Title: Market knowledge impacts on performances through front end process: empirical evidence from manufacturing plants across countries

Authors: Anh Ngoc Duong; Anh Chi Phan; Ryuichi Nakamoto; Ha Thu Nguyen; Yoshiki Matsui

Addresses: Graduate School of Economics, Kyushu University, Japan ' School of Business Administration, University of Economics and Business, Vietnam National University Hanoi, Vietnam ' Graduate School of Economics, Kyushu University, Japan ' School of Business Administration, University of Economics and Business, Vietnam National University Hanoi, Vietnam ' Faculty of Liberal Arts, The Open University of Japan, Japan

Abstract: This study investigates how manufacturing plants explore market knowledge to enhance their competitive position in global competition, particularly the impact of customer knowledge and supplier knowledge on organisational performance via the front end (FE) process. This study applies structural equation modelling to analyse databases collected from 2013 to 2016 in 220 manufacturing plants across 13 countries in the High Performance Manufacturing (HPM) Project Round 4 framework. Empirical evidence supports that the FE process would act as a mediator from input, customer or supplier market knowledge to output, organisational performance (including the success of new product development (NPD), quality, and customer satisfaction). Notably, customer market knowledge and supplier market knowledge play the primary source in the FE process in Western and Eastern countries. Empirical evidence suggests that manufacturing managers should consider customer and supplier market knowledge to enhance NPD success, quality, and customer satisfaction. Future research might explore the integration of customer and supplier market knowledge or the impact of improvements in IT technology on the FE process.

Keywords: market knowledge; customer market knowledge; supplier market knowledge; front end process; new product development; NPD; quality; customer satisfaction.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPQM.2024.137888

International Journal of Productivity and Quality Management, 2024 Vol.41 No.4, pp.461 - 483

Received: 04 Apr 2022
Accepted: 23 Apr 2022
Published online: 08 Apr 2024 *

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