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The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into how individuals are affected by an outsourcing arrangement. The aim of this exploratory case study was to develop an understanding of individual level role stress and work outcomes among transferred employees in IT outsourcing relationships.

A research model was developed based on role theory. Through a field survey conducted in one outsourcing vendor, the research confirms the hypothesis that proposes role stress as prevalent among transferred information technology (IT) employees.

Perceived role stress was found to influence behavioural work outcomes measured as task performance, turnover intention, and affective commitment. The effect of role stress on work outcomes indicates that carefully crafted outsourcing strategies must take into account the unique position of transferred IT employees since the outsourcing arrangement may affect their work outcome.

The original value of the paper is the use of role theory to extend the scientific research and theory of outsourcing and inform managers of outsourcing decisions. The study is applied at the individual level, which is new in the sense that most outsourcing studies are applied at the organisational level.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the application of outsourcing within Icelandic service companies in the wake of the banking collapse.

Findings are based on comparing surveys conducted in early 2009 (381 answers) and in the summer of 2013 (212 answers).

In general outsourcing did not increase, but most SMEs had extended their outsourcing in almost every area of operation, such as human resource management (HRM), IT and peripheral tasks. Also, more SMEs gave cost-reduction as a reason for outsourcing in 2013, and more respondents in 2013 expressed a positive experience of outsourcing. It is uncommon for companies to outsource human resources or lay off staff. Instead, outsourcing mainly focuses on aspects of information technology as well as administrative and peripheral functions.

The research highlights service firms in one country by survey methods. Further research is needed in other sectors and countries, and more varied research methods are recommended.

Research on outsourcing in SMEs in the wake of the financial crisis is rare, and very few studies have focused on the HRM implications of outsourcing in SMEs. This study can inform researchers and practitioners on critical aspects of outsourcing.

The purpose of this paper is to theoretically and empirically analyze the impact of the types of micro-innovation on innovation performance and the choice of micro-innovation strategies in different contexts on the basis of an examination of the basis and standards of micro-innovation categorization.

The authors collected and analyzed 206 survey samples from the Zhejiang Province in China; there were 68, 63 and 75 enterprises at inception, high growth and maturity stages, respectively, and there were, in total, 53, 90 and 63 low-tech manufacturing small and medium enterprises (SMEs), technology-intensive manufacturing SMEs and service-oriented SMEs, respectively. Multiple regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses.

The analysis results suggest that SMEs at the embryonic stage should choose strategies of imitative innovation, whereas SMEs at growth stage should use continued micro-innovation and independent micro-innovation as the optimal choices; it is better for the SMEs at the mature stage to resort to independent micro-innovation. Low-tech manufacturing SMEs should opt for the continued micro-innovation strategy, and technology-intensive manufacturing SMEs should adopt independent micro-innovation, whereas service-oriented SMEs should choose both continued and independent micro-innovation strategies.

This study sets up a classification framework of micro-innovation and addresses its category and sources, thus extending the micro-innovation research results. The conclusion also supports and enriches the view of open innovation in the innovation theory. Hidden behind the phenomenon that internal and external factors play vital roles, it is a basic rule that innovation activities must be subject to various related factors.

Students have direct access to academic ghost writers who are able to provide for their assessment needs without the student needing to do any of the work. These ghost writers are helping to fuel the international industry of contract cheating, raising ethical dilemmas, but not much is known about the writers, their business or how they operate. This paper aims to explore how the ghost writers market their services and operate, based on observable information.

This paper reviews data from providers actively offering contract cheating services available to the public on Fiverr.com, a low-cost micro outsourcing site. The search term write essay is used to identify providers, finding 103 Gigs from 96 unique providers. Visible information, such as provider marketing, advertised services, pricing information and customer reviews, is analysed.

The results demonstrate that bespoke essays are readily available to students at a low cost. The majority of providers operate from Kenya. Revenue calculations indicate a price point of US$31.73 per 1,000 words, below the cost of traditional essay mills, but show that these 96 providers have generated around US$270,000 of essay writing business between them.

This study affords a look into a complex and established industry whose inner workings are normally kept private and for which little published information currently exists. The research adds to what is known about the extent, location and operation of the contract cheating industry.

This paper aims to examine empirically whether the system of public expenditure reporting is capable of delivering financial accountability, focusing on the UK government's use of private finance for roads.

Publicly available documents from the public and private sector partners for 11 roads contracts are examined, together with a publicly provided bridge paid for via tolls as a comparator.

Reporting by both public and private sectors is limited and opaque, such that accountability to the public is inadequate. The evidence also shows that the scale of the additional expenditure generated by private finance warrants greater disclosure and scrutiny than is currently the case.

These findings, which occur in the roads sector where projects are large and visible, are likely to be replicated elsewhere in the public sector. Accountability issues may be even more problematic in public bodies where reporting is more diffuse. Furthermore, the proliferation of other forms of private finance increases the problems of reporting clear financial information, the lack of which not only makes informed public debate about public and fiscal policy impossible but also may lead to the wrong policy choice.

There has been little ex post facto examination as to whether extant reporting requirements permit understanding and scrutiny of the cost of private finance. The paper presents a desired list of annual disclosure, highlighting an information gap.

The increased complexity of global supply chains and its inherent risk requires the re-evaluation of the SCRM discipline as a source of value creation for shareholders. This paper aims to unveil the areas that require more focus considering the point of view of Chinese manufacturers, and following a social constructivist approach oriented to fashion organizations outsourcing to China, unveil the elements driving the point of SCRM strategies.

The authors studied the existing body of knowledge related to SCRM and developed a model to quantify the influence of macro and micro risk factors to the different operations performance indicators. This model was used in a survey to 61 Chinese manufacturers of fashion products, while at the same time, an interview to 20 members of the SC group of fashion companies around the globe was conducted to understand the qualitative and quantitative elements shaping their SCRM initiatives.

The study shows that, while supply, manufacturing and demand risk remain as the main factors hindering value creation in the industry, the addition of the manufacturer’s perspective proves that other elements that are less evident to the customer, such as macro-social and micro-infrastructure (transportation, financial and information), require more attention. Additionally, it was noted that the influence of the different risk factors is different for the different performance indicators of quality, speed, cost, dependability and flexibility. Finally, it shows that current SCRM programs tend to be simplified methods of trial and error, fed with incomplete KPIs, shaped by the experience and priorities of dominant stakeholders and prompt to potential agency costs and focused on the short term.

The focus on the fashion industry led to relatively small sample sizes for surveys and interviews. Although some patterns are identified, studies with larger sample sizes could facilitate the statistical analysis of unique characteristics in the different sub-groups. Additionally, the use of cross-sectional research designs that include survey techniques has the limitation of not explaining processes over time. Future reference to this work can be complemented with a new study to unveil the latest priorities.

This study shows that, to create value, fashion organizations first need to determine the operational elements that create value for them and then focus their limited resources on the risk elements that have proved more influence. The authors offer a systematic framework to measure the risk associated with global outsourcing; it can be used by organizations outsourcing globally to make strategic decisions, including potential outsourcing locations, to allocate resources across categories and to evaluate changes over time. Finally, the interview with SC practitioners shows that, to advance toward its objective of value creation, the SCRM discipline requires cross-collaboration and a holistic approach supported by more systematic processes that can reduce bias and potential agency costs.

This study offers insights about contemporary factors affecting the value creation function for fashion organizations outsourcing production to China and a more holistic approach vs other studies by including: a wider and more relevant categorization of risk factors, the perspective of Chinese manufacturers and the view of SC practitioners around the world. This study also develops a model to explain the cycle of SCRM in fashion organizations and the most common traps hindering its execution.

While the implications of outsourcing have been extensively studied from the point of view of the developed country multinational corporation (MNC) and its home economy, far less attention has been paid to the developing country firm (DCF) participating in the outsourcing collaboration. This article aims at presenting, evaluating, and synthesizing a number of theoretical contributions that may help build an agenda for future research on outsourcing from a DCF perspective.

Through a review of the extant theoretical literature on outsourcing, the article seeks to explicate a DCF perspective on outsourcing.

The article argues that although several theoretical domains indirectly shed light on outsourcing from a DCF perspective, they are typically approaching the issue from a macro (country) and meso (industry) level perspective and rarely explicitly apply a micro (firm) level perspective. Moreover, they tend to view DCF strategy in outsourcing collaborations as functions of MNCs' strategies, not as strategies in their own right. In order to fill this apparent lacuna in the outsourcing literature, the article reviews a number of theories that may help building a research agenda on outsourcing from a developing country perspective.

The article contributes to the outsourcing literature by explicating a DCF theoretical perspective on outsourcing.

This roadmap is primarily concerned with the adaptive assembly technology situation in Europe, a topic of particular interest as assembly is often the final process within manufacturing operations. Being the final set of operations on the product, and being traditionally labour‐intensive, assembly has been considerably affected by globalisation. Therefore, unlike most technology roadmaps, this report will not focus solely on particular technologies, but will strive to form a broader perspective on the conditions that may come to influence the opportunities, including political aspects and scientific paradigms. The purpose of this paper is to convey a complete view of the global mechanisms that may come to affect technological breakthroughs, and also present strategies that may better prepare for such a forecast.

The paper describes a technological roadmap.

This paper provides a complete overview of all aspects that may come to affect assembly in Europe within the next 20 years.

The paper gives an original Evolvable Ultra Precision Assembly Systems FP6 project result which will be of general interest for strategic R&D.

There are two purposes of this paper: first, to analyze the effect of size and other organizational factors (IT knowledge, IT external support and the level of employees' education) on the use of e‐business; and second, to identify similarities and differences among these factors in micro, small, medium‐sized and large enterprises.

The proposed model is empirically tested using data from the Sectorial e‐Business W@tch survey. A logit estimation for the whole sample and for each type of firm size has been implemented on the use of e‐business.

The study finds positive and significant effects of all the organizational factors on the intensity of e‐business use. When analyzing the effect of size, it was found that medium‐sized and large firms are more likely to use e‐business more intensively. Although medium‐sized and large firms are similar, some differences have been found between small and medium‐sized firms. Only small firms use IT outsourcing as a key factor to use e‐business.

This study is based on a cross‐sectional data set. Longitudinal research would be needed for comparing results over time. Future studies could focus on the use of each type of e‐business technology, instead of a global measure of e‐business use. Future research could also analyze the differences of e‐business adoption rates among countries.

The paper concludes that small and micro firms are less likely to conduct e‐business than medium‐sized and large firms. An important influence on the use of e‐business is workforce education, implying that training could substitute hiring IT employees. Outsourcing IT activities is a suitable strategy only for small firms.

The paper contributes to the literature on e‐business with new evidence of the importance of size and human capital. Additionally, an analysis for each firm size has been done, which allows comparison of results.

Evidence suggests that unorganized manufacturing units are extremely credit-starved. The purpose of this paper is to study the effect of such credit unavailability for small firms, and to see if it has altered the erstwhile production organization in a way which has led to the withdrawal of the small firms from both input and output market, leading to increased production outsourcing between the formal and informal firms.

Based on data collected from two textile clusters in Maharashtra, India, the study shows that credit unavailability has led small firms to increasingly work for bigger firms as outsourced units. The paper uses a measure of technology and productivity to undertake logistic regression and sub-sample regressions to confirm production reorganization resulting from credit unavailability. This would provide additional insights for standard measures of intra-country intra-industry trade

The exclusion of the unorganized production units from the formal lending process has, over the years, led to a reorganization of the existing production structure, whereby the small firms are forced to work for bigger formal firms on piece-rate basis. To circumvent their credit issues, the small unorganized sector firms have increasingly started to work for bigger firms as outsourced units.

This is an original research work. The paper fulfils the identified need of addressing how the plaguing social issue of financial exclusion of unorganized firms has led to production reorganization.