Search results
1 – 10 of over 1000Industrialized world‐based healthcare providers are increasingly off‐shoring low‐end healthcare services such as medical transcription, billing and insurance claims. High‐skill…
Abstract
Purpose
Industrialized world‐based healthcare providers are increasingly off‐shoring low‐end healthcare services such as medical transcription, billing and insurance claims. High‐skill medical jobs such as tele‐imaging and tele‐pathology are also being sub‐contracted to developing countries. Despite its importance, little theory or research exists to explain what factors affect industry growth. The article's goals, therefore, are to examine economic processes associated with developing economies' shift from low‐ to high‐value information technology enabled healthcare services, and to investigate how these differ in terms of legitimacy from regulative, normative and cognitive institutions in the sending country and how healthcare services differ from other services.
Design/methodology/approach
This research is conceptual and theory‐building. Broadly, its approach can be described as a positivistic epistemology.
Findings
Anti off‐shoring regulative, normative and cognitive pressures in the sending country are likely to be stronger in healthcare than in most business process outsourcing. Moreover, such pressures are likely to be stronger in high‐value rather than in low‐value healthcare off‐shoring. The findings also indicate that off‐shoring low‐value healthcare services and emergent healthcare industries in a developing economy help accumulate implicit and tacit knowledge required for off‐shoring high‐value healthcare services.
Research limitations/implications
The approach lacks primary data and empirical documentation.
Practical implications
The article helps in understanding industry drivers and its possible future direction. The findings help in understanding the lens through which various institutional actors in a sending country view healthcare service off‐shoring.
Originality/value
The article's value stems from its analytical context, mechanisms and processes associated with developing economies' shift to high‐value healthcare off‐shoring services.
Details
Keywords
Ari‐Pekka Hameri and Teemu Tunkelo
The purpose of this paper is to examine how companies should off‐shore complex product related tasks to low‐cost countries, without jeopardizing their competitive advantage and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine how companies should off‐shore complex product related tasks to low‐cost countries, without jeopardizing their competitive advantage and intellectual property, while building solid and sustainable business in the sourcing country.
Design/methodology/approach
The underlying case concerns a multinational, globally operating engineering company delivering complex system products used as part of industrial and social infrastructure, and its entry to off‐shoring and how it has evolved from a green field operation to sizeable value center over the past six years.
Findings
The case provides support to the fact that companies understanding that building permanent, knowledge‐based and proprietary presence with full product management responsibility in lower labor cost countries will be more responsive in serving customers, cost efficient in maintaining old infrastructure products and in delivering new ones in the future. Further, complex product business companies focusing on long term and knowledge based legacy building in emerging economies will develop, not only more robust global business platform for themselves, but they will also contribute to the sustainable development of the global economy.
Originality/value
The paper presents unique descriptive data on the overall outsourcing strategy of a global engineering company and how one of its off‐shoring units has evolved over time since its inception.
Details
Keywords
Luciano Fratocchi, Alessandro Ancarani, Paolo Barbieri, Carmela Di Mauro, Guido Nassimbeni, Marco Sartor, Matteo Vignoli and Andrea Zanoni
The first aim of the chapter is to offer a characterization of back-reshoring as a possible step of the firm’s nonlinear internationalization process. The second aim is to review…
Abstract
Purpose
The first aim of the chapter is to offer a characterization of back-reshoring as a possible step of the firm’s nonlinear internationalization process. The second aim is to review the empirical literature on back-reshoring and to complement it with the findings of an extensive data collection.
Methodology/approach
In this chapter we adopted an explorative approach building on both theoretical and empirical literature from the fields of international business and international operations Management. We also collected secondary data on back-reshoring decisions in order to define the magnitude of the investigated phenomenon and to offer a primary characterization.
Findings
Our findings confirm that, though it cannot be considered a generalized trend, back-reshoring is a very topical issue for international business scholars. It represents an autonomous phenomenon consistent with the idea of nonlinear internationalization process.
Research limitations/implications
The chapter is based on cross-sectional data. Longitudinal research is required in order to address the proposed research questions and help understanding “how much” and what kind of manufacturing will be housed in western countries in the near future.
Originality/value
This is the first attempt to conceptualize back-reshoring as a possible step of the firms’ internationalization process. It is also the first chapter that summarizes and discusses the literature and empirical evidence on back-reshoring emerging from a wide range of countries.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to update an article written by the author in the Harvard Business Review almost 50 years ago.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to update an article written by the author in the Harvard Business Review almost 50 years ago.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper evaluates the present status of the phenomena of modularity (for both product and service components). This is done by reviewing all existing literature on multitudinous facets of the subject and discussing applications with practitioners.
Findings
Modularity remains a splintered concept, perhaps because so many different types of application exist. Heterogeneity stymies systemization. Nevertheless, successful applications exist. This International Journal of Operations & Production Management, dedicated to modularity, testifies to significant facets of accomplishment and continued challenges (e.g. optimum shoe sizing and modular construction). Also, production managers have not become boardroom planners (as was expected 45 years ago). Potential cost savings of modularity do not occur because off‐shoring provided another way to dramatically lower production costs – albeit at the expense of quality problems.
Practical implications
All management functions participate in modularity issues. Though marketing does not thrive in a commodity‐environment, it has not advocated modularity as a way to offset commoditization nor as a means of improving quality. Finance has been the cheer leader for off‐shore decisions, but a tipping point may be in sight (i.e. recognizing the hidden costs of off‐shore seduction).
Social implications
If mass customization, using modularity, develops economic clout, it is likely that production will switch from overseas to domestic bases. The impact on domestic economies will be significant.
Originality/value
The link between modularity and off‐shoring needs to be recognized, researched, and discussed.
Details
Keywords
Ambika Zutshi, Andrew Creed, Amrik S. Sohal and Greg Wood
The paper aims to discuss the need to balance selflessness and self‐interest issues in outsourcing decisions. This discussion is timely given the tensions that currently exist…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper aims to discuss the need to balance selflessness and self‐interest issues in outsourcing decisions. This discussion is timely given the tensions that currently exist between those who want off‐shore outsourcing to continue as a means for increasing international trade, and those who only want to conduct business on‐shore.
Design/methodology/approach
A conceptual approach has been taken in this paper in order to highlight key considerations for ethical decision‐making with respect to off‐shore outsourcing.
Findings
Considerations of selflessness and self‐interest are embedded in outsourcing decisions. It is recommended that a balance between making profits and fulfilling social responsibilities is required, ideally, at each stage of decision‐making. Hence, managers should think critically about the reasons behind off‐shore outsourcing decisions, the process of arriving at decisions, and the impact of their decisions on stakeholders.
Research limitations/implications
This is a conceptual paper and further empirical data to validate the stages of decision‐making framework are required.
Practical implications
Failure to take into account the selflessness and self‐interest outcomes of off‐shore outsourcing could potentially off‐set strategic gains by leading to negative media publicity for a company.
Social implications
Ethical considerations as part of outsourcing decisions should result in a transparent, fair and more humane working environment for both the host and the home country representatives involved in the process.
Originality/value
This paper presents an original framework of selflessness and self‐interest considerations when making off‐shore outsourcing decisions. Both Eastern and Western business perspectives have been incorporated as part of the decision‐making framework.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to examine knowledge intensive business services, or KIBS for short. KIBS are one of the fastest growing areas of the European economy, and are…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine knowledge intensive business services, or KIBS for short. KIBS are one of the fastest growing areas of the European economy, and are increasingly important contributors to the performance of the sectors who are their clients.
Design/methodology/approach
KIBS are distinguished from other services and knowledge‐intensive activities, and statistics on KIBS in the European Union are examined, highlighting key similarities and differences in their development across Member States
Findings
KIBS are continuing to grow at rapid rates, and are experiencing qualitative change. The growth is associated with outsourcing, the internationalisation of services, and the growth in demand for certain forms of knowledge. Many KIBS sectors are becoming more concentrated (though most KIBS sectors feature a higher share of small firms than does the economy as a whole). As KIBS supply a wider range of services, overlap and convergence between different KIBS sectors has grown. But as some KIBS become more involved with their major clients' strategies, it is possible that some services will become specialised, while others integrate their inputs for clients.
Research limitations/implications
Scenario analysis is used to examine policy issues concerning KIBS. These are based on deskwork: group discussion would be a valuable complement to this approach.
Practical implications
A range of policy issues, responses to these issues, and the rationales and challenges that policies may confront are spelled out. The article calls for much more explicit consideration of KIBS in innovation and other policy areas.
Originality/value
KIBS remain poorly studied, and their future development has rarely been considered. The implications for innovation and other policies are examined more explicitly and in greater depth than in previous studies.
Details
Keywords
Fotis Mouzakis and John Henneberry
Despite the recent trend of off‐shoring branches of UK services industry to remote locations, urban theory has yet to enlist a theory of industrial rents that formally takes into…
Abstract
Purpose
Despite the recent trend of off‐shoring branches of UK services industry to remote locations, urban theory has yet to enlist a theory of industrial rents that formally takes into account the properties of substitution between locations. The purpose of this paper is to elaborate on the Fujita, et al. model in order to develop theoretical foundations for a pricing theory of contemporary commercial real estate markets.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper employs panel data methods for the simultaneous estimation of local market rent structures, which include a complex of spill‐over effects from all other parts of the national market. The estimations are based on time series of locally adjusted estimates of tenancy demand and supply proxies for 48 UK office centres. Influences from the entity of UK regions are considered by applying a variety of deterministic and stochastic structural variability tests. The estimated structures are subjected to multivariate co‐integration tests for an examination of the stability of structural differentials.
Findings
The paper appears to find considerable support to the hypothesis that rental spill‐overs exist across the network of office centres in the UK. It suggests that the structure of these markets is characterised by certain properties of substitution and complementarity that have generally been observed in a wide range of real consumer or producer markets. This finding is critical to the development of a policy theory for national planning, which takes into account the impacts of local planning policies on national aggregate economic welfare.
Research limitations/implications
This analysis is limited by the unavailability of a coherent theoretical micro‐economic framework, which may be the focus of further research.
Originality/value
The focus of this paper is on offices and business services industry but the principles can be extended to include industrial space. The paper questions some of the central assumptions and methodological approaches used in existing industrial location theory. It proposes a model that considers location pricing and allocation in relation to strategies to improve the spatial organisation of multinational services firms.
Details
Keywords
The case traces the evolution of the offshore Analytics operations of a large US based bank in India. It recounts the challenges of coupling geographically-disparate…
Abstract
The case traces the evolution of the offshore Analytics operations of a large US based bank in India. It recounts the challenges of coupling geographically-disparate, culturally-alien and, somewhat antagonistic groups of employees within the organization to ensure a productive operation. It touches upon the unique dimensions of organization design in a globally operated organization. Besides all these, the case points to the issues related to work flows and coordination across teams that are operating in different time zones, have skewed capabilities and, do not interact on a person-to-person contact except over the wire. Overall, this case provides exposure into more challenges than solutions for new age global organizations. Given the topical nature of these problems, the case provides ample opportunities for participants to delve into the long term issues of managing such geographically-spaced organizations.
Details
Keywords
Louis Brennan, Kasra Ferdows, Janet Godsell, Ruggero Golini, Richard Keegan, Steffen Kinkel, Jagjit Singh Srai and Margaret Taylor
The past three decades have seen the transformation of manufacturing involving its global dispersion and fragmentation. However, a number of recent developments appear to suggest…
Abstract
Purpose
The past three decades have seen the transformation of manufacturing involving its global dispersion and fragmentation. However, a number of recent developments appear to suggest that manufacturing may be entering a new era of flux that will impact the configuration of production around the globe. The purpose of this paper is to address the major emerging themes that may shape this configuration and concludes that most of them are still in their initial stages and are not likely to create a radical shift in the next few years in how manufacturing is configured around the world. These themes were presented in a special session on “Manufacturing in the World – Where Next?” at the 2013 EurOMA Conference in Dublin, Ireland.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper provides a series of perspectives on some key considerations pertaining to the future of manufacturing. An evaluation of their likely impact is offered and insights for the future of manufacturing are presented.
Findings
The importance of a focus on the extended manufacturing network is established. The need for customer engagement and a forward looking approach that extends to the immediate customer and beyond emerges as a consistent feature across the different perspectives presented in the paper. There is both the potential and need for the adoption of innovative business models on the part of manufacturers.
Originality/value
The paper presents in-depth perspectives from scholars in the field of manufacturing on the changing landscape of manufacturing. These perspectives culminate in a series of insights on the future of global manufacturing that inform future research agendas and help practitioners in formulating their manufacturing strategies.
Details