Investigating the relationship between innovation, organizational agility and organizational competitiveness (a case study of tile and ceramic industry in Yazd province)

Abstract

The process of globalization, the creation of the World Trade Organization and the integration of world markets, rapid and fundamental technological advances, new developments in the field of information technology, increasing rapid changes in consumption and demand patterns, explaining environmental pollution controls and preserving energy resources, lack of resources and their high costs, are the challenges that different companies and industries in the field of trade and economic activities face with they are facing and their continued existence depends on making correct and timely decisions against these changes. In the meantime, the process of globalization and the expansion of consumer markets, as well as the increase in the number of competitors and the intensity of competition, have given importance to concepts such as competitiveness, and on the other hand, the concept of agility has become bold. In the 80s, many famous companies around the world began to use programs that could improve their productivity and quality.

Today, factors such as increasing competition among companies, improving the speed of changes, and the fluctuating state of customer demand have caused the levels and types of demands to change rapidly and keep pace with the globalization of the company. Global competition is also strengthening. This issue clearly shows that product markets have reached sufficient maturity and customers demand products that satisfy their specific needs. Many scientists believe that in order to cover such markets, becoming pure [1] is one of the inevitable and necessary requirements of companies.

Also, one of the prominent and growing industries of Iran is the tile industry, and Iran is growing in the tile industry so far that it is in the category of the largest ceramic tile and ceramic producers in the world, and day by day, this industry is growing significantly in the amount of production and increasing the production capacity. Therefore, in this study, this industry has been investigated in the mentioned fields.

In this research, the relationship between these variables affecting organizational competitiveness has been investigated, and the relationship between agility and agility on competitiveness in the tile and ceramic industry will be investigated, and the intensity of the effect of these components on competitiveness will be obtained, and in order to achieve these goals, exploratory factor analysis using SPSS software and confirmatory factor analysis using software LISREL software is used.

Introduction

The process of globalization, the emergence of the World Trade Organization and the integration of world markets, rapid and fundamental technological advances, new developments in the field of information technology, increasing rapid changes in consumption and demand patterns, explaining environmental pollution controls and energy conservation resources, The lack of resources and their high costs are the challenges that different companies and industries face in the field of trade and economic activities, and their survival depends on making the right and timely decisions against these changes. In the meantime, the process of globalization and the expansion of consumer markets, as well as the increase in the number of competitors and the intensity of competition, have given importance to concepts such as competitiveness, and on the other hand, the concept of agility has become bold. Where waste and mass production waste are eliminated during lean production, in the 80s, many famous companies around the world began to use programs by which they could improve their productivity and quality ((Cua & Colleagues, 2001) (White & Prybutok, 2001) (Mieir & Forrester, 2002). In 1990, Womack[1] and his colleagues from MIT University published A book titled "Lean Production; The Machine That Changed the World" introduces Lean Production to the global community as a combination of Ford's traditional production model and the social control model in the Japanese production environment.In 1990, Womack[1] and his colleagues from MIT published a book entitled "Lean Production"; "The machine that changed the world" lean production was introduced to the world community as a combination of Ford's traditional production model and the social control model in the Japanese production environment (Farokh, 2013) (Mieir & Forrester, 2002).

Today, factors such as increasing competition among companies, improving the speed of changes and the fluctuating state of customer demand have caused the levels and types of demands to change rapidly and keep pace with the globalization of the company. Global competition is also strengthening. This problem shows that the product markets have reached sufficient maturity and customers demand products that satisfy their specific needs (Suzaki, 2000) (Marin & Delgado, 2000) (Porter, 1990) (Bonavia & Marin, 2006). Many scientists believe that to cover such markets, becoming lean [2] is one of the inevitable and necessary requirements of companies (Mieir & Forrester, 2002) (Womack & Colleagues, 1990), (Womack & Jones, 1996), (Krafcik, 1988) (Lee, 1996) (Macduffie, 1995) (Sohal & Egglestone, 1994) (Bonavia & Marin, 2006).

Also, since one of the prominent and growing industries of Iran is the tile industry, and Iran is growing in the tile industry, so that it has been in the category of the world's largest tile and ceramic producers, and due to the daily growth of this industry in terms of production and increase in production capacity, in this study, this industry has been examined in the aforementioned fields.

2.1. The necessity and importance of research

     Every company that competes in an industry has a competitive strategy, either obvious or implicit. The special importance that different companies attach to strategy formulation today shows the belief that there are valuable benefits hidden in the conscious process of strategy formulation. Among the benefits is that choosing a strategy (if it cannot guarantee the activities of the executive departments) at least gives the company managers the assurance that the policies of these departments are coordinated and in line with certain goals. A lot of attention to the matter of strategic planning has highlighted the questions that have been occupying the minds of managers for a long time: What factors promote competition in the industry we operate in or the industries we intend to enter? What will be the possible activity of the competitors and what is the best way to react against their possible actions? How will the progress of our industry be? How can the company be best positioned for long-term competition?

However, in formal strategic planning processes, the emphasis is more on asking questions in an orderly and organized fashion, rather than simply answering them. The techniques often provided by consulting firms to answer these questions, instead of the industry perspective, either focus more on a company with diversified products, or examine only one aspect of that industry's structure, such as cost behavior. In this case, it cannot be expected to achieve all aspects and complexities of competition in that industry through it. One of the prominent and growing industries in Iran is the tile industry, which, according to the issues raised above, needs more investigation and expertise in the field of competitiveness in its dynamic environment and further growth and maintaining current markets and acquiring new markets.

3.1.  Statement of the problem

According to the aforementioned matters in the field of the importance of research and due to the development of tile industry production and increased competition in domestic markets, and the dynamism of the environment, those organizations have the ability to acquire new markets and increase production and ultimately maintain the long-term survival of the organization that are more successful in the field of competitiveness and the correct and timely use of competitiveness strategies, and also keep pace with environmental changes (agility) and in the direction Eliminating frivolities and wastes of mass production (lean production), take an effective step. In this research, the competitiveness of the target industry will be measured according to the dimensions extracted in similar researches, and its relationship with agility and precision will be investigated.

4.1.