The impacts of structural and infrastructural elements to service operations flexibility: The influence of technology

This study investigates the impacts of structural and infrastructural elements and service operations flexibility, particularly the influence of technology. Structural elements decisions are grouped as capacity, location, integration/networking, and technology while infrastructural elements decisions consists worker empowerment, quality leadership, and team management. Service operations flexibility is divided into internal robustness and external flexibility. A large scale survey that involved 9 service industries divided into high-low customer contact groups was conducted with the total of 254 valid responses. The relationships are tested using multiple regression analysis. All independent variables are found to be significantly influencing the two dimensions of operations flexibility with some interesting difference in the degree of standardized beta coefficients. Technology is found to be the prime factor that affects both types of flexibility. We discuss the findings and suggest implications to theory and practices.