Joint Development of Operational Control and Learning Is Associated with Competitive Advantage in Export Manufacturing SMEs

Manufacturing firms must maintain reliable operations while adapting to changing technologies, markets, and customer requirements. This study examines how operational control and learning capabilities jointly relate to firm performance in export-oriented manufacturing SMEs. Survey data from 131 Korean export manufacturing SMEs were analyzed using polynomial regression and response surface analysis, with percentile bootstrap confidence intervals based on 10,000 replications. Competitive advantage increased significantly as control and learning rose jointly, indicating a robust positive combined-magnitude pattern. By contrast, directional imbalance between the two capabilities was not reliably associated with competitive advantage, although pronounced imbalance was uncommon in the sample and therefore remains weakly identified. Nested model comparisons further showed that environmental uncertainty shifted the overall level of performance but did not significantly alter the shape of the control–learning response surface. The same level-versus-shape pattern was observed when innovation performance was used as an alternative outcome. These findings suggest that the joint development of operational control and learning is consistently associated with stronger performance, whereas the performance implications of relative imbalance require further investigation.