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More work cooperation or relationship harmony in mass customization? The impacts of personalized design, modular design, and automated processes

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Abstract

Mass customization (MC) is recognized as a new manufacturing paradigm for market competition, and several empirical studies have discussed elements of organizational structure that are conducive to MC. A previous study proposed a model of quality at source and identified cultural values that can be changed by cultural artifacts, such as the stop-the-line system and the Andon system. This paper explores the impacts of three groups of MC enabler variables (personalized design, modular design, and automated processes) on two internal dimensions of organizational culture (work cooperation and relationship harmony).This paper surveyed 160 samples across five manufacturing industries. The results confirm that the three MC enablers (personalized design, modular design, and automated processes) correlate positively with two internal dimensions of the organizational culture of Chinese manufacturers (work cooperation and relationship harmony). Of the two internal dimensions, work cooperation enhances organizational performance, while relationship harmony has no impact on organizational performance. Modular design, automated processes, and work cooperation are powerful tools in the implementation of MC and organizational performance. Personalized design and relationship harmony are useful in MC. However, these tools are intermediate and limited, and they do not contribute to the general performance of the entire organization. Thus, in terms of internal- and team-oriented cultural factors, work cooperation is more important than relationship harmony in the implementation of MC. Relationship harmony is a tool for managing work atmosphere, and this is a new characteristic feature of MC as a new operational paradigm.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Economics & Management, Wuhan University, Luojia Hill, Wuhan, Hubei Province, 430072, People’s Republic of China

    Edward Aihua Fang

  2. Institute of Technological Economics & Management, School of Economics & Management, Wuhan University, Luojia Hill, Wuhan, Hubei Province, 430072, People’s Republic of China

    Na Yang

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Appendices

Appendix 1

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Table 4 Measurement tools: Personalized design
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4).

Appendix 2

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Table 5 Measurement tools: Modular design
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5).

Appendix 3

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Table 6 Measurement tools: Automated processes (the sum of the below two items)
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6).

Appendix 4

See (Table

Table 7 Measurement tools: Work cooperation and relationship harmony
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7).

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Fang, E.A., Yang, N. More work cooperation or relationship harmony in mass customization? The impacts of personalized design, modular design, and automated processes. Inf Technol Manag 22, 179–192 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10799-021-00330-y

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