Three Essays on Mass Customization

Mass customization (MC) has been considered an important competitive weapon of manufacturers all over the world. Many successful companies adopt it to deal with growing competition characterized by heterogeneous customer demands, accelerated new product development, and shortened product life cycles. Currently, MC has become an imperative in business competition and an important topic for researchers in many disciplines. This dissertation covers three issues about MC: 1) the impact of competitive strategies on MC practices; 2) the effects of SCI on MC capability; and 3) the roles of service and customer value co-creation in developing MC offerings.;Essay 1 examines how competitive strategies influence MC practices and how MC practices influence financial performance. A model is proposed to link both cost leadership and differentiation strategies with the coordinated implementation of MC practices of elicitation, process flexibility, and logistics, and finally, with the financial performance of the firm. The model is tested using data collected from mass customizers in China. Simultaneous equation modeling and hierarchical regression analyses are used to test the hypotheses embedded in the research model. The results reveal that both cost leadership and differentiation strategies have significant impact on MC practices. Moreover, the results indicate that a successful MC implementation requires that mass customizers use elicitation, process flexibility, and logistics in complement. Firms that can successfully implement all three MC practices tend to have better financial performance.;Essay 2 examines the relationships between supply chain integration (SCI) and MC capabilities. Based on data collected from 292 manufacturing firms located in different countries, the results show that both internal and customer integration contribute positively to MC capability. Positive interaction effects on MC capability are also found between internal and customer integration, and between internal and supplier integration. The results suggest that supplier integration play only a complementary role, supporting internal integration in the development of MC capabilities. Overall, the findings demonstrate the pivotal role of internal integration in supply chain integration. Though current research tends to view SCI as "outward-facing" integration, our results suggest that manufacturing finns should pursue internal integration as the foundation for successful MC.;Essay 3 investigates the roles of service and customer value co-creation in developing MC offerings. Using exploratory case study and grounded theory building, we analyze six Chinese manufacturers in the Pearl River Delta. According to the arguments of service-dominant logic (SDL), the two types of MC offerings (product-centric MC and solution-centric MC) are service provided by manufacturer (fundamental service and resource integration service), and customer value co-creation (information and knowledge exchange and integrated design and manufacturing). Using the configurational approach, we investigate the theoretical typologies among MC offerings, service, and value co-creation. The results suggest that an internal fit exists among the three elements, and the configuration needs to fit with the supply chain capability and task characteristics.