Barriers to the management of international operations

Abstract

AbstractThe purpose of this research was to define and rank key barriers to the effective management of international manufacturing operations. An international panel of experts, composed of practitioners, academics and consultants, was surveyed using a Delphi process to identify the key barriers, to explain the rationale for their selection and to rank them. The highest ranked barrier was general lack of a global view by management. Among the other highly ranked barriers were contemporary managerial issues like manufacturing strategy and managing international factory networks. Some traditional technical concerns like cultural and language differences and managing global logistics were also highly ranked. The responses clustered into two groups with the largest group focusing more heavily on contemporary manufacturing concerns while the other group emphasized more traditional technical topics. The results help establish priorities for developing research agendas, orienting teaching programs and focusing company resources.