Linking routines to operations capabilities: A new perspective

A typical approach to studying capabilities in the operations management literature is to assess the intended or realized competitive operational performance and their contribution to business and organizational objectives. While it is crucial to identify the operational performance that helps create competitive advantage, it is equally important to understand the means for delivering the needed performance at the operational level. Drawing on the resource-based view (RBV), we argue that routines are a critical source of operations capabilities and subsequently investigate operations capabilities by means of their underlying routines. Because a common problem to studying capabilities is the ambiguous and confusing definitions, we conduct an extensive literature review to address the semantic confusion among various definitions of capabilities and delineate it from other related terms. We identify improvement and innovation as two critical plant level capabilities, each consisting of a bundle of interrelated yet distinct routines. We then empirically measure the two capabilities as second-order latent variables and estimate their effects on a set of operational performance measures. The results suggest that routines form internally consistent bundles which are significantly related to operational performance. This supports our notion of “capabilities as routine bundles” that are difficult to imitate and thus a source of competitive advantage.     

Global networks of trade and bits

Considerable efforts have been made in recent years to produce detailed topologies of the Internet, but so far these data have been overlooked by economists. In this paper, we suggest that such information could be used to characterize both the size of the digital economy and outsourcing at country level. We analyse the topological structure of the network of trade in digital services (trade in bits) and compare it with the more traditional flow of manufactured goods across countries. To perform meaningful comparisons across networks with different characteristics, we define a stochastic benchmark for the number of connections among each country-pair, based on hypergeometric distribution. Original data are filtered so that we only focus on the strongest, i.e. statistically significant, links. We find that trade in bits displays a sparser and less hierarchical network structure, which is more similar to trade in high-skill manufactured goods than total trade. Moreover, distance plays a more prominent role in shaping the network of international trade in physical goods than trade in digital services.     

Managing the transfer of capabilities within multinational corporations:: the dual role of the subsidiary

In this article, the relation is explored between the external technical embeddedness of the subsidiary, its assigned role, and capability development in the MNC. It is argued that assigning roles of responsibility or mandates to certain subsidiaries can effect integration of subsidiary-developed knowledge in the MNC. Departing from literature on the market-as-networks perspective and writings from recent years on subsidiary roles, hypotheses are developed and a model outlined. The model describes a significant link between the external technical embeddedness of the subsidiary and its assigned role within the MNC, and a significant relation between the subsidiary's assigned role and its importance for other units’ capability development. The model is tested on a sample of 97 subsidiaries using the LISREL 8.3 statistical method. The final model implies that by assigning specific roles to different subsidiaries, headquarters can exploit the knowledge developed in the external environments of these subsidiaries.     

Coordinating debris cleanup operations in post disaster road networks

We propose a constructive heuristic that generates roadside debris cleanup plans for a limited number of equipment in the post-disaster road recovery planning problem. Travel times between cleanup tasks are not pre-fixed but depend on the blockage status of the entire road network at the time of travel. We develop a novel mathematical model that maximizes cumulative network accessibility throughout the cleanup operation and minimizes makespan. We propose several practical and robust task selection rules that favor one or both goals that are tested on realistic size road networks with deterministic and stochastic debris cleanup times.     

Exploratory analyses of relief and development operations using social networks

We use social networks to explore how structural factors affect humanitarian organizations’ performance in relief and development operations. Analyses of two recent humanitarian disasters show that having pre-established partnerships among implementers, a central coordinator, high connectivity, and few structural holes facilitates coordination and improves performance. Similarly, cost efficiency analyses of 757 development programs reveal that (i) high performance of donors and beneficiaries is positively related to the amount of implementers they interact with, and (ii) programs connected by common actors are more cost efficient. Finally, short path lengths and frequent connections among actors or programs improve performance in humanitarian operations.     

Coordination in operations: A taxonomy

This paper proposes a taxonomy of coordination study in operations. Its point of departure is the assumption that coordination study in operations always involves a “system” which can be a mathematical model, a software system, a business process or a game. A system is the unit of analysis in the taxonomy. In the taxonomy, systems are first divided into three categories depending on the type of coordination - coordination within operations, cross-functional coordination and inter-organizational coordination. Systems are further divided depending on how people in the organization behave, i.e., the perspective of organization. We propose three alternative perspectives of organization - single-person perspective, team perspective, and nexus-of-contract perspective of organization. Through a series of examples, we describe nine subcategories of systems.     

Approaches to mass customization: configurations and empirical validation

Mass customization is a paradox-breaking manufacturing reality that combines the unique products of craft manufacturing with the cost-efficient manufacturing methods of mass production. Although this phenomenon is known to exist in practice, academic research has not adequately investigated this new form of competition. In this research, we develop a configurational model for classifying mass customizers based on customer involvement in design and product modularity. We validate this typology through an empirical analysis and classification of 126 mass customizers. We also explore manufacturing systems and performance implications of the various mass customization configurations.     

Managing change in South Africa: developing people and organizations

The interaction of Western and non-Western management practices is a growing issue in transitional and emerging economies through the world, not least within the multicultural context of South Africa. This is characterized in this article as an antithesis between instrumental and humanistic views of people in organizations, which is fundamental to the way change is being managed. In order to better understand how the management of people and change may be related to this antithesis, the results of an exploratory study, involving focus-group methods with thirty managers, and of a survey of some 200 employees in participating organizations are presented. Indicative results suggest that, despite best efforts from organizations which may represent best management and development practice, issues concerning the value attached to people in these organizations are still not being properly addressed. It may be only through understanding and reconciling this antithesis that change concerning the development of people, in South Africa as well as in other emerging economies, may be successfully achieved.     

Supply chain configurations in a global environment: A longitudinal perspective

In the last few years, companies have paid growing attention to the management of their supply chain at a global level. The need for better suppliers, international competition and research of specific competences have forced companies to improve their ability to cope with suppliers and customers located in different countries around the world. This paper aims to provide an overview of how manufacturing companies use global supply chains and how their behaviour changes over time. Longitudinal data from a sample of companies from the last two editions of the International Manufacturing Strategy Survey (IMSS) are used. A contingent analysis of manufacturing localization and globalization is also considered in order to identify factors influencing supply chain globalization strategies. Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

全球金融危机的成因分析及其对我国银行业经营的影响与启示

此次全球金融危机是自20世纪30年代世界经济大萧条以来最为严重的全球金融危机,有着深刻的社会经济的根源。对全球金融危机的成因进行了分析,并针对我国银行业的现状研究总结其对我国商业银行经营的影响及启示。     

HRM practices for human and social capital development: effects on innovation capabilities

This paper analyzes the effect of systems of human resource management (HRM) practices on a company's innovation capabilities. To date, few studies have analyzed the way a firm may be more innovative by using specific sets of high-performance HRM practices from an intellectual capital-based view of the firm. From an extensive literature review, a model was established and tested through structural equation modelling, using the statistical technique of partial least squares. The study was applied to a sample of technological firms in Spain and the results show that high-profile personal HRM practices positively influence human capital while collaborative HRM practices influence social capital, which, in turn, affect innovation capabilities by means of, respectively, total and partial mediating effects. Managerial and HRM implications of these results are drawn by the authors, highlighting the idea of paying increased attention to managing firms with a focus on strategic intangible assets in order to gain competitive advantages based on innovation.     

The service sector: Challenges and imperatives for research in operations management

The United States has undergone a transformation from an industrial society to the first postindustrial society. Consequently, the service sector has outstripped manufacturing in its contribution to the GNP and in employment. This paper discusses the challenges and imperatives for research in service operations management (SOM). Service operations have unique characteristics that must be considered in developing research strategies. Recent attempts at evolving a general theory of service organizations are reviewed, and it is suggested that these conceptual models provide a unifying framework for the study of SOM. Research in SOM requires a broad perspective that includes the customer and the interactions with other functional areas. It requires an integration of conventional production concepts with behavioral and marketing considerations.     

Behavior in operations management: Assessing recent findings and revisiting old assumptions

In this paper, we provide a perspective on why behavioral research is critical to the operations management (OM) field, what prior research exists, and what opportunities lie ahead. The use of human experiments in operations management is still fairly novel despite a small stream of publications going back more than 20 years. We develop a framework for identifying the types of behavioral assumptions typically made in analytical OM models. We then use this framework to organize the results of prior behavioral research and identify future research opportunities. Our study of prior research is based on a search of papers published between 1985 and 2005 in six targeted journals including the Journal of Operations Management, Manufacturing and Service Operations Management, Production and Operations Management, Management Science, Decision Sciences, and the Journal of Applied Psychology.     

The development of strategic manufacturing capabilities in emerging and developed markets

The purpose of this exploratory paper is to find differences in the occurrence of and the relationships between strategic capabilities for manufacturing firms in developed and emerging markets. To this end, a longitudinal approach is taken, and developments of capability structures in the two types of markets over time are analysed. By concentrating on strategic capabilities, this paper adds to the sparse literature on operations’ globalisation taking a resource-based, internal perspective.