The effect of supplier development on outsourcing performance: the mediating roles of opportunism and flexibility

Abstract

In this increasingly competitive business environment, firms utilise outsourcing as a strategic tool to leverage globally dispersed resources so that they may focus on their core competencies and improve efficiency. The more firms rely on outsourcing, the more they depend on their suppliers, and the more important it is to manage and develop suppliers in order to achieve and maximise the benefits of outsourcing. This paper explores the impact of supplier development on outsourcing performance. Structural equation modelling was used to analyse data collected from 213 manufacturing firms in China. The results indicate that supplier development has a strong direct positive impact on outsourcing performance, and that supplier development also leads to enhanced outsourcing performance through reducing outsourcing opportunism risk and improving outsourcing flexibility. In addition to making a contribution to current theories of outsourcing, our findings also provide outsourcing managers with practical understanding and insights about the role of supplier development in enhancing outsourcing performance.     

Out of Sight,Out of Mind? Geographic and Social Predictors of Flood Risk Awareness

The persistent gap in flood risk awareness in Canada, and elsewhere in North America, is a continual source of worry for researchers and emergency managers; many people living in at‐risk places are simply unaware of risks and of their proximity to hazards. This study seeks to understand which residents were aware of flood risk, using unique representative survey data of Calgary residents living in the city's flood‐prone neighborhoods collected after the devastating and costly 2013 Southern Alberta Flood. The article uses logistic regression models to analyze which residents were aware of risk to their homes. Findings indicate that, in addition to various demographic predictors, many of the geographic predictors (including the elevation of one's home relative to the river) are significant predictors of awareness. Having a direct sight line to one of Calgary's two rivers is also a significant predictor in some of the models, suggesting that the visibility of hazards matters for flood risk perception, although this effect fades when many of the geographic predictors are added. Finally, the models indicate that several variables related to local, neighborhood‐based social networks are significant as well. These findings reveal that both physical surroundings and social context are important for understanding risk awareness. The article concludes by discussing the relevance for social science research on disasters and hazards, as well as for planners and emergency managers.     

Minimizing Vulnerability: Selective Interdependencies After Welfare Reform

The issue of dependency permeates the American welfare discourse. Although most of the 50 low-income women we interviewed in our research echoed the distain of dependency found in the broader welfare discourse, they overwhelmingly described actively cultivating some forms of interdependence. For example, many of the women used state childcare vouchers to channel resources into their family networks while simultaneously adhering to an ethic of family care for children. They found this reliance on state resources and family to be desirable—and in fact a sign of “independence”—because it enhanced the economic security of their families while preserving the physical and emotional safety of their children. In contrast, the women tended to view reliance on men as undesirable—a form of “dependence”—because it did not enhance their perceptions of security. Thus while the women talked about becoming independent, in fact they cultivated selective interdependencies to minimize their economic, emotional and physical vulnerability. Independence for our respondents was not a lack of reliance on others but rather the ability to provide safety and security for themselves and their children. Our analysis may sheds some light on why welfare reform efforts aimed at increasing marriage rates have been less successful than those aimed at increasing employment rates.     

System Effects on Educational Achievement: A British–American Comparison

Societal variations in the organization of educational institutions are thought to affect the distribution of students into levels of educational achievement. This paper analyzes the diverging achievements of British and American cohorts as they pass through secondary and post-secondary education. The ways students' locations in the systems' structures deflect their achievements are charted, and the cumulative effects of those deflections between the ages of 16 and 28 are estimated. Despite the more stratified and standardized organization of the British educational system, and despite its sharper differentiation between academic and vocational credentials, the cumulative deflections during these years are greater in the United States. Explaining this outcome requires an understanding of both organizational and normative differences between the two systems.     

Capital Constructions: Newspaper Reporting in Death Penalty Cases

This study evaluates aspects of newspaper reporting about death penalty cases and capital defendants. In a content analysis of newspaper coverage of a representative sample of 26 death penalty-eligible defendants who were brought to trial in California, we found that articles tended to cite primarily from law enforcement and prosecutorial sources, focused very heavily on the characteristics of the crime, and omitted or de-emphasized most other aspects of the case. News coverage generally failed to place the criminal behavior of the defendant in any social historical or contextual framework from which readers (as potential voters and jurors) could grasp the potential mitigating elements of the case. We conclude that newspaper coverage of capital crimes may influence public support for the death penalty, and undermine public appreciation of the role of social contextual factors in crime causation in general. It also may bias the perspective with which potential jurors approach specific capital trials and even contribute to the lack of instructional comprehension that has been found to plague the death sentencing process.