Antecedents and Impacts of Service Operations Flexibility: A Multiple Regression Approach

This study investigates the antecedents of service operations flexibility (SOF) in the forms of structural and infrastructural elements. Additionally, it examines the SOF’s impacts on company performances. Structural elements decisions are grouped as capacity, location, integration/networking, and t...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Mohd. Rashid, Ab. Hamid, Fazli, Idris, Mohd. Ezani, Mohd. Hassan, Nik Mutasim, Nik Ab. Rahman
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Universiti Selangor (UNISEL) 2014
Subjects:
Online Access:http://umpir.ump.edu.my/id/eprint/6608/1/fist-2014-rashid-Antecedents_and_Impacts.pdf
http://umpir.ump.edu.my/id/eprint/6608/
http://ojs.journals.unisel.edu.my/index.php/ijcbm/article/view/59
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
id my.ump.umpir.6608
record_format eprints
spelling my.ump.umpir.66082015-03-03T09:31:31Z http://umpir.ump.edu.my/id/eprint/6608/ Antecedents and Impacts of Service Operations Flexibility: A Multiple Regression Approach Mohd. Rashid, Ab. Hamid Fazli, Idris Mohd. Ezani, Mohd. Hassan Nik Mutasim, Nik Ab. Rahman T Technology (General) This study investigates the antecedents of service operations flexibility (SOF) in the forms of structural and infrastructural elements. Additionally, it examines the SOF’s impacts on company performances. Structural elements decisions are grouped as capacity, location, integration/networking, and technology while infrastructural elements decisions encompass worker empowerment, quality leadership, and team management. Service operations flexibility is divided into internal robustness and external flexibility while company performances are categorized as financial and non-financial. An instrument to measure all the factors was designed and pre-tested on 30 MBA students. Subsequently, a pilot study was conducted to check the reliability of the instrument. The exercise involved 23 Malaysian service organizations. Respondents were operations managers involved in the decision making process. All items used to measure the studied factors were found to be reliable. The preliminary study was followed by a large scale survey that involved architect and accountant firms, considered as professional groups in Schmenner’s service typology. For the international inputs, we engaged researchers who are attached to the local universities of the respected countries. A total of 224 valid responses were received from Malaysia, Indonesia, India and South Africa. Using factor analysis, the antecedents were regrouped into quality leadership, technology, integration, training and motivation, team management, capacity, location, and worker involvement. Separate factor analysis was done on the measures associated with flexibility that resulted in external flexibility and internal robustness. The third factor analysis was done on the measures of company performances which resulted in clear distinction of financial and non-financial performance. Finally, the relationships were tested using multiple regression analysis. The first analysis was done to test the relationship between the antecedents and the SOF. We found that all antecedents except worker involvement significantly are influencing the external flexibility dimension, but only two factors; technology and worker involvement affecting internal robustness. Another multiple regression test was done to test the impacts of the SOF on performances. We found that non-financial performances were affected by external flexibility. Universiti Selangor (UNISEL) 2014 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://umpir.ump.edu.my/id/eprint/6608/1/fist-2014-rashid-Antecedents_and_Impacts.pdf Mohd. Rashid, Ab. Hamid and Fazli, Idris and Mohd. Ezani, Mohd. Hassan and Nik Mutasim, Nik Ab. Rahman (2014) Antecedents and Impacts of Service Operations Flexibility: A Multiple Regression Approach. International Journal of Contemporary Business Management (IJCBM), 1 (1). pp. 63-70. http://ojs.journals.unisel.edu.my/index.php/ijcbm/article/view/59
institution Universiti Malaysia Pahang
building UMP Library
collection Institutional Repository
continent Asia
country Malaysia
content_provider Universiti Malaysia Pahang
content_source UMP Institutional Repository
url_provider http://umpir.ump.edu.my/
language English
topic T Technology (General)
spellingShingle T Technology (General)
Mohd. Rashid, Ab. Hamid
Fazli, Idris
Mohd. Ezani, Mohd. Hassan
Nik Mutasim, Nik Ab. Rahman
Antecedents and Impacts of Service Operations Flexibility: A Multiple Regression Approach
description This study investigates the antecedents of service operations flexibility (SOF) in the forms of structural and infrastructural elements. Additionally, it examines the SOF’s impacts on company performances. Structural elements decisions are grouped as capacity, location, integration/networking, and technology while infrastructural elements decisions encompass worker empowerment, quality leadership, and team management. Service operations flexibility is divided into internal robustness and external flexibility while company performances are categorized as financial and non-financial. An instrument to measure all the factors was designed and pre-tested on 30 MBA students. Subsequently, a pilot study was conducted to check the reliability of the instrument. The exercise involved 23 Malaysian service organizations. Respondents were operations managers involved in the decision making process. All items used to measure the studied factors were found to be reliable. The preliminary study was followed by a large scale survey that involved architect and accountant firms, considered as professional groups in Schmenner’s service typology. For the international inputs, we engaged researchers who are attached to the local universities of the respected countries. A total of 224 valid responses were received from Malaysia, Indonesia, India and South Africa. Using factor analysis, the antecedents were regrouped into quality leadership, technology, integration, training and motivation, team management, capacity, location, and worker involvement. Separate factor analysis was done on the measures associated with flexibility that resulted in external flexibility and internal robustness. The third factor analysis was done on the measures of company performances which resulted in clear distinction of financial and non-financial performance. Finally, the relationships were tested using multiple regression analysis. The first analysis was done to test the relationship between the antecedents and the SOF. We found that all antecedents except worker involvement significantly are influencing the external flexibility dimension, but only two factors; technology and worker involvement affecting internal robustness. Another multiple regression test was done to test the impacts of the SOF on performances. We found that non-financial performances were affected by external flexibility.
format Article
author Mohd. Rashid, Ab. Hamid
Fazli, Idris
Mohd. Ezani, Mohd. Hassan
Nik Mutasim, Nik Ab. Rahman
author_facet Mohd. Rashid, Ab. Hamid
Fazli, Idris
Mohd. Ezani, Mohd. Hassan
Nik Mutasim, Nik Ab. Rahman
author_sort Mohd. Rashid, Ab. Hamid
title Antecedents and Impacts of Service Operations Flexibility: A Multiple Regression Approach
title_short Antecedents and Impacts of Service Operations Flexibility: A Multiple Regression Approach
title_full Antecedents and Impacts of Service Operations Flexibility: A Multiple Regression Approach
title_fullStr Antecedents and Impacts of Service Operations Flexibility: A Multiple Regression Approach
title_full_unstemmed Antecedents and Impacts of Service Operations Flexibility: A Multiple Regression Approach
title_sort antecedents and impacts of service operations flexibility: a multiple regression approach
publisher Universiti Selangor (UNISEL)
publishDate 2014
url http://umpir.ump.edu.my/id/eprint/6608/1/fist-2014-rashid-Antecedents_and_Impacts.pdf
http://umpir.ump.edu.my/id/eprint/6608/
http://ojs.journals.unisel.edu.my/index.php/ijcbm/article/view/59
_version_ 1643665422748221440
score 13.211869