Risk management: a competitive advantage in the purchasing function

This paper aims to explore the purchasing function on behalf of the provider, when the purchasing takes the form of a request for proposals (RfP) from the client. A methodology for handling the bidding process is presented, illustrated by a case study from the IT sector. The proposed methodology places risk as a factor for the selection of the best and final offer of the provider in addition to the traditional decision factors: delivery time, product cost and performance. The method is supported by a structured corporate memory and a decision support system based on the analytical hierarchy process.     

Compliance and ethics programs: competitive advantage through the law

This paper aims to address whether deploying compliance and ethics programs will assist US organizations in implementing the internal mechanisms necessary to achieve a competitive advantage from the law. My focus will be on the US legal system, as the corporate compliance and ethics programs examined are based on mitigation provisions contained in the US Federal Sentencing Guidelines. In particular, I propose that organizations can attain a sustainable competitive advantage from the law by considering the following questions: Do compliance and ethics programs assist organizations in achieving a better understanding of the law? Are compliance and ethics programs a cost-effective approach for coping with an organization’s legal issues? Can compliance and ethics programs aid organizations by preventing these legal issues from occurring in the future? Will compliance and ethics programs support organizations in reframing legal issues as business opportunities?     

The role of social and intellectual capital in achieving competitive advantage through enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software merges a firm's data, information flows and business processes into a single package. Vendors argue that ERP provides an extremely useful strategic resource to enhance competitiveness and make it possible for a firm to leverage its other resources more effectively and efficiently. In addition, they allege that ERP encourages a system-wide perspective that is a basis for collaboration and a systems orientation. However, an examination of ERP systems using criteria established in research on resource-based views of the firm and chaos/complexity theory indicates that these claims are overstated. Observation suggests that even if ERP is necessary to coordinate complicated, multifaceted operations, it is far from sufficient to promote a strong competitive position over the long term. Moreover, ERP systems fit best within mechanistic, clockwork organizations dominated by routine, highly programmed technologies and operations, yet it is the non-routine learning and change processes found in complex, self-organizing systems that enable firms to create distinctive competitive advantages from ERP outputs. ERP makes possible deep changes in relationships, culture, and behaviors that can be crucial sources of advantage in the knowledge economy, but the structures and cultures most able to achieve this level of change are a poor fit with ERP requirements. To reconcile this paradox, we propose a dual-core, loosely coupled organization that views ERP as an enabling technology to build and augment social and intellectual capital, rather than as an information technology (IT) solution for organizational inefficiencies. Propositions for using ERP as a foundation for social and intellectual capital formation are introduced. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

日本在华跨国公司竞争地位与竞争优势研究

将国际生产折衷理论应用于跨国公司竞争优势的分析,从专属优势、区位因素、内部化优势的角度,分析日本在华跨国公司取得有利竞争地位的决定因素.基于对230家日本在华投资母公司的应答问卷分析,得出:日本在华跨国公司竞争优势主要来自于专属优势以及部分区位因素,而内部化优势与竞争优势的关系并不显著.     

The keiretsu in Asia: Implications for multilevel theories of competitive advantage

Much of our understanding of competitive advantage draws upon the experience of Western firms. Massive Japanese investment in an effort to replicate keiretsu (interfirm) networks in Asia since the 1980s presents fertile grounds to shed new light on the sources of competitive advantage. Building on such an experience, this article develops a multilevel perspective focusing on how competitive advantage is preserved and strengthened for firms, networks, and nations involved. Its hallmark is careful attention to levels of analysis by (a) spelling out the attendant assumption of homogeneity among keiretsu member firms, (b) explaining the basis of such an assumption, (c) exploring alternative assumptions, and (d) drawing upon diverse subtopics within the strategy literature.     

QoS in the internal supply chain: the next lever of competitive advantage and organisational performance

This article presents a research that examines the relationship of quality of service (QoS) and organisational performance in a manufacturing setting. There are few empirical studies that measure QoS in the manufacturing supply chain. A model linking QoS with organisational performance through intermediate variables of satisfaction, loyalty and competitive advantage is introduced and tested in the internal supply chain of three automotive organisations. The research design for this article includes a combination of literature review, exploratory interviews with scholars and practitioners, and a survey of 156 practitioners in three automotive companies in North India. Structural equation modelling has been used for data analysis. This research comes out with four factor scale for internal service quality and six-factor scale for external service quality. The research revealed that employee-driven QoS is a source of value addition that is positively linked with the organisational performance. This study would be of interest to manufacturing industry practitioners interested in internal and external service quality improvements. Future researchers could validate this scale, and empirically test the proposed model.     

Reference model for collaborative management in the automotive industry

Changes in the competitive environment require corporate restructuring, strengthening the relationship between the participants in a supply chain, implementing inter-organisational collaborative actions. Different strategies for collaborative actions render the subject relevant to researchers and managers. Integration, cooperation and partnership are essential to the success of this restructuring; the practices in this subject will be treated as Collaborative Management. The main objective is to analyse and synthesise the requirements of Collaborative Management in the automotive industry. The multicase study begins with an exploratory study to identify the theoretical elements that involve collaborative activity between companies, followed by a multiple case study in order to analyse the collaborative strategies used by companies. With the data collected a reference model will be produced using the Enterprise Knowledge Development methodology under a collaborative management approach. The data will enable the systematic and consistent representation of the collaboration between companies, helping to clarify the Collaborative role, and the integration relationship with the inter-organisational managing strategies.     

The impact of supply chain management practices on competitive advantage and organizational performance

Effective supply chain management (SCM) has become a potentially valuable way of securing competitive advantage and improving organizational performance since competition is no longer between organizations, but among supply chains. This research conceptualizes and develops five dimensions of SCM practice (strategic supplier partnership, customer relationship, level of information sharing, quality of information sharing, and postponement) and tests the relationships between SCM practices, competitive advantage, and organizational performance. Data for the study were collected from 196 organizations and the relationships proposed in the framework were tested using structural equation modeling. The results indicate that higher levels of SCM practice can lead to enhanced competitive advantage and improved organizational performance. Also, competitive advantage can have a direct, positive impact on organizational performance.     

Competition network as a source of competitive advantage: The dynamic capability perspective and evidence from China

The search for competitive advantage is the defining inquiry of strategic management research. In this study, we draw on the dynamic capability lens to develop a counterintuitive view that positions competitors of a firm as an important source of competitive advantage. We argue that a firm's competitors form a competition network from which it can collect information about innovative ideas, product market, and related industries. Such information helps it calibrate market opportunities, update the resource base, and, eventually, strengthen its competitive advantage. This positive effect of competition network on competitive advantage will reasonably be contingent upon the proactive information search by the firm. The empirical results based on the survey data of 631 Chinese firms strongly support our theoretical model. This study identifies another distinctive source of competitive advantage than industry context or organizational resources as well as advancing our understanding of competition network.     

The competitive advantage and strategic configuration of knowledge-intensive, small- and medium-sized multinationals: a modified resource-based view

This study employs a modified resource-based approach to examine the competitive advantage enjoyed by knowledge-intensive, small- and medium-sized multinationals (KI-SMMs). While the resource-based view addresses superior capabilities only, this paper examines both superior and inferior capabilities and their resulting sustainable competitive advantage.Compared to larger knowledge-intensive multinationals, KI-SMMs possess more inferior than superior core capabilities. Despite this handicap, the paper demonstrates how KI-SMMs compete globally by leveraging their relatively superior R&D capabilities and by choosing a strategic configuration that allows them to compete internationally despite their relatively inferior capabilities in marketing and production activities.Our results show that KI-SMMs internalize R&D activities, which are their core capabilities, externalize production activities, in this case noncore capabilities, and internalize marketing activities, for which they have an inferior capacity, but which are, arguably, core capabilities. KI-SMMs compensate for their inferior capabilities in marketing activities through the use of a unique business model which focuses repeat sales to customers with whom a low number of high-value transactions can be maintained.     

作为竞争优势重要前因的顾客价值:一个实证研究

迈克尔·波特与Woodruff 都提出顾客价值是竞争优势的源泉的观点,但至今尚没有实 证. 现采用两阶段论证法,首先借鉴已有的相关研究和实证数据论证顾客忠诚是竞争优势的前 因,然后通过总结消费者行为倾向前因的已有研究成果,将顾客价值纳入其中,利用货车柴油 发动机市场上获得的调查数据,证明了顾客价值是顾客忠诚的最重要前因,得出了顾客价值是 竞争优势的重要前因的结论.     

Food safety in the aging population: Qualitative findings on what to communicate and how

The present study investigated older adults’ risk perception, beliefs, and self-perception in the field of kitchen hygiene and food safety. A qualitative study with semi-structured focus groups was conducted. A total of 37 older adults (60–80 years of age) from Germany participated in four focus groups that were stratified by gender. Focus groups covered older adults’ food-handling practices, their perceptions of vulnerability, and their informational needs in the field of food safety. A thematic analysis approach was adopted. The coding categories and subcategories were developed inductively by the researchers based on the data. The coded data were then used to identify overarching themes and subthemes. Main results showed that older adults had confidence in their knowledge and skills with regard to food safety, perceived their post-war generation overall to be resistant and other so-called at-risk groups to be more vulnerable. Moreover, they expressed low informational needs in the area of food safety. The results suggest that age-specific aspects play a role in older adults’ risk perception and highlight the need to develop age-specific risk communication strategies that take into account older adults’ beliefs, knowledge, and informational needs.     

A framework for evaluating the benefits of collaborative technologies in engineering innovation networks

In times of rapid economic change, the decrease in knowledge value becomes inversely proportional to its speed of obsolescence, with successful organisations seeking to connect more rapidly and more effectively with others in the creation of new knowledge. The past decade has seen a growing interest in communities of practice as a method for transferring and generating knowledge within product development, rooted as they are in the nature of knowledge creation as a socially embedded process. Given the widespread adoption of collaborative technologies as facilitative platforms for innovation in the interactions of contemporary communities of practice, the objective of this research is to develop an evaluation paradigm and employ it to examine how such interaction is facilitated through the medium of Web 2.0 technologies. The contribution of this research to theory and innovation technology practice will be to further the understanding of collaborative technologies by examining the impact of Web 2.0 technologies on engineering innovation networks. Furthermore, it brings together the three diverse research areas of technology innovation, internet collaborative tools and psychological barriers and enablers.     

A structural analysis of greening the supplier,environmental performance and competitive advantage

A clear research need has been identified to confirm the structural relationships between greening the supplier, enhanced environmental performance and improved competitive advantage, to provide an impetus for firms to green their suppliers. A mail survey was conducted and empirical data of 119 ISO 14001 manufacturing firms in Malaysia was gathered for this study. Structural equation modelling technique was applied in this research article. Results from the analysis, reveal the existence of a positive and significant linkage between green suppliers with both environmental performance and competitive advantage. At the same time, environmental performance has also been shown to positively and significantly affect competitive advantage; while environmental performance plays a partial mediating role between greening the supplier and competitiveness. Such significant finding is especially essential for the manufacturing sector registered with ISO 14001 who intend to enhance their environmental performance and carve a niche competitive edge in the business arena.     

Supporting the collaborative decision-making process in an automotive supply chain with a multi-agent system

Collaborative initiatives such as collaborative design, collaborative planning and forecasting, and open collective innovation are increasingly accepted as approaches that can effectively support decision-making (DM) processes in a range of different industries. However, justifying and demonstrating the benefits of collaborative solutions remains a challenge and has been under-researched. Demonstrating the feasibility of implementing collaborative solutions as opposed to traditional, linear and transactional solutions is even less evident. The purpose of this paper is to conceive a collaborative solution that supports the multi-level DM process in a real, tree-based automotive supply chain environment. The hypothesis presented posits that by sharing information collaboratively, improvements in terms of the profit and service levels will be found within the supply chain and at every supply chain node.     

The female leadership advantage: An evaluation of the evidence

Journalists and authors of trade books increasingly assert a female advantage in leadership, whereby women are more likely than men to lead in a style that is effective under contemporary conditions. Contrasting our analysis of these claims with Vecchio's [Leadersh. Q. 13 (2002) 643] analysis, we show that women have some advantages in typical leadership style but suffer some disadvantages from prejudicial evaluations of their competence as leaders, especially in masculine organizational contexts. Nonetheless, more women are rising into leadership roles at all levels, including elite executive roles. We suggest reasons for this rise and argue that organizations can capture the symbols of progressive social change and modernity by appointments of women in key positions.     

Routines and transactive memory systems: Creating,coordinating, retaining,and transferring knowledge in organizations

This chapter compares and contrasts the effects of two knowledge repositories, routines and transactive memory systems (TMSs), on knowledge creation, coordination, retention and transfer. We provide overviews of research on the two knowledge repositories, with particular attention to how they form and change. We then discuss the relationship between routines and TMSs. We also compare and contrast routines and TMSs in terms of their capabilities to promote knowledge creation, coordination, retention and transfer in organizations. Routines can transfer across organizations, and they are resilient to member turnover. Although routines can be a source of inertia, they can also enable change. TMSs are susceptible to member turnover and are not easily transferred to other organizations. TMSs promote innovation and are particularly valuable under conditions of uncertainty. We argue that TMSs and routines are reciprocally related. Routines can seed TMSs and TMSs can crystalize into routines. We hope that our chapter stimulates future research on the interrelationship between routines and TMSs and their effects on knowledge creation, coordination, retention, and transfer in organizations.