Technology sourcing decisions in exploratory projects

Drawing on research on innovation as knowledge combination and firm’s organizational boundaries the paper contributes to open the black box of a firm’s sourcing strategy, investigating how the new knowledge a project aims to develop affects sourcing decisions. The fine-grained level of investigation adopted, namely the project level, not only enhances the understanding of the antecedents of sourcing decisions in any single project but provides primary explorative evidence on the concept of a company sourcing strategy as a portfolio of decisions across projects. Our test is implemented on a sample of 60 New Product Development projects carried out by a group of leading Italian firms, operating in the machine tool industry. We identify two knowledge dimensions that are the determinants of sourcing decisions at project level: novelty, new functions that satisfy emergent market needs, and breadth, heterogeneity of technological fields that encompass possible solutions to product problems. Our findings show that in firms choosing sourcing configurations on a project-by-project basis, exploratory projects, which search at the frontiers of either novel product features or heterogeneous technological domains, spur firms to exploit the potential advantages of external sources.     

Economic explanations for concurrent sourcing

Concurrent sourcing is a phenomenon where firms simultaneously make and buy the same good, i.e. they simultaneously use the governance modes of market and hierarchy. Though concurrent sourcing seems to be widespread, few studies of sourcing have focused on this phenomenon. This paper reviews different economic explanations for why firms use concurrent sourcing. The distinctive features of the explanations are compared, and it is discussed how they may serve as a springboard for research on concurrent sourcing. Managerial implications are also offered.     

标准化形式对企业国际竞争战略的影响研究

标准化形式作为产品结构的基础组成，影响了企业国际竞争战略。文章对日本关于标准化形式的研究进行了梳理，在此基础上结合产品生命周期理论，重点对模块化、组合化这两种标准化形式进行了分析，提出了基于标准化形式的国际竞争策略。     

Information systems and technology sourcing strategies of e-Retailers for value chain enablement

In the e-Retail industry, a well-designed IT infrastructure is essential in creating a tightly integrated value chain and delivering high quality service. With intense competition for market share and profits, information systems and technology (IST) sourcing decisions are becoming increasingly important to e-Retail firms to support continued growth and market responsiveness. Drawing on the contingency theory, we examine organizational and environmental factors that influence an e-Retailer's IST sourcing strategy of make versus buy in enabling its value chain activities, and we also look at firm-level performance impacts of IST sourcing decisions that involve bundling across value chain activities. We test the proposed model and hypotheses using a panel data set of 307 firms over the period of 2006–2010. The results show that firms that make transformative IT investments tend to source a smaller portion of IST for their e-Retail value chain activities than firms that pursue automate or informate as their strategic role for IT investment. Capabilities are positively associated with IST sourcing. Firms experienced in e-Retail are more likely to build rather than buy their IST. In addition, we find mimicking behavior for IST sourcing among firms in the same merchandizer category. We find that IT strategic role is strongly associated with growth metric, whereas sourcing decisions predominantly impact operational performance measures. There is partial evidence that alignment between IT strategic role and IST sourcing decisions results in better performance effects. Moreover, complementary IST sourcing of synergistic marketing and sales activities positively impacts Web sales and conversion rate, but the sourcing combination of logistics, operations, and sales activities is associated with lower Web sales and conversion rate.     

Revisiting the role of modular innovation in technological radicalness and architectural change of products: The case of Tesla X and Roomba

The management literature defines modular innovation as a way to make technological changes in product modules that does not necessarily change the product architecture. However, engineering science shows that new product modules not only change the product architecture, but they can also be used for technologically radical next generation products. Therefore, there seems to be a misalignment in how the role of modular innovation is seen as an innovation management phenomenon and the actual practice of product design and engineering. We revisit the role of modular innovation by combining management and engineering approaches. We demonstrate the applicability of this approach through two cases that utilize patent data of two recent technologically innovative products: Tesla's Model X and iRobot's Roomba automated vacuum cleaner. The examples show, in detail, how the changes in product modules and functions have led to broader changes at the system architecture level, leading to new functionalities. The findings contribute to the innovation management literature by identifying a more nuanced role of modular innovation by embedding it in the product architecture, thus broadening the discussion on architectural innovation and technological radicalness.     

Price Equilibria in Pure Strategies for Homogeneous Oligopoly

For a homogeneous product oligopoly market, possibilities for pure strategy Nash equilibria in prices are studied. Consumers, who each nonstrategically purchase one unit up to a common reservation price, are hypothesized to be more concerned with large price differences (and therefore buy from the cheapest firm) than slightly different prices. For the duopoly case, existence, uniqueness, and characterization results are provided. Linear examples are given with 2 and n firms.     

Strategic Organizational Change: Exploring the Roles of Environmental Structure,Internal Conscious Awareness and Knowledge*

ABSTRACT We argue that strategic organizational change is best viewed as a multidimensional phenomenon consisting of various degrees of environmental structure and internal conscious awareness. And, by combining this conceptualization of change with a model of organizational knowledge transfer developed by Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995 ), we gain a better understanding of the types of change strategies that firms will pursue, the processes they should use to implement these strategies and the likely performance outcomes from these strategies. Specifically, we suggest that the levels of tacit and explicit knowledge needed to implement the new strategies are key determinants of firm performance following strategic organizational change.     

Trade-offs in make-buy decisions

While the previous literature uses transaction cost economics and the resource-based view to theoretically derive the benefits of outsourcing, it has so far overlooked how these theoretical underpinnings must be used to assess trade-offs involved in make-buy decisions as well. This study investigates trade-offs in make-buy decisions for the buying firm. It takes an operations strategy perspective and links manufacturing firms’ competitive priorities to outsourcing motives and resulting capabilities. Survey data from a representative sample of 136 manufacturing plants in Sweden is subjected to regressions analysis. In contrast to earlier empirical research, this study shows that resulting capabilities of strategic outsourcing initiatives are distinct, and, furthermore, do not emerge cumulatively. This has important implications for the ongoing debate over trade-offs in the operations strategy literature. Findings are clearly in support of the trade-off model and extend current research into the theoretical domain of make-buy decisions.     

Cooperating and competing in supply networks: Making sense of a triadic sourcing strategy

This paper introduces the concept of a “triadic sourcing strategy”. Triadic sourcing is a way for buying companies to nurture and benefit from cooperation and competition between two suppliers with partially overlapping capabilities. In contrast to hybrid sourcing strategies outlined in the literature-parallel and network sourcing—the distinctive feature of triadic sourcing is that the buyer actively creates interdependencies between two suppliers. To illustrate this principle and the characteristics of triadic sourcing, Volvo Cars’ use of two suppliers of seats is described. The paper asserts that triadic sourcing is a dynamic sourcing strategy that contributes to efficiency and innovation for the buyer and the two suppliers, together forming a triad that is subject to firm interdependence and network embeddedness.     

Knowledge capital,CEO power,and firm value: Evidence from the IT industry

Disruptive innovation dramatically changes the demand of a product market in the information technology (IT) industry. In response to the impact of disruptive innovation, IT firms that may be eliminated from the competitive race actively develop innovative products and adjust their operating strategies to strengthen their survivability in the fiercely competitive market. Thus, this study explores the factors that affect firm value in the IT industry under the impact of disruptive innovation. The empirical results reveal that knowledge capital and CEO power play crucial roles in explaining firm value. IT firms with powerful CEOs and increased knowledge capital have high firm values. The effects of knowledge capital and CEO power on firm value are especially significant for founder and duality CEO firms. Furthermore, the influence of CEO power is more prominent in periods of financial crisis.     

Vertical integration and innovative performance: The effects of external knowledge sourcing modes

We set out in this study to analyze the impact of vertical integration on the innovative performance of a firm and to explore the interaction between vertical integration and different modes of external knowledge sourcing. Our empirical results reveal an initial increase in the effect of vertical integration on innovative performance up to a certain level of integration, although this is subsequently followed by a decline; that is, the relationship is characterized by an inverted U-shape. The results further reveal that external knowledge sourcing is positively related to the innovative performance of a firm, albeit with a negative interaction with the level of vertical integration. In other words, firms with higher levels of vertical integration may be faced with barriers to the acquisition of external knowledge. Our findings suggest that firms should be cautious in their pursuit of a strategy of vertical integration, given the non-monotonic impact on innovative performance, whilst an increase in the level of vertical integration is also likely to diminish the effectiveness of the external knowledge sourcing.     

Breadth-of-impact frontier: How firm-level decisions and selection environment dynamics generate boundary-spanning inventions

In this paper, we provide an ex-ante explanation for why some technologies such as James Watt’s steam engine move successfully across broad technological fields, while other technologies do not. Using a sample of VC-backed biotechnology firms, we examine firm knowledge exploration choices along three dimensions—the decision to build from technologies across broad fields, the decision to explore application domains that are new to the firm, and the decision to mix these two options at the same time. We argue that firm-level invention decisions find differing responses when received by the selection environment. We find evidence of a “breadth-of-impact frontier” for technologies, wherein the choice of whether a firm should enter into a new application domain than those of the past should be informed by the degree to which the technology is citing prior work narrowly or broadly. The findings suggest that the belief that broad sourcing diversity will always result in greater citation diversity requires some caveats. The results contribute to the understanding of not only how entrepreneurial firms evolve but also how individual firms contribute to collective progress.     

TIMELY MANAGEMENT CHANGES AS AN ELEMENT OF ORGANIZATIONAL STRATEGY

This article uses the results of empirical research into the factors determining the differential success of firms in dealing with severe conditions at the industry level. A matched pairs comparison of successful and unsuccessful firms under these conditions reveals very different patterns of strategic measures taken. One of the significant differences is that the successful firms make changes in the management area very early, while the unsuccessful firms make them very late. the results are used for a theoretical reflection focusing on the following two questions: (1) Are organizations basically inert of adaptive? and (2) What is management's role in organizational change? the central theme of the discussion is that in the literature too little attention is paid to timely management changes as an element of organizational change strategies.     

Antecedents and relative performance of sourcing choices for new product development projects

Given the complexity of sourcing choices in R&D, driven by conflicting points of difference, scholars have struggled to formulate clear theoretical predictions about which sourcing choices lead to superior performance. Our study contributes to the elucidation of this question by studying both the antecedents and performance consequences (project cost and duration) of alternative sourcing choices in the context of new product development, thus bridging two rarely intersecting streams of research to discover unique insights. We draw from the transaction cost economics (TCE) and organizational learning theory to account for the interdependence of cost- and non-cost related factors in firms’ sourcing choices. Results from our empirical analysis, using data on clinical trials in the global biopharmaceutical industry, show that greater project complexity, project stage uncertainty, and prior sourcing experience determine the sourcing choices a firm makes. We also establish that alternative sourcing choices vary in their ability to minimize project cost versus project duration, and show that prior experience with a sourcing choice is an important moderator of project performance, in addition to being one of the determinants of sourcing choice.     

转轨经济条件下战略行为选择及转换研究

非市场资源对企业的非市场策略、行为以及绩效都具有十分重要的作用。在转轨经济条件下,尽管国有企业高管人员到政府任职不是企业主动行为,不符合企业政治策略的范畴,却能帮助企业形成相对于其他竞争对手的独特优势地位。当原企业高管人员到政府任职后,特别是担任企业所处行业的主管部门负责人后,会将在企业中所形成的认知模式转换为行业的管制政策,导致其此前所任职的企业必然形成一定的先发优势。本文从非市场资源的角度,提出了转轨经济条件下国有企业战略行为选择与转换的原因,以及竞争优势来源的新解释。     

Asymmetric effects of corporate sustainability strategy on value creation among global automotive firms: A dynamic panel quantile regression approach

This study explores the asymmetric effects of corporate sustainability strategy on firm value at different conditioning quantiles by performing a dynamic panel quantile regression analysis on global automotive firms from 2011 to 2017. Further, this study measures the distinct effects of positive and negative corporate sustainability strategies on firm value, which has remained unconsidered as yet. The findings suggest that low-value and midvalue firms respond more strongly to positive and negative corporate sustainability strategies than high-value firms. This implies that for low-value and midvalue corporations that are in a growth phase, an investment in positive corporate sustainability strategies is essential to increase firm value by enhancing public perception of their efforts. Therefore, positive corporate sustainability strategy contributes substantially to future growth. Conversely, positive corporate sustainability strategy may not be a priority in increasing firm value for high-value corporations, because these strategies do not enhance the public's discernment of their efforts in ethics management and hence do not contribute to a future increase in value. Meanwhile, engagement in negative corporate sustainability strategy worsens firm value in all quantiles, although the effect is somewhat weaker for high-value firms. Nevertheless, however high valued and well established a firm is, it is not immune to crisis.     

Buyer-supplier collaboration: A macro,micro, and congruence perspective

Buyer-supplier collaboration, an important part of operational performance, is predicated on the assumption that a firm's stated strategy on inter-firm collaboration is implemented in practice. We argue that a strategy is only as good as its execution and that micro-level factors—the employees' collaborative propensity and their internal collaborative behaviors—also play an essential role in the successful implementation of buyer-supplier collaboration. We test competing models based on secondary data collected from 330 manufacturing firms in 16 countries/regions. Our results show that both the macro-level firm strategy and micro-level employee factors exert substantial influence over buyer-supplier collaboration. In addition, when inter-firm collaborative strategy and micro-level factors are congruent, there is an enhancement effect. Our research explores the critical role of supply managers and surrounding employees in shaping buyer-supplier collaboration and actualizing operational strategies.     

An exploration of factors influencing the choice of commodity price risk mitigation strategies

Most firms are exposed to price volatility associated with commodities, which can significantly affect the price paid for raw materials, energy, packaging, shipping, and component purchases. Commodity price risk represents the financial, operational and informational effects of commodity price volatility (CPV). The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the supply chain risk management literature by providing a taxonomy of commodity price risk mitigation strategies and factors that may influence the adoption of these strategies. A qualitative study was conducted using a grounded theory approach, based on case studies of companies with home operations in Italy, Germany, and the US. The paper provides some initial evidence for theory and practice as to: 1) how firms can mitigate the risk from CPV by implementing various sourcing, contracting, and financing strategies; and 2) the influence of commodity/product factors, buying organization factors, supply chain factors, and external environment factors on strategy capability and choice.     

Managerial optimism and investment choice

This paper analyzes whether it might be desirable for a firm to hire an overoptimistic manager to commit to a certain R&D strategy. I consider a Cournot model with an ex‐ante R&D stage where firms can invest in cost reduction before product market competition takes place. I show that firms want to hire overoptimistic managers and argue that a manager's type may serve as a substitute for strategic delegation via contracts. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Vertical differentiation,product innovation,and dynamic competition

This paper presents an infinite horizon dynamic model in which two firms compete in a market vertically differentiated by the qualities of their products and consumers have heterogeneous preferences for quality. Given the product qualities offered, the firms engage in price competition that segments the market. In each period each firm can spend on product innovation that if successful increases the quality of its product. Three types of Markov perfect equilibria are identified. A running–coasting equilibrium exhibits increasing quality dominance with one firm undertaking innovation and the other coasting to free ride on the innovation by the first firm. The firm that coasts can have the larger dynamic payoff, so quality dominance does not imply payoff dominance. A second is a leap‐frog equilibrium in which the trailing firm undertakes innovation to leap into the lead. The trailing firm never innovates solely to narrow the gap with the leader, so catch up strategies are never used. In the third both firms undertake innovation, but if both have innovation successes, product differentiation remains the same and profits are reduced by the cost of innovation. The rivalry between Intel and AMD in microprocessors for personal computers provides a motivating example.