufacturing firms that made significant efforts to implement shopfloor improvement teams. Following Meredith’s [J. Operat. Manage. 16 (1998) 441] suggestion to use case studies as a basis for theory formulation, insights from the cases were used to extend existing theory by generating hypotheses pertaining to the timing and sustainability of performance gains following the implementation of performance improvement teams, focusing, in particular on ongoing performance improvement teams. Because of the richness of the case study data, we delve deeper than other studies into the actions of teams and management to better understand how and why successful performance improvement teams evolve as they do. Stated in temporal order, our main hypotheses are: work team engagement is positively associated with early implementation credibility-building activities; both outcome-orientation and substantive participation are positively associated with a rapid rate of performance gains; and team institutionalization is positively associated with sustaining performance gains. The findings of the case studies and the associated hypotheses are summarized in a time-phased framework for work team implementation. Limitations and directions for further research are discussed.

Uncertainty Reduction Approaches, Uncertainty Coping Approaches, and Process Performance in Financial Services

Developing a better understanding of the impact of uncertainty on process performance has been recognized as an important research opportunity in service design (Hill, et al., 2002). Within this general research stream, our study focuses on the question of what managers can do to most effectively address operational uncertainty and mitigate its negative effects. To begin to address this question, we report on an exploratory study using a sample of professionals in the financial-services industry who acted as informants on 108 financial-services processes. These professionals were sampled from a population of graduates of a university in the northeastern region of the United States who were employed in the financial-services industry. Based on these processes, we empirically examine the relationship between responses to operational uncertainty and process performance after controlling for customer mix, other uncertainty sources, and process type characteristics. Our findings suggest that process improvement—an uncertainty reduction approach related to the internal functioning of the process—as well as several uncertainty coping approaches are associated with better performing processes. However, uncertainty reduction approaches related to customer involvement with, and demands on, the process are not associated with better performing processes. We discuss the implications of our findings for determining what actions managers can take to reduce the negative performance effects of operational uncertainty and how managers can decide which of these actions to take. We conclude with a discussion of the limitations of our study.

Work-Team Implementation and Trajectories of Manufacturing Quality: A Longitudinal Field Study

The study examines the sustainability of manufacturing quality improvements following the implementation of work teams on production lines. We posit that the impact on manufacturing quality, measured as the defect rate trajectory, is monotonically nonincreasing over time and may, more specifically, assume the shape of an inverted S-curve. Employing a longitudinal research design, we investigate four work teams over a 28-month period in a field setting. Each team corresponds to one of the four interconnected production lines in an electromechanical assembly plant operated by a Fortune 500 firm. Results of our empirical analysis support the sustainability of quality improvements associated with work team implementation and partially support the S-shaped trajectory as the particular form of sustainability. However, variations in the manufacturing quality trajectories reflect the characteristics of the work team and the production line on which each the team is instituted. From the standpoint of practice, this study highlights the importance of work-team design and implementation decisions, especially the need to be proactive in identifying and resolving initial implementation difficulties.

Applying process knowledge for yield variation reduction: A longitudinal field study

The widespread recognition of the detrimental effects of high yield variation in advanced manufacturing technology settings, both in terms of cost and management of production processes, underscores the need to develop effective strategies for reducing yield variation. In this article, we report the findings of a longitudinal field study in an electromechanical motor assembly plant where we examined how the application of process knowledge by production work teams can reduce yield variation. We propose and provide an operationalizion of a strategy to identify the sequence of particular types of actions—actions to control the mean followed by actions to control the variance—that work teams should pursue over time to apply process knowledge for reducing yield variation. The results of our empirical analysis show that yield variation was significantly reduced on three of the four production lines at the manufacturing plant that served as our research site. Differences in strategies for applying process knowledge help explain the different results on each of the production lines.

The Value of Outsourcing: A Field Study

Abstract This article examines the effects of information systems outsourcing on the business processes of organizations. Rather than simply comparing outsourcing and not outsourcing, the study also addresses a third and increasingly common strategy, that of using software purchased “off-the-shelf.” An extensive survey was distributed to business process managers over a cross-section of financial services processes and companies. Results show that outsourcing information systems can create lower overall process costs and may lead to superior overall process performance compared to processes that used software purchased off-the-shelf. Further, information systems built in house lead to superior overall process performance compared to processes that used software purchased off-the-shelf. These results should assist business managers in gauging the possible effects of outsourcing information systems (or not) on their core processes.

Building the case for quality improvement in the health care industry: a focus on goals and training.

Health care organizations are under intense pressure to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of care delivery and, increasingly, they are using quality improvement teams to identify and target projects to improve performance outcomes. This raises the question of what factors actually drive the performance of these projects in a health care environment. Using data from a survey of health care professionals acting as informants for 244 patient care, clinical-administrative, and nonclinical administrative quality improvement project types in 93 health care organizations, we focus on 2 factors—goal setting and quality training—as potential drivers of quality improvement project performance. We find that project-level goals and quality training have positive associations with process quality, while organizational-level goals have no impact. In addition, the relationship between project-level goals and process quality is stronger for patient care projects than for administrative projects. This indicates that the motivational and cognitive effects of goal setting are greater for projects that involve interactions with clinicians than for ones that involve interactions with other staff. Although project-level goal setting is beneficial for improving process quality overall, our findings suggest the importance of being especially attentive to goal setting for projects that impact direct patient care.

Beyond Design: Implementing Effective Production Work Teams

Achieving sustainable quality performance gains following production work team introduction requires that the work team implementation process be carefully designed and managed. The design of the work team as an institutionalized form of substantive participation creates the conditions for sustainable quality gains by facilitating the generation and implementation of process and product improvements that accumulate over time. The actual quality performance trajectory for each work team is also influenced by specific characteristics of the team and its production environment. At the least, this can inform managerial expectations about quality performance outcomes of work teams. However, many of these characteristics can be influenced through proactive management of the implementation process to achieve better and faster results. A longitudinal empirical study of production work teams demonstrates the benefits of design and implementation decisions aimed at sustainable performance gains.