School of Management and Information Systems, Faculty of Business and Law, Victoria University, Footscray Park Campus, PO Box 14428, Vic-8001, Melbourne.
*Corresponding author: Tel: +613–9919 4077; Fax: +613–9919 4272; E-mail: Himanshu.shee@vu.edu.au
**Tel: +613–9919 5308; Fax: +613–9919 4272; E-mail: Patrick.Foley@vu.edu.au
***Tel: +613–9919 4489; Fax: +613–9919 4272; E-mail: Bernadine.VanGramberg@vu.edu.au
This paper examines the relationship of a firm's operations capability on the perceived competitiveness of its customer and efficiency performance. Measures of operations capability are developed for this purpose. Three hypotheses that relate operations capability to competitive turbulence and firm competitiveness are tested using data from a sample of Australian SMEs (n = 152). The impact of operations capability on firm competitive perceptions was found to be significant while controlling for firm type variables: SME status, manufacturing focus and competitive turbulence. The perception of competitive turbulence was not related to operations capability development. The paper concludes considering some practices adopted by SMEs, which has been identified here as a strong predictor of firm competitiveness.
firm competitiveness, firm performance, hierarchical analysis, operations capability, small to medium businesses
