Competitiveness by design and inimitability through service: understanding the dynamics of firm-based competition in the West Midlands jewellery and lock industries
Manufacturing firms located in high-cost production locations have developed a series of complex inimitability strategies in response to intensive competition from low-cost producers. This paper draws upon the resource-based view of the firm to explore inimitability, as a strategy firms deploy in response to imitation. The analysis is based upon in-depth interviews with lock, jewellery and whistle manufacturers located in the West Midlands, UK. Many of these firms have been transformed into niche manufacturers whose competitiveness is based around a process of customisation through a co-production relationship with customers, the delivery of service experiences and a continual process of design-intensive innovation.
Year of publication: |
2009
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Authors: | Bryson, John R. ; Taylor, Michael |
Published in: |
The Service Industries Journal. - Taylor & Francis Journals, ISSN 0264-2069. - Vol. 30.2009, 4, p. 583-596
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Publisher: |
Taylor & Francis Journals |
Saved in:
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