Introduction Introduction This thesis will be about Mass Customization that uses online information systems to enable the cooperative interaction between a customer and a producer in the design and production of a customized good. More specifically, the research question that will be addressed is: What is the influence of the two product characteristics of a product’s 1) primary value appeal and 2) the (early stage) possibility to evaluate this value prior to customization on the link between a consumer’s self-assessed levels of his own ability and motivation to use online MC on its intention to use online mass customization for such products? This chapter gives an overview of the content of this thesis and will try to clarify what it will and won’t cover. Therefore, an impression of the main concepts used (section 1.2 and 1.3), the scope in which they will be used (section 1.5) and the pros and cons of the new approach that Mass Customization brings over the status quo of traditional mass production (section 1.4) is given first. Secondly, the research objectives will be stated (section 1.6), which is followed by the formulation of the research questions (section 1.7). This will be concluded with an outline (section 1.8) of what will follow in the remainder of the thesis. First, it is interesting to pose the question where Mass Customization came from and how it evolved? The advent of Mass Customization can be traced back to Toffler’s book ‘Future Shock’ . However, the first one that gave the concept its name was Davis . Later, the term was popularized by Joseph Pine II . But nowadays the concept of Mass Customization and its related concepts can even be seen as a paradigm shift from the way business was usually done (Aijo, 1996, p. 16; Kotha, 1995; Hart C. W., 1996, p. 12; Tseng & Jiao, 1996; Tseng & Jiao, 2001; Wind & Rangaswamy, 2001, pp. 9, 33; Sawhney, 2002). Hence, the concept of Mass Customization stands in sharp contrast to the traditional practice and its ultimate
A further characteristic of MC that can be derived from the various definitions in Table 1, is the order and place in the production process of the two different capabilities that were just described. Pine et al. refers to the practice that in MC the actual manufacturing of the product takes place in response to a particular elicitation of a customer’s needs. This implies two things. The first is that in the sequence of operations the production, of the end product and not necessarily of its intermediate modular components, will follow the elicitation process in order. And secondly, the production will be dependent on the preceding elicitation of a particular individual customer’s need that serves as an direct input for the products exact specification during the production phase. This notion was also present in Duray & Milligan where they state that “the products are uniquely produced for each customer which requires that the customer be involved in product design at some point”, which thus combines both sequence and dependence. Also, Von Hippel emphasized this order when he said that the collection of unique customer information is followed by “the use of that information to create a customized design; and conversion of the design into a form suitable for driving a given manufacturer’s computerized production machinery or service delivery system”. In conclusion, the definition that will be used is a combination of the goal or value of MC, it’s two distinct critical capabilities and the sequence of these two in the production process for a particular product for an individual and specific customer. Therefore, in the remainder of this thesis the following description of MC will be used: Mass Customization is the delivery of superior customer value through the better adaptation of a products features to the heterogeneous needs of a customer compared to standard mass produced ones made possible by 1) the application of new technology and management methods that enables a modular product architecture through which flexible and stable processes, quick responsiveness and economies of scale can be achieved that allows for a price level that is comparable – and often better – to those of mass produced alternatives and does not imply a switch in an upper market segment, and which is preceded and based on 2) the elicitation of information on the unique needs of a particular customer through a process of co-creation by some form of customer-company interaction that might result in an integration of the customer in the value creation process of the manufacturer and a possible learning
questionnaire. At the end of the page respondents were asked if they had any prior experience with MC and how much if applicable. The subsequent page displayed the actual first scenario, with the first part of the questions that accompanied it. The hypothetical consumption situation was specified by means of a text, which was followed by the pop-up advertisement for the specific product in that scenario. It also depicted the hypothetical website that would contain the MC’s system of interaction. After having asked the respondents to have a careful look at the ad, they were face with a the actual questions that were presented in 5 groups of seven point Likert-scales. As followed from Section 5.3 describing the measurement of the included variables, the original items were prepared in English (as was evident from Table 3). This allowed to use original and verified scales most of whom were already frequently used in previous research. Sometimes these measures were adapted to fit the specific purposes of this study, however they still resembled the original scales. Subsequently these original questionnaire items were translated in Dutch to enable the collection of data from respondents in the Dutch population that feel not acquainted enough to complete the English version (See Appendix D). Because of the sensitivity of language in the interpretation of question, some people were asked to verify if the translations still corresponded to the original items in English to achieve maximum accuracy in translation. Obviously, it was necessary to sometimes shift the sequence in a translated sentence and generally this was done to improve clarity and smoothness of the statements and increase the overall readability. This would have the advantage of lower respondent drop-out and refusal to participate. But it was only done if it didn’t compromise the likely interpretation of the original English items. Secondly, because the English ‘mass customized’ [product], ‘mass customization’, ‘mass customizing’ and ‘use of an OMCS’ was more easily translated in the Dutch words ‘personalisatie’, ‘personaliseren’ and ‘gepersonaliseerd’, these were used instead. The Sample Another factor that was important for the accuracy and reliability of the information gathered, was how exactly the collection of data was conducted. And above all, linked to this question and equally important, was the question among which people it was collected, i.e.
PC_3 ,769 PC_4 ,441 PC_5 ,773 PSE_1 ,617 PSE_2 ,543 PSE_4 ,808 PSE_5 ,608 PVA_1 -,574 PVA_2 ,597 PVA_3 ,406 PVA_4 -,534 PVA_5 -,816 PVA_6 -,705 PVA_7 ,678 PVA_8 -,525 PVA_9 ,702 PTE_1 ,653 PTE_2 ,880 PTE_3 ,905 Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis. Rotation Method: Oblimin with Kaiser Normalization. a. Rotation converged in 22 iterations. Pattern Matrix Promax Component 1 2 3 4 5 6 PM_1 ,935 PM_2 ,530 ,414 PM_3 ,820 PM_4 ,842 PM_5 ,881 PM_6 ,800 PC_1 ,513 PC_2 ,422 PC_3 ,828 PC_4 ,439 PC_5 ,856 PSE_1 ,626 PSE_2 ,524 PSE_4 ,894 PSE_5 ,627 PVA_1 ,610 PVA_2 ,690 PVA_3 PVA_4 ,615 PVA_5 ,930 PVA_6 ,763 PVA_7 ,781 PVA_8 ,553 PVA_9 ,776 PTE_1 ,637 PTE_2 ,878 PTE_3 ,901 Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis. Rotation Method: Promax with Kaiser Normalization. a. Rotation converged in iterations. Pattern Matrix (Kaiser’s CriterionA & 2 FactorsB) Pattern Matrix Component 1 2 3 PC_1 ,817 PC_2 ,719 PC_3 ,612 ,594 PC_4 ,700
Scale Mean if Item Deleted Scale Variance if Item Deleted Corrected Item-Total Correlation Cronbach's Alpha if Item Deleted ITU_1 11,20 18,877 ,784 ,835 ITU_2 11,84 21,125 ,704 ,866 ITU_4 12,28 21,082 ,696 ,869 ITU_5 11,46 19,052 ,804 ,827 Perceived Motivation (PM) Reliability Statistics Cronbach's Alpha N of Items ,903 6 Item-Total Statistics Scale Mean if Item Deleted Scale Variance if Item Deleted Corrected Item-Total Correlation Cronbach's Alpha if Item Deleted PM_1 19,48 42,529 ,731 ,887 PM_2 20,50 46,809 ,601 ,904 PM_3 19,74 40,617 ,800 ,876 PM_4 19,67 43,635 ,749 ,884 PM_5 19,95 42,515 ,831 ,872 PM_6 19,45 43,766 ,703 ,891 Reliability Statistics Cronbach's Alpha N of Items ,904 5 Item-Total Statistics Scale Mean if Item Deleted Scale Variance if Item Deleted Corrected Item-Total Correlation Cronbach's Alpha if Item Deleted PM_1 16,22 30,574 ,731 ,890 PM_3 16,47 28,964 ,801 ,874 PM_4 16,41 31,618 ,743 ,887 PM_5 16,69 30,779 ,819 ,872 PM_6 16,19 31,435 ,716 ,893 Perceived Creativity (PC) Reliability Statistics Cronbach's Alpha N of Items ,746 5