A study on the relations of competitive priorities in international manufacturing enterprises

This paper explores the relations of competitive priorities in global small, medium, and large-scale manufacturing enterprises based on the competitive priorities theory of the manufacturing strategy. This paper analyzes the six competitive priorities (quality, delivery, cost, flexibility, innovation and service) in the manufacturing enterprises with the data collected from the International Manufacturing Strategy Survey (IMSS). Using the correlation analysis and mean-variance analysis, this study concludes that: in small, medium, and large-scale manufacturing enterprises, the competitive priorities show certain integrated relations with each other. With the scale becoming larger, the Trade-off relation in the integrated relation becomes subordinate relation while the cumulative relation becomes main relation in the integrated relations. With this conclusion, the different-scale manufacturing enterprises can construct competitive advantages more scientifically.