Outsourcing in the IT industry: The case of the Philippines

Outsourcing of labor, especially in area of the Information Technology (IT) sector, has grown rapidly in recent years. This article further defines what is meant by outsourcing, and examines the opportunities and challenges for entrepreneurs to outsource in the Philippines. This emerging economy has been cited as one of the most attractive destinations for outsourcing, despite the lack of information. The article offers historical, business, and cultural insights and identifies strategies for outsourcing success in the Philippine environment.     

电子商务企业物流外包边界问题研究

企业将物流外包出去，可以使其更好的集中精力发展核心业务，增强企业的核心竞争力。因此，越来越多的企业在发展过程中选择将其物流外包出去，以保持其在市场中的地位，并且更好的发展。文中基于委托-代理模型对物流企业的外包边界进行分析，提出了物流外包的边界条件。     

业务外包风险分析及其识别研究

业务外包在当今全球化的背景下发展十分迅猛。各个机构通过确定自己的产业边界将非核心业务外包给服务供应商,以此来达到节约成本,聚集资源,发展核心业务,增加核心竞争力的目的。但各机构在享受外包带来好处的同时也承受着风险。本文在文献调研和自身研究积累的基础上对外包中存在的风险进行了分析和识别,为企业在外包过程中做出正确的决策提供借鉴。     

基于服务质量的物流外包决策研究

降低物流成本和提高物流服务水平是企业选择物流外包所考虑的两个主要原因,因此物流服务外包价格和物流商能提供的物流服务水平很大程度上影响着企业的外包决策。文章从制造商的角度出发,引入外包服务质量,建立企业物流外包模型,选择若干参数分析在不同的物流合同下,制造商应该如何运作以达到不同的经营目标,为制造业进行物流外包提供建议。     

Strategic investment and international outsourcing in unionised oligopoly

We develop an oligopoly model in which firms facing unionised domestic labour markets choose between producing an intermediate good in-house and outsourcing it to a non-unionised foreign supplier that makes a relationship-specific investment in developing the intermediate. The paper sheds light on the issue of whether international outsourcing offers a means to ‘escape’ the power of domestic unions and on the existence of intra-industry wage dispersion. We show that outsourcing typically increases marginal costs even when it lowers union wages. Despite this, more powerful unions increase the incentive to outsource.     

Outsourcing,delocalization and firm organization: Transaction costs versus industrial relations in a local production system of Emilia Romagna

This article investigates the firms’ decisions to outsource, taking into account the impact of their embeddedness in a specific regional context on the relative entrepreneurial decision. It focuses on the role of industrial relations, as a factor that could interfere with the entrepreneurs’ decision of resorting to market relationships in discovering and exploiting new business opportunities. We study a local production system in Emilia Romagna (Northern Italy), i.e. the province of Reggio Emilia (RE), whose firms are characterized by a district kind of environment and where entrepreneurship develops in the presence of ‘thick’ industrial relations. The empirical part of the study shows that the role of transaction costs in explaining the outsourcing is blurred, while industrial relations have a stronger explanatory power. Furthermore, it seems that RE firms generally use outsourcing and international delocalization in complementary ways; however, the correlation depends on the activity and the nature of the delocalization channel. Outsourcing strategies appear to be affected by the pattern of socio-economic development in the region where the firms are located. In particular, the entrepreneurial decision to externalize a part of the production process seems to be related to the specific participatory, formal and informal mechanisms involved in regional development.     

A decision model for outsourcing training functions: distinguishing between generic and firm-job-specific training content

Employee training plays a crucial role in the success of most organizations. Due to its developmental aspect, training is closely linked to core competencies and strategic focus. However, it is also one of the most widely outsourced HR functions in most Western economies.

This article attempts to illustrate and propose a decision model for the factors that shape the expected benefits and subsequently the extent of outsourcing training functions. A distinction is made among generic training (for the development of competencies) and job- or company- specific training (for example, induction training, job specialization, etc.).

Two decision models are extracted with structural equation modelling. Asset specificity, market availability, in-house development of training and firm size are discussed. The factors shaping the decision to outsource, as well as the perceived benefits from outsourcing employee training, are different for each of the two types of training (generic and specific). The reasons underlying those differences are discussed. For both types of training service it is proposed that the expected quality benefits, not cost ones, induce companies to outsource training.

Thus, this study attempts to offer a useful insight into the factors shaping the extent and the expected benefits from outsourcing training services. The outcomes can further assist HRM professionals (managers and providers of HRM services), as well as academics to gain a better understanding of the nature of HRM outsourcing decisions in general, and a ‘basic’ HRM outsourcing practice – training – in particular.     

国外信息技术外包关系研究综述

随着全球竞争的加剧和信息技术的发展,越来越多的企业不得不将其复杂的信息技术外包。企业怎样认识、选择、处理和维系外包关系是个难题。运用文献综述法对国外IT外包关系的研究现状进行了归纳与总结,并分析了研究的不足并对下一步的研究内容进行了思考和展望,以期对国内外学者的研究提供参考。     

Outsourcing and financial performance: A negative curvilinear effect

This study asks how a firm's degree of outsourcing across all activities influences financial performance. We argue there is an optimal degree of outsourcing, where firms outsource some activities yet integrate others, and that deviations lower performance in a negatively curvilinear fashion. We find empirical support, using 1995 and 1998 data on a sample of manufacturing businesses in the Netherlands, and show that the steepness of the curve increases under conditions of high uncertainty. We show the magnitude of the uncertainty effect on performance outcomes through a post hoc scenario analysis. Thus we provide a specific, theoretically and empirically grounded prediction of how outsourcing affects performance with implications for theory and practice.     

企业人力资源管理外包的研究

随着全球经济一体化及信息技术的飞速发展,越来越多的企业将自己不擅长的业务外包,从而在激烈的市场竞争中取得优势地位。目前,大多数人力资源管理部门正在通过业务外包来达到提高效率、增强企业核心竞争力的目的。本文从外包的定义出发,探讨了人力资源管理外包的概念、内容,并比较了国内外企业人力资源外包的方式,分析了人力资源管理外包的优势和作用．从五个方面详细探讨了人力资源管理外包的过程和步骤。     

内审外包原因解析:一个交易费用理论的分析框架

内审外包作为近年来国际内部审计活动的发展趋势,已经引起了广泛的关注。本文构建了一个基于交易费用理论的分析框架,对企业内部审计选择外包模式还是自有模式的影响因素进行了探讨,认为内部审计的资产专用性不断降低,内部审计的市场交易成本大幅下降,内审外包在成本收益比较中日益占据优势地位,是更多的企业选择将内审外包出去的原因。     

Achieving efficiency and effectiveness in Purchasing and Supply Management: Organization design and outsourcing

As a function with a strategic role, Purchasing and Supply Management (PSM) needs to continuously find ways to improve its efficiency and effectiveness. One potential way to specifically addressing efficiency targets is to outsource parts of the purchasing process. While outsourcing remains one of the most prevalent business practices in various areas, many businesses fail to realize the benefits anticipated from their outsourcing initiatives. Research reports that one major reason for these outsourcing challenges lies in the design of the focal organization. In this paper, we take an organization design view to outsourcing in the PSM context. Based on a multi-year case study from 2010 to 2013 at a global chemical and pharmaceutical company, we elaborate how the organizational design of the PSM function relates to outsourcing opportunities in order to increase efficiency and effectiveness by allocating internal resources to more value-adding activities. The case illustrates how an activity-based organizational design of PSM can support outsourcing of some parts of the purchasing process.     

机械制造业设备维修外包体系研究

在分析了机械制造业设备维修外包特点的基础上,建立了机械制造业设备维修外包的体系。明确了设备维修外包的目标和任务,建立基于流程的设备维修外包流程图,有助于机械制造业在设备维修外包的具体实施中更加有效地运作设备维修外包业务。     

Flexible Outsourcing

Flexibility is definitely a key for success and is crucial in vertical relationships. Then, it seems worth analyzing the selection of the optimal degree of vertical integration and/or separation in a dynamic uncertain environment, where a flexible firm can switch from a certain degree of outsourcing back to vertical integration. The enterprise we investigate never throws away the vertical control of the manufacturing chain as it does not outsource the entire input requirement. On the contrary, it keeps the ability to make the intermediate good in‐house as a kind of prudential conduct. Higher uncertainty lets firms enter earlier, as vertical flexibility provides a hedge against risk. After entry, an increase in uncertainty boosts the probability of outsourcing. These results differ from received literature. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The role of outsourcing in driving global carbon emissions

Globalisation has narrowed the gap between producers and consumers of goods and services. The linkages between international trade and carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions have started to be recognised, yet the extent of outsourcing of emissions across nations is unknown. Filling this gap in knowledge is critical for designing effective policy mechanisms for assigning responsibility for reductions in emissions. Here we present a structural decomposition analysis of global trends in outsourcing of emissions from 1990 to 2010 for 186 individual countries. To this end, we disaggregate total CO₂ emissions for each country into contributions from the domestic economy and international trade. This allows us to unveil outsourcing trends for all nations confirming a world-wide shifting of emissions-intensive production across borders. We categorise nations into “outsourcers” – countries that outsource carbon-intensive production to so-called contractor nations. Our detailed assessment of the commodity content of global outsourcing flows reveals interesting insights about the trade of carbon-intensive commodities.     

基于价值链的企业物流业务外包问题探讨

不是所有的企业内部价值链的各项活动都能增强企业的核心竞争力,这样就要求把部分非核心业务外包出去,其中企业物流业务外包就是外包业务中的一种。通过企业物流业务外包,可以增强企业核心竞争力。文章主要围绕价值链理论,对企业物流业务外包的动因、外包的好处、外包的风险以及如何解决外包中出现的问题进行了探讨。在此基础上,指出企业在外包过程应注意的事项。     

企业物流模式决策比较研究

关于企业物流模式决策有两个重要问题：企业如何根据自身情况来决定是否应该将一些物流业务外包：当企业决定将自己的一些物流业务外包后．如何去选择一个适合自己企业的物流外包模式。文章概述了这两个方面的主要研究成果,并在此基础上提出了一个综合的企业物流模式决策方案。     

Outsourcing, labor market pooling, and labor contracts

This paper considers the interaction between input sharing and labor market pooling in urban areas. In particular, it examines the impact of the size of a city and business risks on the organizational structures of firms located in urban agglomerations, and it also discusses the impact of organizational structure on incentives to insure workers against income risks. It is shown that manufacturing firms suffer from a coordination game in their decision to outsource production. The existence of idiosyncratic risks causes manufacturers to refrain from outsourcing. The incentives to offer wage and employment protection to workers are more pronounced when manufacturers outsource the production of their inputs to a local market, which mitigates the impact of labor market pooling.     

制造企业的物流业务外包与外包联盟探讨

物流业务外包,即制造企业为集中资源、节省管理费用、增强核心竞争力而将物流业务以合同的方式委托与专业的物流公司运作。外包是一种长期的、战略的、互相渗透的、互惠互利的业务委托和合约执行方式．论文将探讨制造企业物流业务外包的原因、存在的问题以及如何正确外包,还将探讨成功建立外包联盟的因素。     

Recruitment and selection services: Efficiency and competitive reasons in the outsourcing of HR practices

While human resource (HR) activities have traditionally been performed internally, the outsourcing of HR practices is a rapidly increasing phenomenon. The accelerated rate of HR outsourcing also corresponds to a sweeping change in which non-transactional activities, such as recruitment, selection and training, are among the most outsourced HR practices. This article investigates the outsourcing decisions of recruiting and selection (R&S). It develops a predictive model based on efficiency drivers, rooted in transaction cost economy (TCE), and competitive motivations, derived from the resource-based view. The model has been tested in a sample of 276 medium and large enterprises in two specific contexts: the outsourcing of administrative R&S practices (job advertisement and pre-screening) and that of the more strategic R&S practices (colloquia and selection). Findings confirm the relevance of both categories of predictors, but they reveal how efficiency motivations are more important for the decisions to outsource administrative R&S practices while competitive issues matter more for the strategic side of R&S activity. Theoretical and managerial implications are offered on the basis of such evidence.