The application of postponement in industry

It has been well documented that the growing importance of postponement is significantly driven by the current business environment. However, there has been an absence of empirical research supporting this implication. Therefore, a questionnaire survey was conducted (by way of both post and e-mail) with a random sample of 368 British manufacturing companies across four industrial sectors to investigate the implementation of postponement. A total of 76 usable responses were received giving an overall response rate of 20.7%. After presenting research questions and hypotheses, this paper first reviews the methods previously used in postponement research, and then presents the research methodology for this research. The results from data analysis indicate that the relationships among the variables (postponement, uncertainty, managerial practices, and company performance) were significant and positive. However, the respondents expected postponement to be less used in three years. Finally, we draw some conclusions, determine limitations of our research, and make some suggestions for further research.