Comparative Study of Supply Chain Relationships, Mass Customization, and Organizational Performance between SME(s) and LE(s)

Abstract

The influence of information technology (IT) exceeds in providing financial and operational support to organizations.ITis being used to facilitate customer and supplier involvement indesigningspecialized product offerings, implementing process improvements, enhancing manufacturing flexibility, and controlling manufacturing operations. Together, these advances areenabling firmsto not only customize their product offerings (i.e. mass customization) and market themat prices close to thosequoted by traditional mass producers but also contribute to organizational performance (OP).Organizational performance (OP) is the extent to which a firm fulfills its market and financial goals.

Whilemuch research on mass customization has been reported in the literature, empirical studies investigating the impacts of IT on creating cooperative and integrative relationships with customers and suppliers and the impacts of these relationships on the level of mass customizationand organizational performance aresparse and represent a missing link in manufacturing research. The contributions of this study include supply chain relationship in SMEs andLEs, mass customization, and organizational performance.Using data collected from 220 manufacturers, this studyfinds that large firms (LEs) have higher levels of cooperative relationships with suppliers and customers and enjoy higher levels of mass customizationand organizational performance than small and medium size firms (SMEs).