Abstract

Perceptions and principles of competitiveness in the context of production and operations management (POM) have evolved over time towards trends in which firms compete at supply chain level. This evolution underscores the need for competitive priorities to be re-evaluated from time to time. The purpose of this article is to explore how POM experts perceive and rate competitive priorities for regional operations. The article presents a Delphi-based study with a panel of seventy POM experts from the Sultanate of Oman in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region. It applies a constructivist epistemology in a three-round Delphi Exercise to identify, select and prioritise the key competitive priorities perceived by panel experts. Nonparametric statistics test the dichotomous responses and levels of concordance and discordance of ranked outcome variables among the Delphi panellists. The analysis identifies nineteen competitive priorities thematically clustered into five orientations for productivity-efficiency, relationship-building, technology-enabled, environmentally-conscious and conformance-improvement. Polled results show heterogeneity during both selection (Cochran's Q: p < 0.05) and prioritisation (Friedman’s Q: p < 0.05) rounds. The conformance-improvement orientation consistently produced the top ranked priorities in the Delphi rounds. Theoretical contributions and managerial implications are discussed and potential future research areas on examining coordinate systems for POM strategy and modelling ecological and field views of POM are also elaborated.

摘要

随着时间的推移，生产和运营管理 (POM) 背景下的竞争力观念和原则已经朝着企业在供应链层面竞争的趋势发展。这种演变强调了不时重新评估竞争优先级的必要性。本文的目的是探讨 POM 专家如何看待和评估区域运营的竞争优先级。本文介绍了一项基于德尔福的研究，该研究小组由来自海湾合作委员会 (GCC) 地区阿曼苏丹国的 70 名 POM 专家组成。它在三轮德尔菲练习中应用建构主义认识论来识别、选择和优先考虑小组专家认为的关键竞争优先事项。非参数统计检验了 Delphi 小组成员之间排名结果变量的二分响应和一致性和不一致性水平。该分析确定了 19 个竞争优先事项，按主题分为五个方向，分别是生产力效率、关系建立、技术支持、环境意识和一致性改进。轮询结果显示两种选择期间的异质性（Cochran 的 Q：p  < 0.05）和优先级（弗里德曼的 Q：p  < 0.05）轮。一致性改进方向始终在德尔福轮次中产生最高优先级。讨论了理论贡献和管理意义，并详细阐述了在检查 POM 策略的坐标系统和建模 POM 的生态和现场视图方面的潜在未来研究领域。