Beyond constructs and linkages : a grounded model of the manufacturing strategy formation process

![CDATA[The existing models of manufacturing strategy (MS) process are presented in such aggregated forms that they render little support towards advancing the process understanding beyond identifying categories, concepts, broad constructs, and their macro level linkages. This paper presents an alternative process model of MS developed based on the “grounded theory” approach. The study captured the consistent patterns of organizational decision-making in order to reconstruct the MS process as a “developmental event sequence”. The goal was to determine how strategic manufacturing decisions are made and why they are made in such a manner. “Within-case” patterns of strategy formation in all five cases suggested that the MS process takes rather a non-linear path, but progresses across four distinct phases, namely initiation-consolidation-commitment-realization. Further, within each phase, multiple modes of progression were discerned. The three modes of strategy initiation: forced, opportunistic, evolutionary, and the likely routes they follow are largely determined by the stimuli of initiation and the influence of contextual factors. The distinctions between the formal top-down planning approach and the alternative approaches to strategy formation as well as the effects of contextual factors on the MS process can be plausibly explained using this model. Further, it was found to be useful in better understanding a number of MS process related phenomena that had not been adequately explained in previous research. From the practitioners’ point of view, the process model developed through the study will help organizations to identify and better manage the alternative forms of strategy formation, including deploying appropriate communication and strategy dissemination mechanisms, performance measures etc. On the scholarly front, deeper understanding of the MS process gained through this study will certainly help advance theory building in the area with the added significance that this study has successfully shifted the level of analysis across analytical boundaries.]]