信息技术与企业边界

企业边界问题历来是学者以及企业家研究的重点问题,21世纪以来,随着信息技术在企业管理中的广泛应用,各种经济主体开展生产服务活动的关键已经变成知识、技术及信息化水平等构成企业核心能力的无形资源,其持续竞争优势便在于对这些资源的掌握和有效运用。于是在当前,企业的边界形式发生了一些新的变化,出现了虚拟组织、战略联盟、虚拟企业、固定伙伴关系的业务外包以及特许经销制等,科层机制和市场机制体现出相互融合的复杂态势。本文从理论和现实背案出发,首先介绍了描述企业边界的两个维度即有形的规模边界和无形的能力边界,后通过信息技术对两方面影响因素的作用,阐述了其如何对当前企业边界的变动产生影响,以期有借鉴意义。     

企业的模糊动态边界与企业集团——对企业集团的本质的探讨

在研究了企业边界特征的基础上从边界演化的角度论证了企业的边界是模糊逻辑表示的动态边界 ,而正是企业边界的模糊性和动态性导致了企业的集团化行为 ,探讨了用模糊逻辑表示的企业集团的定义     

企业的模糊动态边界与企业集团

在研究了企业边界特征的基础上从边界演化的角度论证了企业的边界是模糊逻辑表示的动态边界,而正是企业边界的模糊性和动态性导致了企业的集团化行为,探讨了用模糊逻辑表示的企业集团的定义.     

武汉重型机床集团的企业边界分析

企业边界是指企业以其核心能力为基础,在与市场的相互作用过程中形成的经营范围和经营规模,其决定因素是经营效率。本文通过对企业边界理论的研究,分析武汉重型机床集团的企业边界,并根据对企业边界的分析提出其对武重集团发展的启示。     

ESG表现对重污染企业财务绩效的影响研究——基于绿色技术创新视角

选取2012—2021年我国A股上市的408家重污染企业为样本,采用个体时点固定效应模型,探讨重污染企业ESG表现对其财务绩效的影响效应,并进一步研究绿色技术创新的中介作用。研究结果表明：重污染企业ESG表现能显著提升其财务绩效,且较之该行业中的国有企业,民营企业参与ESG实践对其财务绩效的提升作用更突出;绿色技术创新在重污染企业ESG表现与财务绩效关系中发挥了中介效应;重污染企业ESG表现与滞后一期、滞后两期的财务绩效显著正相关,说明ESG实践有助于企业提升未来发展潜力。     

边界管理人员关系与企业间关系——信任的核心作用

边界管理人员是企业间关系营销的界面,因此,不同企业边界管理人员之间的关系对企业间关系的发展会产生很大影响。通过选取代表性的关系变量,构建出一个结构方程模型,以家电分销渠道中的分销商为样本来源,检验了边界管理人员关系变量通过信任的核心调节作用对企业间关系的影响。     

电子商务环境下企业边界问题研究

电子商务时代的到来使得企业边界的变化显得纷杂无序,传统的、单一的企业理论难以对目前企业边界的变动做出合理的解释。为此,文章构建了一个企业边界的二维分析框架,运用此框架分析得出:电子商务环境下,资源密集型企业的规模边界扩大,能力边界扩大;知识密集型企业的规模边界缩小,能力边界扩大;而对于介于市场与企业中间的网络组织,规模边界趋于模糊,能力边界扩大。     

责任铁律的动态检验:来自中国上市公司并购样本的经验证据

本文针对传统上静态视角对责任铁律检验的缺陷,将2006～2015年的中国沪深股市上市公司并购样本作为研究对象,通过考察外延式边界扩张对企业社会责任表现的增进效应,间接反向地动态检验责任铁律的存在性与合意性、权变性与异质性,探寻责任铁律的可能逻辑路径。实证研究表明,并购引致的外延式边界扩张对企业社会责任表现会产生积极的增进作用,证实了责任铁律在现实中的存在性与合意性;相比于相关性并购,非相关性并购引起的外延式边界扩张对企业社会责任表现的增进效应更强,即责任铁律具有权变性与异质性,表明"利益相关方网络规模(结构性嵌入)—社会影响力—社会权力—社会责任"是责任铁律的逻辑路径之一;非沉淀性冗余资源变化和市场地位变化是外延式边界扩张的企业社会责任增进效应的中介机制,沉淀性冗余资源变化则没有展现出明显的中介作用,"非沉淀性冗余资源—企业能力—社会权力—社会责任"和"市场地位—市场势能—社会权力—社会责任"是责任铁律的另外两条逻辑路径。     

数字化转型下知识耦合如何重构组织边界——基于创业警觉的认知逻辑

数字化转型下制造企业的边界重构是知识的动态交互联接,从此视角打开组织边界重构的过程机制,对提升企业敏捷性、共生性具有重要作用。本文采用归纳式单案例研究,通过对制造企业多个层次的深入研究,探讨了数字化转型下企业通过知识耦合进行组织边界重构的机制。本文发现数字化转型下,制造企业运用知识重组（关键点识别、资源编排、匹配）、知识整合（数据挖掘、知识验证、跨界融合）、知识解耦（主动遗忘、流程调优、技术替代）三种知识耦合过程机制来重构组织边界。同时,研究发现创业警觉是潜在的边界重构认知逻辑,制造企业依靠创业警觉认知能力,从不同的行动领域设计边界重构决策。本文研究结论展现了数字化转型下制造企业如何通过知识的交互联接重塑组织边界,以彰显、获取知识权力;为数字化转型下制造企业的组织边界重构提供了新的、系统化的见解;对企业维持与发展知识权力优势、实现数字化转型具有借鉴意义。     

连锁零售企业规模边界问题研究

连锁零售企业规模有没有边界,一直是一个有争议的问题。很多研究都是从经济角度来讨论问题。有的研究结果认为连锁零售企业是没有边界的,可以通过复制-粘贴的形式实现规模的无限扩张。本文则从微观管理学的角度,从理论和实践上都证明连锁零售企业的规模扩张不像"复制-粘贴"这么简单,由于规模扩大造成的大企业整体管理成本的增加、由于地域拓展带来的战略差异造成的企业运营成本的增加,使得规模扩张存在阻力和成本,连锁零售企业是有能力边界和规模边界的。     

Organizational/environmental interchange: a model of boundary spanning activity.

A theoretical framework is developed for analyzing determinants and functions of activity at the boundaries of organizations. The process of boundary spanning, based on internal and external organizational factors, is conceptualized. A model of the organizational/environmental information interchange process suggests relationships between organizational, environmental, and individual aspects of boundary activity.     

Integrative public leadership: Catalyzing collaboration to create public value

Integrative public leadership is a process of developing partnerships across organizational, sectoral and/or jurisdictional boundaries that create public value. This paper explores the concept in the context of the literature and illustrates some salient features of integrative public leadership through three cases involving extensive multi-sector collaboration in the western (Smoky Mountain) region of North Carolina. The cases are different in subject matter—sewer lines to a rural community, broadband infrastructure across a network of rural schools and colleges, and a major environmental preservation effort—but they all share some key elements. Leadership in each case is enacted through structure, process, and people. Boundary organizations provide a structural context for partnership development; boundary experiences and boundary objects serve to bridge differences and create a common purpose; and boundary spanners exhibit entrepreneurial qualities and leverage relationship capital in order to facilitate integration.     

Theories of the Firm–Market Boundary

A central role of the entrepreneur-manager is assembling a strategic bundle of complementary assets and activities, either existing or foreseen, which when combined create value for the firm. This process of creating value, however, requires managers to assess which activities should be handled by the market and which should be handled within hierarchy. Indeed, for more than 40 years, economists, sociologists and organizational scholars have extensively examined the theory of the firm's central question: what determines the boundaries of the firm? Many alternative theories have emerged and are frequently positioned as competing explanations, often with no shortage of critique for one another. In this paper, we review these theories and suggest that the core theories that have emerged to explain the boundary of the firm commonly address distinctly different directional forces on the firm boundary—forces that are tightly interrelated. We specifically address these divergent, directional forces—as they relate to organizational boundaries—by focusing on four central questions. First, what are the virtues of markets in organizing assets and activities? Second, what factors drive markets to fail? Third, what are the virtues of integration in organizing assets and activities? Fourth, what factors drive organizations to fail? We argue that a complete theory of the firm must address these four questions and we review the relevant literature regarding each of these questions and discuss extant debates and the associated implications for future research.     

Data‐Driven Classification Using Boundary Observations

Classification is often a critical task for business managers in their decision‐making processes. It is generally more difficult for a classification scheme to produce accurate results when the input domains of the various output classes coincide, to some degree, with one another. In an attempt to address this issue, this article discusses a data‐driven algorithm that identifies the region of coincidence, or overlap, for two‐group classification problems by empirically determining the convex boundary for each group. The results are extendable to multigroup classification. The class membership of a new observation is then determined by its relative position with respect to each of these boundaries. Due to minimal data storage requirements, this boundary‐point classification technique can adapt to changing conditions far more easily than other approaches. Test results demonstrate that the new classification technique has similar performance to a back‐propagation neural network under static conditions and significantly outperforms a back‐propagation neural network under dynamic conditions.     

Managing Change Across Boundaries: Boundary‐Shaking Practices1

To date, boundary spanning has primarily been conceived of as an activity relating an organization to its environment, including other organizations with which it cooperates and competes. In contrast, this study focuses on the boundary spanning practices of individuals acting as change agents to implement boundary‐shaking change initiatives across intra‐organizational boundaries. These boundary‐shaking individuals all work for blue‐chip organizations in sectors as diverse as pharmaceuticals, consultancy and automotive. The change initiatives are equally diverse, including post‐merger integration, exploitation of across‐business synergies and implementing more integrative structures. Through our examination of boundary‐shakers we are able to extend what we know about internal change agency and change agent skills and practices. Our starting point is that organizations are comprised of networks of people with a degree of common interest. Our research shows our research subjects to be active movers and shakers in these networks, using their knowledge of the organizational political context and the motivations of others to create new networks (or new meanings within old networks), which then enables them to pursue their change objectives.     

企业契约理论的局限性与企业边界的重新界定

本文指出了企业契约理论在分析企业边界与规模时存在的局限性,并针对当前企业边界与规模变化的特征与趋势、企业经营策略与重心的变化与调整,从企业生产性知识积累的角度对企业的边界与规模进行了重新的界定。     

Work Design and Integration Glitches in Globally Distributed Technology Projects

In a technology project, project integration represents the pooling together of complete, interdependent task modules to form a physical product or software delivering a desired functionality. This study develops and tests a conceptual framework that examines the interrelationships between the elements of work design, project integration challenges, and project performance. We identify two distinct elements of work design in technology projects: (i) the type of project organization based on whether a technology project spans a firm boundary (Domestic‐Outsourcing) or a country boundary (Offshore‐Insourcing) or both boundaries (Offshore‐Outsourcing) or no boundaries (Domestic‐Insourcing), and (ii) the joint coordination practices among key stakeholders in a technology project—namely, Onsite Ratio and Joint‐Task Ownership. Next, we measure the effectiveness of project integration using integration glitches that capture the incompatibility among interdependent task modules during project integration. Based on analysis of data from 830 technology projects, the results highlight the differential effects of distributed project organizations on integration glitches. Specifically, we find that project organizations that span both firm and country boundaries (Offshore‐Outsourcing) experience significantly higher levels of integration glitches compared to domestic project organizations (Domestic‐Outsourcing and Domestic‐Insourcing). The results further indicate that the relationship between project organization type and integration glitches is moderated by the extent of joint coordination practices in a project. That is, managers can actively lower integration glitches by increasing the levels of onsite ratio and by promoting higher levels of joint‐task ownership, particularly in project organization types that span both firm and country boundaries (Offshore‐Outsourcing). Finally, the results demonstrate the practical significance of studying integration glitches by highlighting its significant negative effect on project performance.     

Integrating Knowledge through Information Trading: Examining the Relationship between Boundary Spanning Communication and Individual Performance*

With the global penetration of Internet technologies, individuals may now cross organizational boundaries to communicate efficiently with others regardless of time and space. Thus, when looking for help in solving work tasks, knowledge workers may just as easily contact individuals in rival firms across the globe as a coworker sitting at the next desk. As a result, management faces questions such as (1) How should firms manage employees' knowledge‐sourcing activities when they span both intra‐organizational and extra‐organizational boundaries, and (2) What is the relationship between different knowledge‐sourcing activities and individual performance? Grounded in the knowledge‐based view of the firm, we investigate these questions using data from Europe's largest information technology (IT) services and management consulting company. Our results provide evidence that organizations should support boundary spanning and knowledge sourcing from both internal and external sources. Results suggest (1) a positive relationship between boundary spanning communication and creativity and general performance, and (2) a negative relationship between a reliance on colocated coworkers as knowledge sources and creativity.     

The surprising effectiveness of earliest operation due-date sequencing

In make-to order production, schedule reliability is very important but still not sufficiently accomplished in industrial practice by the vast majority of companies. It has been known for long that processing the orders at a workstation in the order of their operation due-dates can compensate for lateness in the arrival at the workstation within certain boundaries. The paper analyses the effectiveness of earliest operation due date (EODD) sequencing by comparing it to an optimistic theoretical boundary. The surprising result is that EODD can nearly fully exploit the theoretical potential. It should therefore be used in practice whenever schedule reliability is important, with only few exceptions. Its effectiveness though is increasing with the workstation’s WIP level and thus is in conflict with the objective to reduce WIP levels and throughput times. A simple forecasting model allows to assess the extent to which lateness can be compensated by EODD sequencing and which schedule compliance can be achieved.     

Frontline Participatory Behavior in Networks: Identity Work and the Corresponding Behavioral Determinations

Studies that adequately reflect on the distinctive workings of collaborative networks and, more specifically, the importance of the participatory behaviors of frontline workers are in short supply. To address this gap in the literature, this article reports on a quantitative study of the identity work tensions and corresponding behavioral determinations of a set of frontline workers from thirteen collaborative social welfare networks in Virginia. This study found some evidence that their roles as enacted inside of the boundaries of their home organizations and the associated identities may differ from or conflict with their interorganizational, boundary spanning roles and associated identities. In some instances, the resulting tensions complicated the achievement of behavioral determinations by these frontline workers that would favor the realization of a collaborative advantage.