R&D strategies and variable demand

This paper looks at some of the factors imposing on the resourcing of R&D in the face of fluctuating demand. R&D has various features that differentiate it from other aspects of corporate activity and consequently managerial strategies for dealing with R&D may vary substantially. The implications for R&D strategies and the acquisition of technology are considered under different demand conditions. Various alternative strategies are developed including contracting out, technology licensing and the maintenance of an in-house facility through labour hoarding. New and existing empirical estimates are used to support the arguments and explain corporate strategy in this area.     

Shifting the goal posts for design management in capital goods projects: 'design for maintainability'

Two case studies of capital goods projects, both of which were faced with new forms of demand for their products, are reported in this paper. In both cases, the contracting organisations involved were adjusting to new customer requirements for the long-term provision of the services associated with the capital goods they normally produced, rather than for the capital goods themselves. While both contracting organisations recognised the need to re-focus their equipment design efforts, to reflect the need for long-term service reliability (both contracting organisations were tied to penalties associated with agreed service levels), they nevertheless responded differently to this challenge, and their differing responses reflected the differing natures of the extended networks which comprised both projects and the organisational architectures in which the projects were themselves embedded. The paper explores the differing opportunities and barriers to the management of design in complex projects presented by these two case studies. In so doing it points to the conclusion that successful design management in complex projects can depend upon the successful management of the (multiple) contexts in which design takes place.     

Organizational boundaries and economic performance: An empirical study of entrepreneurial computer firms

This research examines the relationship between the organizational boundaries of entrepreneurial firms and their economic performance. The theoretical basis for this work is transaction cost economics research regarding when internalizing certain activities will be preferred over contracting. To consider the conditions under which contracting is costly we compare across three functional areas and three firm strategies. The results of a longitudinal analysis of 122 entrepreneurial firms in the computer industry show that performance effects are associated with contracting activities and that product market strategies moderate the performance effects of contracting. The results are mixed in their support for the predictions of transaction cost economics.     

Collaborative approaches to public sector innovation: A scoping study

In the last 15 years, European countries have invested considerable resources to provide e-government services. Despite of its increasing availability, its level of adoption has not been satisfying. On the other hand, over the last years, coinciding with the web 2.0 trend, the e-government services co-produced by citizens start to appear, often without the support, acknowledgement and even awareness of the government. This trend stems from a well-established tradition of offline co- production of public services, i.e. services provided by the voluntary sector, but brought to an unprecedented scale thanks to the advent of web 2.0. Still, the concept remains not well-defined and its impact is not yet well studied. The paper explores on a limited sets of cases what does it mean to collaboratively deliver online public services; what are the success factors based on the cases under study and what are the incentives for service providers (other than public administration), citizens as users and public administration. The authors propose an ostensive definition of the collaborative delivery of public services: collaborative public services are created and run by government, civil society or by private sector building on the re-use of government data or citizens data. Those services are focused on public goods delivery (e.g. health, education, public transport) and are meant to change the traditional government services by engaging in an open dialogue with public administration about the best way to deliver those services. The analysis of six case studies of innovative collaborative online public services suggests that the online collaborative public service delivery increases its quality with the users׳ growth contrary to the traditional offline service delivery. The study results indicate that the current developers interest lies in delivering complementary services to the government run services rather than substitutive services. The authors propose also the initial list of success factors, enabling conditions, and benefits for all main stakeholders (users, innovators and public administration).     

Which Service? How Industry Conditions Shape Firms’ Service‐Type Choices

This article studies the role of industry conditions as determinants of manufacturing and software firms’ decisions to offer services. It draws on the competence perspective on industry evolution and servitization to theorize and provide empirical evidence on how industry conditions affect firms’ choice to offer two distinct types of services—product‐oriented services and customer‐oriented services. It is argued that firms are likely to offer product‐oriented services in Schumpeterian industry environments to address high technological uncertainty by leveraging and reinforcing capabilities in the existing technology. In contrast, firms are likely to offer customer‐oriented services in non‐Schumpeterian industry environments to address value generation uncertainty by building competences in new technological or market areas. Based on longitudinal data on 410 public firms from manufacturing industries and the software industry, empirical evidence suggests that firms are indeed more likely to offer product‐oriented services in Schumpeterian industry environments, such as in the early stage of the industry life cycle and under conditions of high R&D intensity and competition, whereas they are more likely to offer customer‐oriented services in non‐Schumpeterian environments, such as in the later stages of the industry life cycle and in highly cyclical industries.     

新疆兵团团场农业经营体制改革的探究

我国现阶段正处于由传统农业向现代农业转变的重要时期,而转变的首要条件是农业经营模式的变革,即分散的家庭经营的传统方式转变为注重效率的集约化、专业化、市场化与规模化的现代农业的经营方式。以团场企业承包制下的个体农户的经营模式难以适应现代兵团农业发展的需求,呈现的问题如下:团场农产品竞争力已适应不了国际市场所带来的冲击,阻碍了农业向规模化、商品化、专业化转化的进程,更加满足不了带领团场职工致富的需求。鉴于诸多的问题,兵团农业经营制度的改革已迫在眉睫。     

ICT-enabled system innovations in public services: Experiences from intelligent transport systems

Public transport is confronted with major challenges such as climate change and congestion. This paper discusses how these major challenges are addressed by means of ICT-enabled system innovations in public services. Recent developments in ICT enable the realisation of novel solutions for public transport that can be subsumed under the headline of intelligent transport systems (ITS). However, while the advances in information and communication technology are very fast, the transformation of transport systems and infrastructures tends to take a long time. In parallel, public sector reforms of the past decade, often characterised by the introduction of New Public Management principles, have changed the organisational and institutional conditions for transport service provision and innovation, with the private sector playing an increasingly prominent role. Public–private innovation networks in services (ServPPINs) have been suggested as a concept to foster the realisation of system innovations.This paper analyses the conditions, determinants and instruments for managing ServPPINs successfully, by comparing four cases of ServPPINs in intelligent transport systems, which all aim at establishing system innovations. The four cases are: ITS Vienna Region, a dynamic intermodal traffic information service; compano, a novel ride-sharing scheme in Austria; SIS, a real-time traffic information services, displays and management system in Oslo; and Flexus, an electronic ticket system for public transportation in Oslo.The paper shows the importance of organisational and institutional conditions of ServPPINs for realising these system innovations, and the crucial role of entrepreneurial individuals, both in public and private sector organisations. It also points to the importance of making clear strategic choices at the right moments in time in the course of the life-cycle of ServPPINs.     

CONTRACTING FOR GOVERNMENT SERVICES: THEORY AND EVIDENCE FROM U.S. CITIES*

Local governments can provide services with their own employees or by contracting with private or public sector providers. We develop a model of this ‘make‐or‐buy’ choice that highlights the trade‐off between productive efficiency and the costs of contract administration. We construct a dataset of service provision choices by U.S. cities and identify a range of service and city characteristics as significant determinants of contracting decisions. Our analysis suggests an important role for economic efficiency concerns, as well as politics, in contracting for government services.     

Networking as a Means to Strategy Change: The Case of Open Innovation in Mobile Telephony

The purpose of this article is to investigate how innovation networks can be used to deal with a changing technological environment. This study combines different concepts related to research and development (R&D) collaboration strategies of large firms and applies these concepts to R&D alliance projects undertaken by Nokia Corporation in the period 1985–2002. The research methodology is a combination of in‐depth semistructured interviews and a large‐scale quantitative analysis of alliance agreements. For the empirical analysis a distinction is made between exploration and exploitation in innovation networks in terms of three different measures. As a first measure, the difference between exploration and exploitation strategies by means of the observed capabilities of the partners of the contracting firms is investigated. The second measure is related to partner turnover. The present article argues that in exploration networks partner turnover will be higher than in exploitation networks. As a third measure, the type of alliance contract will be taken; exploration networks will make use of flexible legal organizational structures, whereas exploitation alliances are associated with legal structures that enable long‐term collaboration. The case of Nokia has illustrated the importance of strategic technology networks for strategic repositioning under conditions of change. Nokia followed an exploitation strategy in the development of the first two generations of mobile telephony and an exploration strategy in the development of technologies for the third generation. Such interfirm networks seem to offer flexibility, speed, innovation, and the ability to adjust smoothly to changing market conditions and new strategic opportunities. These two different strategies have led to distinctly different international innovation networks, have helped the company in becoming a world leader in the mobile phone industry, and have enabled it to sustain that position in a radically changed technological environment. This study also illustrates that Nokia effectively uses an open innovation strategy in the development of new products and services and in setting technology standards for current and future use of mobile communication applications. This article presents one of the first longitudinal studies, which describes the use of innovation networks as a means to adapt swiftly to changing market conditions and strategic change. This study contributes to the emerging, but still inconsistent, literature on explorative and exploitative learning by means of strategic technology networks.     

Enacting the internet and social media on the public sector's frontline

Recognising their growing role in public services, this article draws on the notion of ‘enactment’ to argue that the internet and social media (I&SM) need to be understood in particular institutional, organisational and social contexts. Focusing on street‐level bureaucrats who deliver frontline services, we explore efforts to integrate I&SM into youth work with clients who are thought to be ‘digitally savvy’ but also in need of protection from the ‘online world’. As clients can be vulnerable and trust is a key relational component, organisation–practitioner–client boundaries are complex and under continuous renegotiation. However, the layering of new virtual channels of interaction adds extra complexity. This change necessitates the development of innovative routines, practices and protocols, but these are being developed in a wider social context where the norms of using social media have not caught up with practice and the use of these tools is still often surrounded by moral panic.     

能源工程企业的国际化发展路径剖析

通过整理7家典型的国际型能源工程公司的国际化发展大事记,分析这些公司国际化发展的路径,研究能源工程企业国际化发展在市场选择、产品/服务提供、国际化方式、商业模式、组织结构、资源配置等方面的演变过程,归纳出能源工程企业国际化发展的一般规律.以海外机构的组织设计形式为主要依据,将能源工程企业的国际化分为萌芽阶段、初始阶段、成长阶段、成熟阶段四个阶段,从组织设计、国际化方式、市场选择、商业模式、产品/服务提供、资源配置六个维度,总结能源工程公司在各阶段的主要特征.目前我国能源工程企业基本上处在国际化发展的萌芽或初始阶段,在实施国际化发展战略时,应该选择能源工程企业国际化早期的发展模式;宜采取海外项目承揽和国际合作的方式,要重点考虑分包和联合投标的商业模式;应将海外目标市场定位于容易进入的机会市场,重点是关系友好国家市场.     

A framework to facilitate institutional arrangements for smallholder supply in developing countries: An agribusiness perspective

The industrialization of agriculture and the potential problem of small-scale farmer marginalization calls for a fresh approach to the design of agribusiness supply chain arrangements in developing countries. The objective of the paper is to contribute to a better understanding of institutional arrangements that can promote stable smallholder agribusiness contracting arrangements in a developing country context. A case study approach, incorporating a transaction cost framework, is used to test whether trust can significantly change the contract characteristics of supply. The results suggest that although the presence of trust can influence the contract characteristics of a supply arrangement, it may not be significant because of other factors in a developing country context. Bearing this in mind, a number of institutional arrangements are recommended in order to promote more stable contract conditions.     

Impact of purchasing systems contracts on distributors and procedures

Under systems contracting the buyer is supplied with all of his MRO items from a single source. This article discusses some important marketing strategy implications of systems contracting for both the manufacturer and industrial distributor of MRO items.     

我国对外工程承包公司面临的挑战和对策

本论述了我国对外工程承包公司面曲的挑战和对策，并系统地分析了两种生产组织方式优缺点。针对我国对外工程承包公司的自身特点，指出了今后应采用的生产组织方式。详细论述了电子商务是实施横向联合生产模式的有效战略。对于增强我国承包公司的竞争力有重要的理论意义和较大的实用价值。     

我国农业生态系统核心服务功能体系构建

农业作为具有自然和人工特点的基础性产业,有着其他二、三产业不可比拟的功能和作用,它可以为人类提供生活和生产资料,而且还能维持自然环境的平衡。以此为出发点,深入探析和规范了农业生态系统服务功能的内涵和属性,并结合我国的社会、经济和环境因素,初步构建了我国农业生态系统核心服务功能体系,目的在于辨析我国农业发展所带来的真正价值,从而为在世界范围内保护和提高我国的农业竞争力提供科学依据。     

Information revelation in the Property Right Theory of the firms

I incorporate revelation of asymmetric information through shared ownership (partnership) into the Property Right Theory of the firms. Shared ownership is optimal as a joint result of mitigating hold-up and inducing truthful information revelation. Due to the incomplete contracting nature, shared ownership is incentive compatible if it induces truthful information revelation within the relationship as well as when the relationship breaks. Off-the-equilibrium-path incentive compatibility results in the optimality of partnership even for the most efficient type of the informed party. Inefficient investment thus arises. The level of shared ownership depends on the relative magnitude of the information rent effect and the hold-up effect. Shared ownership is robust to semi-truthful information revelation, under which hold-up occurs in equilibrium with an endogenously determined probability related to the revelation strategy.     

‘When the Going Gets Tough’ . . . : Recession and the Resilience of Workplace Partnership

Drawing on longitudinal research in an engineering multinational corporation, this article considers the resilience of workplace partnership under conditions of retrenchment. In line with extant literature, the twin influences of trade union power and competitive strategy are seen to significantly shape the durability of partnership. Beyond these determinants, trust and managerial skill and political sensitivity are deemed important moderators. The findings nonetheless suggest that the favourable alignment of these factors may not represent a sufficient bulwark in those situations where the axis of partnership is local, within the context of otherwise centrally coordinated industrial relations.     

石油勘探与生产工程监督发展现状与对策

分析了当前工程监督管理体系特点、监督服务领域、人力资源状况、钻井工程承包方式和监督管理模式特点．对工程监督管理工作面临的主要问题，提出了健全和完善工程监督管理机构、加快建章立制步伐、促进现场工程监督管理的规范化、强化对工程监督人员培训、落实工程监督费用、提高工程监督人员待遇、积极推广日费制监督模式、引入市场竞争机制、规范服务市场、统一工程监督的相关规范和标准的对策。     

Viewpoint

Enterprises set up to process agricultural materials into foods sought by consumers can bring a range of benefits They help meet the growing and changing food demands of urban consumers They may reduce expenditure of scarce foreign exchange on imports for consumption They provide an incentive to domestic agriculture to expand and intensify its output Where they provide production guidance and necessary credit inputs, reducing risks by ensuring a specific market under contract, they can be a strategic instrument for the introduction of new agricultural technology Both by their direct contribution to the raising of famers' incomes, and the additional employment they provide in agriculture, the processing operation, and associated services, they are a potent force for rural development.     

沿海发达地区低碳农业发展的现状、问题与对策——以浙江省为例

低碳农业是低碳经济背昔下农业转型的必然趋向,是短期内产业节能减排潜力的核心体现。文章以浙江省为研究视角,对低碳农业发展的现状、难点问题进行了分析。在此基础上,提出了浙江省低碳农业发展的“抓带跨越”战略构想、发展生产服务部门来支撑产业提升、推进产业与价值的双链条重构和农业低碳产业形象塑造与推广等战略对策。