Title: Management, myopia and strategy in the manufacturing function: a problem driven research agenda

Authors: Danny Samson, Amrik S. Sohal

Addresses: Key Centre for Strategic Management and Centre for Manufacturing Management, Graduate School of Management, University of Melbourne, 200 Leicester Street, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia. ' School of Management, David Syme Faculty of Business, Monash University, P 0 Box 197, Caulfield East, Victoria 3145, Australia.

Abstract: To manage the manufacturing function and systems effectively, a detailed knowledge of technology hardware is not sufficient. Production managers must understand the business as a whole, and general managers must know enough about the production system to be able to take a strategic view of manufacturing and its contribution to business competitiveness. There are many implications associated with suboptimising in this domain or taking a shortsighted (myopic) view. In examining seven commonly observable |manufacturing myopia|, we argue that most of these can be avoided if the manufacturing function systems and managers are positioned and considered as a high status, |strategic| part of the organisation. These issues are of major importance to the competitiveness and wealth of firms and of nations, hence there is value in further researching them, and a problem research agenda is outlined.

Keywords: manufacturing management; manufacturing strategy; manufacturing myopia.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTM.1993.025770

International Journal of Technology Management, 1993 Vol.8 No.3/4/5, pp.216 - 229

Published online: 24 May 2009 *

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