The relationships among selected business environment factors and manufacturing strategy: insights from an emerging economy

Manufacturing strategy represents the way a -rm plans to deploy its manufacturing resources and to use its manufacturing capability to achieve its goals. Recent research has pointed out the important role of the business environment on the manufacturing strategy choices by organizations. However, most of the research has been con-ned to well-developed economies. This paper extends the research on business environment and manufacturing strategy by presenting results from an emerging economy. Using data collected from manufacturing -rms in Ghana we demonstrate that in an emerging economy concerns about the competitive hostility is the factor with the strongest in3uence on manufacturing strategy choice. ? 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.