Contingency factors and complementary effects of adopting advanced manufacturing tools and managerial practices: Effects on organizational measurement systems and firms’ performance

Anchoring its theoretical background in the concepts of contingency and complementary effects, while simultaneously answering calls for the improved integration of organizational theories and operations management, this work argues that contingency factors are antecedents for the adoption of advanced manufacturing tools (AMT) and managerial practices (AMP), as well as influencing the use of measurement systems in organizations, which has implications for firms’ performance. Original data from a sample of over 200 Italian manufacturing firms provides the empirical basis for testing the research framework based on numerous hypotheses. A combination of anticipated and unexpected findings emerged: (i) overall, contingency factors (mainly organizational decentralization and environmental uncertainty) play an important role in the combined adoption of AMT and AMP, which in turn shape the measurement systems adopted by organizations; (ii) although both financial and non-financial measures were relevant for organizations overall, quality management-related practices were shown to play a central role in organizational competitiveness; (iii) unexpectedly, the correlation between organizational strategy and the adoption of AMT and AMP was not as strong as hypothesized a priori, and therefore deserves future investigation, constituting an important implication for future research.