Pan-Pacific Conference XXXIV. Designing New Business Models in Developing Economies

II.
LITERATURE REVIEW
The role of labour intensive business operations on
employment creation cannot be underestimated.
Cooperatives are the types of business that offer
opportunities to large numbers of people, currently
250 million people receive income directly and
indirectly through cooperative [7]. The success of
cooperatives relies on infrastructure and in order to
reduce the facilities location problems assistance in
form of constructing industrial parks is essential [8].
Certain business types, such as those in science and
technology as well as the enterprise focusing on
innovation they often attract business incubators.
Business incubators are organizations aimed at
providing infrastructure and resources towards
supporting small enterprises [9]. On the same
agenda of incubators towards supporting SMEs,
there are University linked incubators. Which also
address the need for infrastructure for selected small
businesses towards the commercialization of their
products and/or services [10]. In addition to
business incubators as alternative business shelter
for operations at start-up, Home Based Businesses
(HBBs) are also predominant for smaller enterprises
[11]. Production facility decision making methods
include multiple objective criteria decision making
model, PROMETHEE, AHP (Analytical Hierarchy
Process) and FLSP (Facility Location Selection
Process) [12][25]. In considering such models, an
enterprise with space demanding operations
considers factors such as the rental rates, physical
location, electricity tariffs, labour, building/facilities
and funding [13]. Rental rates refer to the cost
payable by the enterprise which accepted the offer
to use a particular space or facilities, small sewing
cooperatives can encounter the problem of
producing efficiently in capacity constrained
production facilities [14]. The geographical site on
which the enterprise is located plays a key role on a
number of areas such as proximity to markets,
resources and the quality of life in the chosen area
of location depending on the type of production,
benefit and cost analysis. Its impact on the
surrounding community on enterprise may select its
product facilities [15]. Small sewing cooperatives,
dependent on an income from school uniform packs,
corporate clothing and others from local business,
use sewing embroidery, ironing and over locking
machines powered by electricity which increases
annually by a certain percentage and this tends to
increase, does also impact on the production output
cost, therefore an arrangement has to be made by
any enterprise on energy utilities with the distributor
in their home country [16]. In cooperative, the
members also provide labour, which makes the
labour climate more favorable as there are less
challenges associated with employer-employee
relationship [17]. The physical building conditions
of a manufacturer are important to keep safe the raw
materials, prevent damage and provide adequate
shelter or a home to operations, employees and
clients, which makes it important to finance [18].
The above literature explains the conceptual
framework which follows in this section. The role
of production facilities is essential for continuous
process improvements as the processes of a
manufacturer whether small or large are housed by
production facilities [19]. In the light of crime
directed to small businesses, proper and safe
business facilities are key to enhance operational
performance [20]. A problem of the lack of
adequate production facilities due to cost of leasing
still has a negative impact on the operational
performance of sewing cooperatives. The research
question of this study is:
Which cost efficient production facility strategies
can enhance operational performance of sewing
cooperatives?
The following section is the research methodology
that is the research methodology that was employed
in this study, in line with attempting to answer the
above research question and to reflect the research
objectives of this study.
III. METHODOLOGY
In this paper, we use a quantitative research method
in response to the research objective and question as
well as supporting the conceptual framework which
was proposed in the literature section. A pilot
administration of questionnaires was done with 5
accessible funded sewing cooperatives, after
establishing the language barrier, adjustments were
made and language was simplified on the
questionnaire surveys. The questionnaire had a
Likert scale of 1 – 5.This study only focused on
funded sewing cooperatives as provided from the
database of the Department of Social Development.
The production facilities location framework is has
5 independent variables, operational performance as
a moderating variable and business performance as
the
Figure: 1 Theoretical-Conceptual Framework
Location
Rental
Rates
Electricity
Costs
Employmen
t
Green
Buildings
Funding
Operation
al
Performan
ce
Business
Performanc
e
dependent variable. The independent variables are
rental rates, electricity tariffs, employment [24],
green buildings and funding. A total census of 83
funded sewing cooperatives took part in this study.
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