A model for outsourcing and governing of maintenance within the process industry

Many industrial firms motivate structural changes by an increased focus on core activities and reduced ownership of non-core activities. However, classifying maintenance activities as either core or non-core can be difficult, since maintenance is a support function strongly linked to the production core within a manufacturing firm. Based on a multiple case study that included four buying firms and four suppliers within the process industry, this paper investigates how the relative capabilities of the firms affect the governance decision about maintenance outsourcing. A conceptual framework built on a distinction between core-close and core-distant maintenance and between different maintenance capabilities is presented. The subsequent empirical analysis illustrates how the developed framework can be used for both analyzing and guiding firms’ decisions about outsourcing and governance regarding maintenance.     

FIRM LOCATION: FIRM COMPETENCES,FINANCIAL STRUCTURE AND REGIONAL DETERMINANTS

This paper examines the choice of firms to locate in particular regions based on an expanded set of decision making determinants which takes into consideration firm profiles and competences, firm characteristics with particular emphasis on their financial structure and attractive regional factors focusing on knowledge. It combines intuitions from industrial economics, spatial analysis, corporate finance theory and strategic management to explore in greater depth the location of entrepreneurial activities at the sub‐national level of regions, in particular between large urban areas and the periphery. Results suggest that the firm competences are conducive to their location and that other firm attributes contribute to this decision. When regional development and technological sophistication is taken into account, it is evidenced that they act as catalysts to the above decision, though only with respect to metropolitan regions where economies of scale could be exploited.     

Training and organisational innovations in a local industrial system: empirical evidence from Emilia‐Romagna1

The article studies the driving forces of firm training using a survey‐based dataset of manufacturing firms in the Emilia‐Romagna region, Northern Italy. The data are derived from the responses to a structured questionnaire administered in 2002 to the management of a representative sample of firms with more than 50 employees in the highly industrialised province of Reggio Emilia. Firms’ training choices are analysed using a theoretical/conceptual framework based on the notion of complementarity among productive factors. Training is provided as long as it favours the establishment of complementary relationships among the skills it develops and other inputs. The main factors associated with training include structural characteristics, HRM practices, workforce features, labour management and performance of the firm. Training activities emerge as being positively associated with organisational practices that affect the whole firm: workforce skill level, firm size, firm productivity and labour flexibility. The role of HRM practices in driving training is brought into question. These are key issues for the current debate on the development of local systems in the European and Italian context. The high and joint relevance of structural variables and labour demand‐related factors shows that regional industrial policies must support labour policies within an integrated policy effort aimed at increasing potential firm productivity.     

In what sense ‘regional development?’: entrepreneurship,underdevelopment and strong tradition in the periphery

This paper explores whether entrepreneurship can help less successful regions to improve their regional economic situation, without all the benefits that entrepreneurship brings when being ‘stripped out’ to more successful regions. The paper uses the idea that peripheral regions possess qualities of tradition and underdevelopment, and that these help to anchor new firms into these regions, resistant to their concentration in core regions. The paper explores whether particular entrepreneurial events can be regarded as ‘densifying’ the regional entrepreneurial environment, thereby making a positive contribution to its economic development. The paper explores the role of these negative anchors to the entrepreneurial events and the densification process by following a sequence of high-technology spin-out firms in the North East of England. Using a realist methodology attempting to interview all the firms within the sequence which could be found, the paper discovers that quite positive advantages exist within these negative qualities.The paper then considers whether these processes, such as plant closure, might drive entrepreneurship in all regions.     

从FCF看中国外贸均衡发展

全球经济危机迫使中国经济降低了对国外市场的依赖程度。制造业也同样必须适应国际需求的变化。外国子公司的加工出口容易受到西方需求放缓的影响,而中国的出口企业却在转型进入活跃的新兴市场中处于有利地位。同时,中国的一般进口正日益增长。亚洲国家扩大了其国内市场的份额,欧洲国家也留有强势地位,而北美国家却失去了自己的市场。中国成为了区域经济增长的动力。在中国的进口及工业生产中,外资企业起到了越来越重要的作用。中国对外国直接投资的政策与确定外国伙伴进入其国内市场的汇率政策至少是同等重要的。     

集群企业创业传导仿真的构建分析

集群企业二次创业已成为产业集群转型升级的重要路径,而集群企业网络影响了集群企业的二次创业行为。本文从复杂网络视角出发,在对集群企业网络与复杂网络模型之间耦合关系的探讨基础上,分析了用仿真方法构建集群企业网络,探讨了如何模拟集群企业网络中创业行为的传导,为刻画现实的集群企业创业行为传导过程和效果提供了新的分析思路。     

International entrepreneurship and the small business

The topic of ‘international entrepreneurship’ is becoming increasingly popular with researchers concerned with examining how international and entrepreneurial activities intersect when people in organizations engage in pro-active brokering and risk-taking behaviour in cross-border contexts. Some caution is needed in over-generalizing the meaning and significance of international entrepreneurship – especially in relation to small businesses. Not all entrepreneurial risk-taking, brokering and opportunity-seeking activities lead to internationalization (as the statistics on small business international activities indicate). This might suggest then that the only truly internationally entrepreneurial firms are those that are ‘born global’. However, their entrepreneurial activities are more ‘spatial’, concerned with what can be constructed again in relation to global markets rather than in relation to the local/regional context in which the business is located. For small firms that internationalize a few years after start-up (late starters), processes of international entrepreneurship are different. For ‘later starters’, international entrepreneurship is distinctive in that it is characterized by extending and modifying entrepreneurial understandings and practices that have been socially constructed in relation to the local and regional context in which the small firm is located.     

Overcoming the liability of smallness by recruiting through networks in China: a guanxi-based social capital perspective

We investigate the role of guanxi in Chinese entrepreneurial firms’ recruitment practices in attempting to overcome the liability of smallness. Combining insights from the social capital and guanxi literature, we theorize the guanxi-based social capital perspective and use it to analysis 96 in-depth interviews with multiple members (entrepreneurs, senior managers and factory workers) from 15 die-casting entrepreneurial firms in Guangdong province, China. We find that the use of guanxi in recruitment practice can overcome the liability of smallness because it makes the hiring process more convenient, improves firms’ attractiveness to jobseekers and enhances the person-organizational fit between new hires and firms. We discuss how Chinese entrepreneurs and their senior managers use guanxi strategically to achieve these advantages. On the other hand, our findings suggest that jobseekers can also use guanxi to increase their options, improve their bargaining power and distract firms’ attention away from hiring the most appropriate candidate for the job in order to undermine the effectiveness of Chinese entrepreneurial firms’ recruitment procedures. We explore the implications of these findings for academic research and managerial practice.     

The ‘Japanisation’ of production and industrial relations at Lucas Electrical

Depressed product markets and severe financial constraints have recently prompted many firms to reappraise their production methods and industrial relations structures. This article examines a new Japanese style’ module production system at Lucas Electrical which management introduced to boost labour productivity and improve product quality.     

Supplier selection using a multi-criteria decision aid method

An ever-increasing trend in today's industrial firms is to exploit outsourcing for those products and activities deemed to be outside the company's core business. Given the financial importance and the multi-objective nature of supplier selection decision, in this paper an effort is made to highlight those aspects that are crucial to process qualitative and quantitative performance measures. In this paper, the contribution of a multi-criteria decision aid method ( ) to such problems is investigated, together with how to allow for a simultaneous change of the weights (importance of performance criteria), generating results that can be easily analysed statistically, performing an innovative sensitivity analysis. By way of example, the model is applied to a mid-sized Italian firm operating in the field of public road and rail transportation. The whole suppliers selection model presented ( techniques plus high-dimensional sensitivity analysis) seems to be a useful additional tool inside the final choice phase of a supplier selection process. Finally, potential issues for future research are presented.     

State entrepreneurship and regional development: Singapore's industrial parks in Batam and Suzhou

This paper examines a case of state entrepreneurship and regional development through an analysis of the Singaporean government's ‘regional industrial parks’ programme, which began in 1990. To the Singaporean government, this programme was an entrepreneurial venture because it was designed to generate profits through developing, leasing and managing industrial estates in selected locations across the Asia Pacific region. This paper examines two such regional industrial parks, situated in Batam (Indonesia) and Suzhou (China). It finds that as an entrepreneurial venture, the parks have both successes and failures. In addition, the two parks have had different developmental impacts. The paper concludes by arguing that although the entrepreneurial state's strategies are important, host governments must act on these strategies effectively in order to achieve sustained economic development.     

Linking entrepreneurial and market orientation to the SME’s performance growth: the moderating role of entrepreneurial experience and networks

Entrepreneurial orientation and market orientation (EO and MO, respectively) have received extensive research attention in the past several decades. Although scholars widely agree that both MO and EO are critical to firms’ performances, a better understanding is still needed about how market and entrepreneurial orientation develop over time as well as their relative impact on the growth of the SME’s performance. This study does not consider MO and EO as generic resources that always positively influence firms’ performances; instead, it tries to explore contingent elements, such as social and business networks and accumulated entrepreneurial experience. The hypotheses were tested on 191 small and medium-sized electronic firms located in an Italian geographical cluster during two periods: 2005 and 2016. This study suggests that SMEs, which develop social networks, may enjoy considerable advantages from entrepreneurial and market orientation, improving their performance benefits. Moreover, our results show that previous entrepreneurial experience, when specific, can reinforce the impact of entrepreneurial and market orientation on firms’ performance growth. This analysis makes several important contributions to the management literature on the strategic orientation of firms, the entrepreneurial experience and network development.

     

How CEOs and TMTs Build Adaptive Capacity in Small Entrepreneurial Firms

Research suggests that a CEO may have more influence in the context of small entrepreneurial firms, but it is still unclear how a company's chief executive facilitates strategic decision‐making. Little is known about the ways in which these individuals build strategic capabilities, such as the capacity to adapt to changing environments. This study addresses these issues and develops a model indicating that transformational leadership facilitates behavioural integration and comprehensiveness in the decision process among members of the top management team (TMT), which in turn enhances organizational capacity to adapt to environmental changes. Survey results shed light on the complex way in which CEOs facilitate processes within the TMT and enhance small entrepreneurial firms’ capacity to adapt, thereby increasing their viability. This study contributes to the literatures on Upper Echelon Theory, strategic decision‐making, and dynamic capabilities by shedding light on the ways in which transformational leaders influence behavioural and decision‐making processes.     

Regional knowledge production as determinant of high-technology entrepreneurship: empirical evidence for Germany

Similar to the creation and distribution of new knowledge through industrial R&D and university research, entrepreneurial activity tends to vary across regions. Therefore the regionalized production of new knowledge is a prerequisite of entrepreneurial innovation. Based on endogenous growth theory, in particular the so-called Griliches-Jaffe-Model of regional knowledge production, we investigate industrial and university characteristics as determinants of technologically oriented entrepreneurship. Using hand-collected data from multiple sources, our results clearly show that high-technology entrepreneurship is highly dependent on regional knowledge production by industry and university, while technology entrepreneurship does largely not dependent on these factors.     

Outsourcing the procurement function: Do actions and results align with theory?

Are common theories of outsourcing useful in predicting the extent of and performance gains from the outsourcing of procurement activities? Or does procurement׳s broad scope and boundary-spanning role confound successful analysis? This study applies a theoretical framework combining concepts from transaction-cost economics (TCE) and the resource-based view (RBV) to study the procurement outsourcing decisions of two hundred and eighty US-based electronics manufacturing firms. Findings suggest that TCE and RBV act in complementary ways on the procurement outsourcing decision. TCE, through fear of supplier opportunism, appears to be the primary driver of the extent to which procurement activities are outsourced. The RBV, through which the OEM׳s resource position in procurement vis-à-vis its outsourcing partner is determined, appears to be the primary determinant of the performance results of the outsourcing decision. Procurement activities are outsourced to a greater extent when fear of supplier opportunism is low, but such outsourcing is only “justified” (expected to yield performance benefits) when the OEM has a weak resource position vis-à-vis the outsourcing partner. An “enriched” TCE–RBV framework is presented and discussed as part of study results.     

Influence of the regional entrepreneurial ecosystem and its knowledge spillovers in developing successful university spin-offs

University Spin-Offs (USOs) are dynamically involved in the knowledge spillover process and incorporated in the regional entrepreneurial ecosystem. Drawing on the knowledge spillovers related concepts and entrepreneurial ecosystem approach, the paper aims to explore the hypothesis that the regional context may partially determine the USOs' growth via a cross-national analysis and using an ‘interactionist’ approach. Two samples of Spanish and Italian USOs (516 and 904 firms, respectively) over the period 2005–2013 were used and it was applied the multilevel modelling to empirically test the hypotheses. The findings show that regional context affects firm's growth only for Spanish USOs, while for the Italian USOs the evidences seem to suggest a not significant determining influence. The paper provides evidence that the region is a critical contextual dimension and an influential factor in building a more explicative research agenda on entrepreneurial universities.     

Entrepreneurial orientation and firm performance in family SMEs: the moderating effects of family,women, and strategic involvement in the board of directors

Entrepreneurial success in family SMEs is largely determined by the knowledge, skills, and new ideas contributed by board directors, the most important actors in the formulation of corporate strategy and decision making. The composition of family SME boards has traditionally been homogeneous, as such boards usually comprise male family members. Boards’ contributions, however, depend on their level of diversity and strategic involvement. This study analyzes the moderating effects of two main sources of board diversity in family firms, family involvement level and gender diversity, as potential means of enhancing family firms’ success when exploiting entrepreneurial initiatives. This study also explores whether these two potential moderators depend on the strategic involvement of the board directors. Based on a sample of 230 Spanish family firms, we found that the link between entrepreneurial orientation and performance is stronger in firms with lower levels of family involvement and higher levels of gender diversity in the board. Moreover, the board’s high strategic involvement may strengthen the positive impact of gender diversity and change the moderating influence of family involvement from negative to positive.     

Research collaboration and R&D outsourcing: Different R&D personnel requirements in SMEs

The literature on ‘open’ innovation emphasises the need to engage in external knowledge relations in order to innovate. Particularly for SMEs, research cooperation and R&D outsourcing can offer possibilities to complement the often limited internal research resources. However, they also bring in their wake requirements in terms of absorptive capacity and managerial skills of the internal R&D personnel.The paper focuses on the different requirements in terms of availability and training of research managers and R&D experts for research cooperation versus R&D outsourcing in SMEs. An empirical analysis of micro-level data provided by the OECD business R&D survey for Belgium reveals that the relation between R&D personnel requirements and research collaboration and R&D outsourcing depends upon the SME size. Therefore, to study this subject appropriately a distinction between very small, small, and medium-sized firms is relevant. Very small firms engage significantly less in research cooperation than medium-sized firms and the propensity to engage in research cooperation is positively associated with the share of PhD holders among the research managers and R&D experts. For R&D outsourcing a lower involvement is noted in medium-sized firms, and the propensity to outsource increases with the formal qualification level of the R&D personnel and with R&D training. Among the SME, small firms are most engaged in research cooperation and in R&D outsourcing. In the case of research cooperation they rely on highly qualified experts. For R&D outsourcing activities both the presence of research managers and R&D experts is important.     

The ‘old’ and ‘new’ competition and Malaysian manufacturing firms: a case study

The majority of empirical studies dealing with production processes, work organization and industrial relations practices have been conducted in advanced industrial nations. This article reports on a study of the changing nature of work organization and industrial relations policies in the developing economy of Malaysia. It explores the broad patterns of change in human resource management, technology and work organization among Malaysian manufacturing firms in the context of Best's ‘old’ and ‘new’ competition. The question that arises is: does the evidence reveal that Malaysia is embracing elements of the ‘new competition’, or is it still locked into a regime of mass production, or both? The article argues that the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ competition should not be treated as a simple, straightforward duality model of development. The distinction between the two approaches is sometimes blurred and not so clear-cut. The case study observes that both systems could be operating side by side at the same time within an organization. Since the Malaysian manufacturing sector is expected to shift from simple assembly and process-type operations using labour-intensive techniques to the more advanced and higher value-added industries, greater investment in HRD to upgrade the skills of the work-force and the adoption of appropriate industrial relations policies that emphasize decentralization, greater employee involvement and continuous innovation will become crucial. To be able to compete successfully in the global economy would require a change in focus in the adoption of industrial relations and human resource development policies. For Malaysia to realize its aspiration to become an industrialized and developed nation by the year 2020 would require radical changes in those policies within the context of an integrated approach to economic and industrial planning.     

System‐Spanning Values Work and Entrepreneurial Growth in Family Firms

Culture and values are key drivers of corporate entrepreneurship in early stages of family firm development, but value conflicts often arise over time that progressively inhibit their entrepreneurial efforts. How can family firms reconcile conflicting values to sustain corporate entrepreneurship over time? Our 45‐year longitudinal case study of a large global family firm shows that family business leaders’ practices of invoking and flexibly using family and business values were crucial to achieve sustained entrepreneurial behaviour and growth over an extended period of time. We theorize these efforts as system‐spanning values work enfolding through specific family, business, and temporal mechanisms. By identifying and elucidating three types of values work (i.e., rooting, revitalizing, and spreading), our study advances current understanding of the micro‐foundations underpinning the relationship between values and entrepreneurship in family firms.