A Multi-country comparison of quality practices, priorities and performance in indigenous and foreign firms

This paper examines manufacturing strategies as determinant of firm competitiveness by comparing indigenous and foreign firms from a survey administered across seventeen countries. Manufacturing strategies are mainly examined in relation to quality by assessing quality priorities, quality practices and quality performance. Drawing on the data from the third iteration of the International Manufacturing Strategy Survey (IMSS), quality priorities, practices and performances are compared across seventeen countries and across industrial sub-sectors (ISIC, rev. 2, Division 38). They are also compared by type of manufacturing operations such as process type (fabrication/assembly mix) and by type of customer orders (designed/engineered, manufactured, procured or assembled to order, produced to stock) as well as by process layout (job shop, cellular layout or dedicated lines) and by their positioning on the value chain in relation to the type of customer they serve (component manufacturers, product assemblers, distributors, end-users). Indigenous firms are shown to be less competitive than foreign firms in terms of their manufacturing strategies despite evidence of both differences and similarities across quality priorities, practices and performance.