Unpacking IT use and integration for mass customisation: a service-dominant logic view

Significant changes in customer demands for individualised offerings are causing firms to move away from mass production strategies toward customisation. Many firms struggle in this migration because the requirements for mass customisation (MC) differ greatly from those needed for mass production. As firms strive to optimise their interactions with customers and suppliers to produce highly customised offerings at near mass production prices, IT use along with customer and supply integration are important organisational competencies. Research studies explore many facets of MC but, in regard to IT use for customer and supplier integration, most focus on specific activities within the product design and development process. This study extends the IT-enabled organisational capabilities line of research, using data collected from 220 manufacturers, to explore IT use in a comprehensive sense for planning, infrastructural, and operational activities in various business processes intended to achieve MC. These findings suggest that comprehensive IT use can enhance a firm's integration efforts with customers and suppliers. These factors, in turn, drive operational performance and MC, which lead to firm performance. Grounded in service-dominant logic (SDL) theory, these findings provide theoretical and empirical support to explain why customer integration may be a driving force in MC.