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1 – 10 of over 1000Mark Gottfredson and Stephen Phillips
Most companies focus on using outsourcing to achieve cost cutting. This article urges them instead to consider outsorcings potential for capability enhancement.
Abstract
Purpose
Most companies focus on using outsourcing to achieve cost cutting. This article urges them instead to consider outsorcings potential for capability enhancement.
Design/methodology/approach
Reports on a handful of companies that place outsourcing – onshore or off – in a strategic context.
Findings
Leading companies start by analyzing not just where they can outsource to lower costs and improve quality, but which capabilities are vital to their core business.
Research limitations/implications
A recent Bain survey of large and medium‐sized companies reports that only 10 percent are highly satisfied with the costs they're saving, and a mere 6 percent are “highly satisfied” with offshore outsourcing overall.
Practical implications
Outsourcing has become so sophisticated that even functions like engineering, R&D, manufacturing, and marketing can be moved outside.
Originality/value
The authors show that it's no longer a company's ownership of capabilities that matters, but rather its ability to control and make the most of critical capabilities. In other words, capability sourcing has become strategic.
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Orit Gadiesh, Robin Buchanan, Mark Daniell and Charles Ormiston
The legal framework for extending innovation beyond the corporate boundary is the Strategic Alliance (or partnership) Agreement. Before entering into any type of alliance…
Abstract
The legal framework for extending innovation beyond the corporate boundary is the Strategic Alliance (or partnership) Agreement. Before entering into any type of alliance involving a joint development arrangement, every company whose core assets are comprised of intellectual property should conduct an internal Intellectual Property Audit. Make certain what you own (or control through licenses) it may be more or less than you think. The second phase of the Intellectual Property Audit is to make sure your Intellectual Property Assets are protected. Begin drafting the Alliance Agreement by articulating the goals of the alliance as specifically as possible. Define the product to be developed or area to be explored in detail. The Alliance Agreement should define the what technology is proprietary to each party. Determine in advance who collects the money, how is the money split, and who does the accounting. Each party should be individually responsible for the cost of defending any claims of infringement. Options can be tied to the development and testing milestones that allow you to get out of the deal entirely or reduce it from an exclusive to a non‐exclusive arrangement.
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Wendy Cukier, Suzanne Gagnon and Ruby Latif
This paper examines actors and discourses shaping new Canadian legislation designed to advance diversity in corporate governance.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper examines actors and discourses shaping new Canadian legislation designed to advance diversity in corporate governance.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper performs a stakeholder and discourse analysis drawing on texts of parliamentary debates.
Findings
The paper illuminates tensions regarding definitions of diversity, its importance for boards of directors and the mechanisms favoured for implementation. Official discourses examined show that, unlike for other political issues, opposition was largely muted, and most stakeholders engaged in the process supported legislation advancing diversity. Nonetheless areas of debate and positioning by actors and suggest important differences, with outcomes linked to non-traditional power bases.
Research limitations/implications
This study provides insights into the discursive environments of organizations and processes relating to promoting diversity and equality in the political decision-making domain, a critical venue for understanding advancement of equity, often neglected in organizational studies.
Practical implications
By understanding the complex and competing discourses surrounding diversity and inclusion at the macro level this paper provides a context for understanding organizational (meso) and individual (micro) beliefs and behaviours.
Social implications
This study shows how advocacy shapes how policy and legislation are framed and the ways mainstream organizations, including women's groups, may advance gender equality without regard to other dimensions of diversity or intersectionality.
Originality/value
This study maps the political discourse around recent Canadian legislation designed to improve diversity on boards that must, in the Canadian context, address more than gender.
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