Breaking the outsourcing path: Backsourcing process and outsourcing lock-in

The objective of this paper is to develop research on backsourcing, which consists in recalling outsourced activities back in-house. We focus on the processes that firms follow to backsource these activities, particularly when they are locked into outsourcing. We refer to path dependence and path creation concepts to conduct this research. Using a case study methodology, we analyze the process related to the backsourcing of information technology activities in a telecommunications company. This paper highlights the negative effects of the need to control outsourced activities as it maintains outsourcing lock-in. Organizational crises and the perception of backsourcing as a success are two elements that enable significant mindful deviations from outsourcing practices and the development of a backsourcing path. The decision to backsource and its implementation can be facilitated by past successful integration experiences, internal productive capabilities, and capabilities to control activities. Changes in power relations within the firm can sustain the development of a backsourcing path. Our research contributes to research on organizational path breaking by studying the backsourcing process as an outsourcing path breaker. This paper complements studies on organizational practices such as outsourcing and backsourcing and their interplay.     

Supply chain outsourcing under exchange rate risk and competition

This paper studies the impacts of foreign exchange risk and competition intensity on supply chain companies who are involved in offshore-outsourcing activities. In particular, we develop a variational inequality model that considers firms' decision-making regarding pricing, offshore outsourcing, transportation, and in-house production under competition and foreign exchange uncertainty. We also use a series of simulation examples to answer questions regarding outsourcing and pricing strategies of supply chain firms with different risk attitudes, and explore numerically their associated profits and incurred risks.     

Logistics and procurement outsourcing in the healthcare sector: A comparative analysis

As outsourcing ventures become more complex, opportunities for synergies and efficiencies increase, but also create longer and more fragmented supply chains which could have disastrous consequences, particularly in a healthcare context. This study investigates the implications of outsourcing on healthcare supply chains by comparing two alternatives: outsourcing from public-to-private and outsourcing from public-to-public. A conceptual framework, adapted from previous literature, has been employed to provide a comprehensive overview of the phenomenon and consider the implications of logistics and procurement outsourcing on the healthcare supply chain structure and performance. The study presents a European cross-country comparison, analysing both the National Health Service (NHS) outsourcing in England (public-to-private outsourcing) and the Regional Health Service (RHS) outsourcing in the Tuscany region (Italy) (public-to-public outsourcing). Specificities and commonalities of the two outsourcing experiences provide suggestions for managers and policy-makers and enhance the current knowledge of outsourcing in the public healthcare sector.     

In-house capability and supply chain decisions

This study considers an internal production option for a contractor and analyzes its effect on the supply chain decisions when the contractor has innovated and the subcontractor has an incentive for opportunistic behavior. In contrast to the single disclosure threshold in the benchmark scenario where the contractor lacks in-house capability, we find two thresholds in the referred scenario. When information misappropriation is possible and the contractor has in-house capability, the contractor will organize a coordinated supply chain only when innovations fall between the two thresholds. Compared to the benchmark scenario, in-house capability has a positive effect on the contractor's incentive to innovate and an ambiguous effect on the subcontractor's incentive to invest in the production process. When the contractor needs to incur an extra cost to build in-house capability, the contractor keeps the same levels of investment compared to the case of no additional in-house capability cost, whereas the subcontractor increases the levels of investment. Furthermore, we find that in the presence of potential misappropriation on the part of the subcontractor, the higher the level of in-house capability, the less likely the contractor will be to outsource innovative products that generate higher profitability. This study can explain why firms strategically outsource low-end products and produce high-end products themselves. This study provides new results on the effects of in-house capability on the strategic interactions of parties in supply chains and, hence, on supply chain efficiency.     

The integrator’s new advantage – The reassessment of outsourcing and production competence in a global telecom firm

For a long time, the telecom equipment industry has been at the forefront of outsourcing and relocating production operations to contract manufacturing firms located in Asia and Eastern Europe. Recently, however, leading firms have begun to revise this strategy, based on their recognition of the continual importance of technological leadership and integration capabilities. Using a case study of a key company, this paper explores the dynamics of outsourcing and production strategies in the telecom equipment industry. One of the central aspects under study is the interaction of product development with industrialisation and production. The paper analyses issues such as component standardisation versus differentiation and technological integration, the value of deep integration capabilities for cost reductions, and why production competence and the rapid industrialisation of products incorporating new technologies have acquired renewed importance, despite the global trend towards lowest-cost locations.     

所有权与控制权分离问题再探讨--兼论我国国有资产管理体制改革的相关问题

本文从伯利和米恩斯提出的两权分离的命题出发,探讨了所有权与控制权产生分离的原因、控制权的本质以及所有权与控制权的整合方式,并将其应用到我国国有资产管理体制改革的研究中,提出了相关的政策建议.     

Building information modelling in construction: insights from collaboration and change management perspectives

A case study is used to obtain the experiences from a contractor and their subcontractors involved with constructing the landmark Perth Stadium, which required a building information model (BIM) to be delivered for the purpose of asset management. Insights about ‘how’ the adoption of a BIM influenced the practice of collaboration and change management within the project are obtained. It was revealed that having limited experience and knowledge to deliver a model for asset management often resulted the project team ‘muddling through a problem’. This was not necessarily due to a shortage of training, but a lack of BIM knowledge, which inadvertently influenced every day practice. The research presented builds on the extant body of works that have examined how the construction industry can effectively acquire the benefits of BIM for asset management. It also highlights the need to incorporate education and learning into a project’s BIM implementation strategy.     

Group Buying,Buyer Heterogeneity,and Sellers' Bargaining Power*

Group buying enables collective bargaining opportunity that individual buyers lack to negotiate prices with sellers. This potential negotiation capability has two opposing effects. On the one hand, the prospect of the group being able to negotiate price with its rival forces each seller to lower its price offer, as too high a price will induce the group to give its rival an opportunity to undercut its price via negotiation, likely taking away all the buyers. On the other hand, the potential negotiation opportunity may also discourage sellers from competing aggressively in their price offers, as the benefit of charging a low price could be offset by competitors in negotiation, thus yielding overall higher prices for the buyers. In this study, we find that compared to individual purchase, buyers benefit from collective bargaining opportunity by group buying only if sellers’ bargaining power relative to the buyer group is low and/or buyers’ preferences toward the sellers are sufficiently differentiated. Given buyers’ strategic choice of group purchase, sellers may be worse off with a further increase in bargaining power, and so may social welfare.     

网络治理的权力基础:一个跨案例研究

网络组织是当前经济活动中的普遍现象,网络治理并非信任基础上的自主治理,而是受组织间权力关系的规制,权力是决定网络组织运行的重要关系并影响了网络组织运行绩效.本文通过一个跨案例研究,分析了网络治理的权力基础,提出组织间权力来源于企业资源、结构位势和制度压力.三种权力基础的作用机理不同,其中企业资源和网络中心性显著地表现为个体层面的权力,而网络密度和制度压力则体现为网络层面的权力,个体层面权力与网络层面权力的相互作用导致网络组织呈现不同的演变趋势.     

知识的分布与组织结构的变革

传统观念认为企业采用什么样的组织形态主要由企业所在的环境决定。本文从韦伯、西蒙等人的理论出发,认为组织设计的一个关键问题是保持知识与权力的匹配。按照知识与权力匹配的理论,组织是集权还是分权,主要由知识在企业中的分布决定。而知识在组织中的分布取决于所在的行业、企业规模等几个方面的因素。文章最后从历史演变的角度,分析了组织中知识的分布所引起的组织变革。     

渠道权力理论与国外品牌服装在我国的营销渠道

本文利用渠道权力理论研究了国外品牌服装在我国营销渠道中零售商和供应商的关系。运用结构方程模型分析了供应商拥有的权力、零售商所感受到的供应商的影响力、二者在合作中的冲突、零售商对供应商的态度以及满意程度这几个因素之间的关系。结果表明,供应商拥有的法律权力是影响零售商的主要原因;供应商具有的专家权力和相关权力正面影响零售商对自己的态度;零售商感觉来自供应商的权力越大,则其与供应商发生冲突的可能性越大;零售商对供应商的态度会影响供应商对其的满意程度,消极的态度会引发冲突。另外,本文发现渠道成员对权力的感受以及其产生的影响与渠道所处的人文、社会和商业背景密切相关。     

A note on supply risk and inventory outsourcing

To fully accommodate the correlations between semiconductor product demands and external information such as the end market trends or regional economy growth, a linear dynamic system is introduced in this paper to improve the forecasting performance in supply chain operations. In conjunction with the generic Gaussian noise assumptions, the proposed state-space model leads to an expectation-maximisation (EM) algorithm to estimate model parameters and predict production demands. When the dimension of external indicators is high, principal component analysis (PCA) is applied to reduce the model order and corresponding computational complexity without loss of substantial statistical information. Experimental study on some real electronic products demonstrates that this forecasting methodology produces more accurate predictions than other conventional approaches, which thereby helps improve the production planning and the quality of semiconductor supply chain management.     

基于海洋博弈的大股东制衡与合谋研究

本文基于海洋博弈模型,对上市公司大股东的合谋及制衡进行研究.研究表明:大股东合谋行为是大股东竞争性内在选择的均衡结果,受到参与合谋的股东数量以及股东性质的影响,投票权越小,包含股东数越少的股东联盟越具有稳定性,部分大股东的合谋行为将会降低其他大股东的控制权收益,但对小股东的影响却是不确定的;同时,大股东的投票权差异越小,小股东的博弈收益越高,说明股权制衡有益于小股东的保护.     

生命周期视角下的股权制衡与企业价值

本文将企业生命周期作为约束条件纳入股权制衡与企业价值的关系分析。在划分上市公司企业生命周期和最终控制人性质的基础上,匹配2004-2006年符合股权制衡与一股独大条件的对应样本,考察股权制衡和一股独大的股权安排模式与企业价值的关系。研究发现,处于成熟期时,股权制衡的上市公司企业价值显著高于一股独大的上市公司企业价值。由于未获得成熟期的民营企业样本,因此成熟期最终控制人性质对企业价值的影响差异无法验证。处于成长期时,一股独大的上市公司企业价值均值高于股权制衡的上市公司企业价值,但在统计上并不显著。而且在成长期最终控制人性质并未显著影响制衡与否与企业价值的关系。     

Shared Services Transformation: Conceptualization and Valuation from the Perspective of Real Options

In today's volatile global economy, where many organizations face severe pressure to downsize, the “shared services” model, in which a firm merges common functions performed by multiple units into a single service delivery organization, provides an innovative approach to make business more efficient and effective. To successfully implement shared services, firms need to strategically decide whether and how to pursue various service transformation alternatives such as simplification, standardization, consolidation, insourcing, or outsourcing. In this study, we develop the notion of real options into a unique theoretical lens for conceptualizing service organizations and their transformation in an uncertain business environment. Specifically, we view service organization as a set of strategic options that give the firm preferential access to future transformation opportunities. We create a taxonomy of these options, and introduce a decision methodology for valuing alternative shared services transformation approaches. We illustrate this methodology by applying it in a real business case to justify a global firm's decision regarding the transformation of its finance organization.     

Power imbalance and value creation in joint ventures

Joint ventures (JVs) often do not create expected value due to power imbalance between partners. Despite the fact that JV partners are embedded in relational constraints, prior research has largely relied on economic reasoning by focusing on equity ownership difference between JV partners as the main source of power imbalance. We extend prior research to also consider important relational factors represented by repeated ties between partners and network openness, as well as institutional status difference and network status difference as two additional dimensions of power imbalance. Our findings indicate that ownership power imbalance by itself does not have a significant effect on value creation. However, value creation is facilitated when there is ownership power imbalance between partners with more repeated ties. In contrast, value creation may be hindered when JV partners with unequal ownership are embedded in more open interfirm alliance networks. Furthermore, value creation is facilitated if JV partners that have unequal ownership also have network status power imbalance in the same direction.     

Coordinating pricing and production decisions for multiple products

We consider a dynamic problem of joint pricing and production decisions for a profit-maximizing firm that produces multiple products. We model the problem as a mixed integer nonlinear program, incorporating capacity constraints, setup costs, and dynamic demand. We assume demand functions to be convex, continuous, differentiable, and strictly decreasing in price. We present a solution approach which is more general than previous approaches that require the assumption of a specific demand function. Using real-world data from a manufacturer, we study problem instances for different demand scenarios and capacities and solve for optimal prices and production plans. We present analytical results that provide managerial insights on how the optimal prices change for different production plans and capacities. We extend some of the earlier works that consider single product problems to the case of multiple products and time variant production capacities. We also benchmark performance of proposed algorithm with a commercial solver and show that it outperforms the solver both in terms of solution quality and computational times.     

中国A、B、H股市间尾部相依性的趋势研究——基于多机制平滑转换混合Copula模型的实证分析

尾部相依性与金融市场间的风险紧密相联系,鉴于传统研究方法存在低估或高估市场间相依性的可能,提出了多机制平滑转换混合Copula模型,从极值风险视角出发考察了中国A、B、H股票市场间尾部相依性的长期变化趋势,发现不同股市的尾部相依性呈现不同运动趋势,而且左右尾部相依性存在明显的非对称性和结构性变化,其非对称程度、相依性强度以及结构变化的时间、位置和速度都存在一定差异.几次重大事件如1997年亚洲金融危机、2001年B股对境内开放、2002年引入QFII、2005年的股权分置改革、2006年引入QDII以及2007年的次贷危机对股市间尾部相依性产生的影响程度是不一样的.     

高科技企业的权力结构、权力博弈与治理效率

人力资本价值对高科技企业的发展至关重要,而人力资本团队价值进一步增加了高科技企业人力资本的权力竞争力,导致高科技企业权力结构与一般企业有所不同。高科技企业的权力结构与企业生命类型有关,对应于不同生命类型,高科技企业的权力结构不同,进而治理结构和治理形式也不同。提高企业的治理效率就必须根据企业自身生命特征有针对性地制定治理策略,只有这样才能提高企业的治理效率。