Offshore outsourcing of professional services: A transaction cost economics perspective

This research utilizes the framework of transaction cost economics (TCE) to develop an understanding of how firms manage the costs and risks of offshore outsourcing of professional services. This research examines the perspectives of eight organizations through interviews with 10 high-ranking supply management executives. The paper first explores the rationale for offshore outsourcing among the organizations studied. Using the tenants of TCE, this paper postulates that fixed costs of establishing the relationship dominate the variable costs of day-to-day transactions, and that organizations will not offshore outsource areas where there is high perceived degree of unmanageable risk. The paper expands on themes provided by TCE and offers some lessons learned, and guidelines for managing and controlling offshore outsourced services relationships.     

Government Production Technologies in Canada: 1961 to 2000

This study explores the long-term trends of government production technologies in Canada for the past four decades, i.e. from 1961 to 2000, using the annual Canadian input-output data. According to the industry technology concept of input-output analysis, each industry chooses its human and material resource requirements and uses them as inputs in its production processes. The shares of inputs to the total spending depict the technologies employed by the corresponding industries. As such, the long-term shifts in the input shares reveal the trends of industry production technologies for a given period. This study draws on this concept to explore the long-term trends of government production technologies. It also discusses the underlying reasons for the observed trends. Among other things, the study shows that the government production technologies in Canada were influenced not only by the changing functional patterns, but also by the changing input patterns of government expenditure. In addition, the combined shares of employee compensation and capital consumption, both own-account resources, steadily declined. On the other hand, the combined shares of purchased services and other inputs, which are resources acquired from outside sources, gradually rose during the past four decades.     

政府购买商业医疗保险服务的相关问题研究

政府购买服务是在新时期我国政府转型的大背景之下提出的,研究政府购买商业医疗保险服务具有重要的理论和现实意义。从政府转变公共服务提供方式的角度考虑,详细分析保险业结合自身专业优势参与建设多层次社会保障体系的必要性、可行性,是十分必要的。政府购买商业医疗保险服务可能面临的障碍主要有理论准备不足、制度供给不足、监管机制不完善等,基于此,应创造政府购买商业医疗保险服务的良好外部环境、强化商业健康保险机构自身专业化建设、加强准入和退出管理、规范市场秩序等完善政府购买商业医疗保险的相关政策。     

‘Green’ value chain practices in the furniture industry

This paper draws on the results of interviews with five environmental managers in the furniture industry to develop a taxonomy of environmentally-friendly (‘green’) best practices within the operations management value chain. This taxonomy is then extended to develop a group of propositions concerning the role of management in promoting environmentally-friendly practices. The results suggest that in order to be successful, environmental management strategies must be integrated into all stages of the value chain, which includes all of the processes spanning product design, procurement, manufacturing and assembly, packaging, logistics, and distribution. While the potential for environmental performance improvement in all five of the companies is evident, all of them demonstrated ‘pockets’ of environmentally-friendly practices (EFP) in different areas of their respective value chain functions. The propositions and results emerging from the analysis also suggests that reacting to regulations is no longer sufficient. World-class EFP must anticipate and pre-empt changing environmental regulations and customer expectations, and proactively prepare products, processes and infrastructure for these changes without sacrificing competitive advantage.     

Strategic purchasing and supplier partnerships—The role of a third party organization

This study explored how a credible third party facilitated the development of supplier partnerships. By identifying qualified potential suppliers, serving as a surrogate for legitimacy for supplier firms and providing a market place for the potential partners to meet, the third party organization provided key compensating mechanisms to reduce the power and social distance and overall transaction costs associated with collaborating to effect supplier relationships between the parties. The study contributes to the supply and purchasing literature by integrating the role of third parties into research on buyer–supplier relationships that have so far been viewed predominantly as dyads and by demonstrating how third parties may actually influence relationships between buyers and suppliers. Our findings also provide firms with some guidelines on building successful buyer–supplier partnerships.     

Antecedents of supply chain visibility in retail supply chains: A resource-based theory perspective

Although visibility has become a popular buzzword in the supply chain literature it remains an ill-defined and poorly understood concept. It is assumed that if companies across supply chains have visibility of demand, inventory levels, processes, etc., that organizational performance improves. This research explores the antecedents of high levels of supply chain visibility from a resource-based theory perspective across five different external supply chain linkages. We find that the level of visibility across these linkages differs considerably based on various contributing factors which are both technology and non-technology based. Using resource-based theory, we identify those factors that can give a sustainable competitive advantage to a supply chain linkage through a “distinctive” or high level of visibility.     

Barriers to supply chain information integration: SMEs adrift of eLands

The literature extols the potential benefits of supply chain integration and the crucial role of integrated eBusiness to deliver those benefits. However, adoption of eBusiness in supply chains has been slower than expected, particularly in small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs). This paper reports findings of a longitudinal study of four supply chains in different sectors over a 4-year period. Specifically it examines the barriers to adoption of eBusiness technologies and therefore to achievement of integrated information in supply chains. Differences between firms in supply chains and between supply chains are examined. The study reveals disparity between existing and planned use of eBusiness by larger downstream firms compared to upstream SMEs. The SMEs are cautious, only planning to invest in eBusiness if dominant downstream customers force them; however, they do not appreciate the full benefits to be gained from eBusiness adoption. The downstream larger businesses are forging ahead with eBusiness in ‘eIsolation’ and are not providing supply chain leadership. They are creating eLands with SMEs adrift of them.     

The iron cage exposed: Institutional pressures and heterogeneity across the healthcare supply chain

The healthcare industry has been known to operate in a strong institutional environment (i.e. government regulations), and the implementation of inter-organizational systems (IOS) has followed an institutional process. Extending this perspective across different tiers in the healthcare supply chain, we investigate how organizations in different tiers in the supply chain (i.e. hospitals, distributors and manufacturers) respond to institutional pressures when implementing IOS. How institutional dynamics unfold across multiple tiers of a supply chain is an uncharted area of research, and we take the theory-building case study approach using data collected from ten organizations. Because organizations are embedded in their respective tiers, our within-tier analyses are equivalent to cross-organization analyses. In this regard, the cross-case analyses occur at two different levels: at each tier level (i.e. across multiple hospitals, multiple distributors and multiple manufacturers) and across the supply chain (i.e. across all three tiers). The study shows how different institutional pressures such as coercive, mimetic, and normative manifest across the tiers. It also demonstrates how a differential mix of endogenous and institutional pressures lead to mixed organizational responses across the tiers. The propositions developed from the study enrich institutional theory arguments within the information systems and supply chain management disciplines. They highlight how the IOS implementation dynamics within and across different tiers in a supply chain result in heterogeneous rather than isomorphic consequences, thereby exposing the “iron cage” of institutionalization.     

Flood decision support system on agent grid: method and implementation

In this paper, we introduce the concept and architecture of agent grid. Agent grid is an intelligent platform that enables the independent operating entities (agents) to interact with one another to form dynamic services on the Grid. Under this view, we built an agent grid platform named AGrIP that includes four layers and several useful toolkits. With the platform support, we implemented the flood decision support system which combines the wireless sensor network for data acquisition and software agent technology for legacy system integration. Additionally, we developed a toolkit for programmers to visually develop software agents which makes the development process easier. Besides, the MWAC model proposed is for sensor network to save power which can transit the information for long distance. This system is now applied as a module in the city emergency interact project.