Purpose – Ownership change has been an overlooked contingency factor in past plant level practice-performance studies. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of ownership changes to practice-performance dynamics by longitudinally following the same 23 manufacturing sites...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the applicability to the service business of general models used in the manufacturing environment. This is done by applying Ferdows’s model, “the strategic role of the plant”, in two cases. Design/methodology/approach – This study uses...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the possibilities and pitfalls of longitudinal studies in the field of operations management (OM). Design/methodology/approach – A longitudinal study conducted in Finland was analyzed from the methodological point of view. In the theoretical...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the use and effect of benchmarking in manufacturing companies. Design/methodology/approach – A total of 23 companies were interviewed longitudinally in 1993, 2004 and 2010. For the study a standard questionnaire was used, and the questions...