Do innovative organisations compete on single or multiple operational capabilities?

Abstract

Organisations lack clear guidance on how they can become more innovative at the operational level. The operations strategy literature shows that organisations compete on four generic capabilities: cost efficiency, quality of products or services, speed of delivery, and flexibility of operations. Should organisations choose between these capabilities, i.e., engage in trading-off these capabilities and focussing on one capability ("trade-off" model), or combine them, thereby competing on multiple capabilities simultaneously ("cumulative capabilities" model), remains an unresolved issue. Our paper addresses this by empirically testing the relationship between the four operations capabilities an..