The relationships between operations strategies and operations activities in service context

Purpose - The present study aims to empirically explore the relationships between selected operations strategies and the associated operations activities. Specifically, for service firms targeting specific competitive priorities, it examines the extent to which there are significant differences in the relationships between these priorities and the operations activities among high- versus low-performing firms. Design/methodology/approach - The empirical data for this study were drawn from 190 managers of the Australian service organisations whose primary responsibilities were related to the daily operations of the firms. The targeted service organisations encompassed various sectors including transportation, communication, banking, insurance, health care, education, wholesale, retail, and professional services. Findings - The results show that high-performing firms have stronger relationships between their operations strategies and operations activities than low-performing firms. The results also reveal how different operations strategies need to be deployed into different operations activities. Research limitations/implications - The design of this study was exploratory in nature, and therefore, can be improved in terms of the robustness of the scales and observations. Also, the cross-sectional design of the study could not capture potential unique characteristics of some service sectors that affect the examined relationships. Practical implications - These findings suggest the importance of implementing operations activities in the firm's strategic directions. As firms decide how they choose to strategically position their operating systems, they in turn need to decide how to best focus their resources on operational elements that support these goals. Originality/value - From the authors' best knowledge, this is the first study which examines the link between operations strategies and operations activities in service firms.