Quality function deployment (QFD) is a management tool that provides a visual connective process to help teams focus on the needs of the customers throughout the total development cycle of a product or process. It provides the means for translating customer needs into appropriate technical requirements for each stage of a product/process-development life-cycle. It helps to develop more customer-oriented, higher-quality products. While the structure provided by QFD can be significantly beneficial, it is not a simple tool to use. This article outlines how techniques such as fuzzy logic, artificial neural networks, and the Taguchi method can be combined with QFD to resolve some of its drawbacks, and proposes a synergy between QFD and the three methods and techniques reviewed.
In this paper, we explore how supply chain theorists can engage with metaphorical imagination to develop supply chain theory. Our main purpose was to provide additional useful guidance on how scholars can approach the method of metaphoric transfer. To do this, we build on previous work on the metaphoric transfer method and develop the Metaphoric Transfer Pathways framework. The framework offers two novel approaches to working with metaphors that will help theorists to best leverage the theorizing potential of metaphors in their work. We also develop a set of evaluation criteria which can help scholars to choose which approach to metaphoric transfer to adopt and to maximize the productivity of metaphors used within their theorizing efforts. Our paper synthesizes the existing literature on metaphorical imagination in a novel way to provide accessible guidance for those looking to work with metaphor and to maximize their contribution toward developing novel supply chain theory.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework to explain the firm growth process based on an integration and extension, through empirical research, of Penrose’s theory of the growth of the firm and the resource-based view. Theoretical development within the firm growth literature has been noticeably limited. Firm growth studies use different theoretical bases and what is needed is integration of multiple theories and empirical testing of these to form a new conceptual framework capable of explaining the modern growth process fully.
Design/methodology/approach
The key perspectives are critically reviewed and integrated and empirical qualitative research is undertaken analysing the process of growth in two firms. Semi-structured interviews, participant observation and analysis of company documentation are utilised.
Findings
The key insight this research provides is detailed information with regard to which resources, mediators and outputs are vital to firm growth, how they need to be developed and why this is the case. The study shows that these act in a cyclical nature to enable firm growth and development.
Practical implications
These findings could be used by practitioners to determine which part of the conceptual framework requires the most amount of improvement and which are developed to an acceptable state, enabling them to make plans for the achievement of growth.
Originality/value
This research is able to reconceptualise two dominant theoretical perspectives resulting in the generation of a new firm growth framework, thereby addressing a distinct gap in the firm growth literature.
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