Unfocused factories as outcome of deliberate strategic management decisions

Whilst focus is widely accepted as leading to superior performance, little is known about why factories exist that are not focused. This paper aims at improving our understanding of this phenomenon based on a single case study research design. Specifically, we investigate the motivation behind strategic decision making that leads to unfocused factories. The reasoning behind such decisions is concerned not only with site-level performance but also takes firm-level outcomes into account. Our research makes propositions about unfocused factories and thus contributes to the factory focus literature and might point into the direction of a new research path.