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An investigation has been carried out within a multinational engineering corporation into the role of purchasing within a corporate structure. The main research method was case studies of corporate purchasing and three factory buying departments. It was found that the division of responsibilities between corporate and factory levels had a major effect on the role of purchasing at factory level resulting in the latter occupying a service role in relation to other departments. It is also pointed out that the use and usefulness of various purchasing techniques is also influenced by the relationship between corporate and factory purchasing and factors such as tighter control of stocks, pressures from customers, purchasing department staffing levels, the economic situation, the level of computerisation and the role of purchasing in relation to other departments.

Simulation is an established method of predicting, in detail, the performance of manufacturing systems at the shop or cell level. Recent developments in computer hardware and software technology, combined with methodologies for approximate modelling, allow the extension of simulation to modelling of complete factories or manufacturing enterprises. Such applications require appropriate performance measures, possibly different from those generated in more detailed simulation, to be derived from the models. Examines the performance measures which can be usefully predicted by such models, their relationship with one another, and their propagation through the hierarchical structure of factory management systems. Applies practically the taxonomy of performance measures derived to industrial case studies, and includes a brief example of application.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the resistance behavior of smart factories in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Drawing upon dual factor perspective, this study examines how two types of quality and perceived usefulness impact user resistance as enabling factors and how switching cost, skepticism, habit and inertia contribute to user resistance as inhibiting factors. Additionally, multi-group analysis is employed to compare small and medium enterprises.

Purposive sampling technique was employed to collect 460 Korean SMEs employees, consisting of 235 small enterprises and 225 medium enterprises. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was used for data analysis.

The results reveal that all three inhibiting factors, switching cost, skepticism and habit, are key antecedents of inertia. In small enterprises, skepticism has a greater impact on inertia, which in turn strongly affects resistance. Additionally, system quality is more crucial for small enterprises, whereas information quality holds more importance for medium enterprises in mitigating resistance. Moreover, when the implementation level of a smart factory is high, the effect of perceived usefulness on user resistance diminishes.

This study has revealed the importance of considering both enabling and inhibiting factors for the adoption of smart factory systems in the context of SMEs. Additionally, it has provided evidence that as the level of the smart factory system increases, the effect of perceived usefulness on user resistance decreases, thus making the transition to smart factory systems more challenging.

The increasing use of complex, nonfinancial environmental performance measures in managerial decisions motivates consideration of contextual influences that potentially impact managerial judgments in environmental settings. This study extends general evaluability theory (GET: Hsee & Zhang, 2010) to environmental accounting by investigating the combined effects of evaluation mode and incomplete supplemental evaluability information (SEI; e.g., benchmark data) on management decisions. To elaborate, evaluation mode is the display format in which the accounting information system (AIS) provides available information for analysis; e.g., a manager’s or business unit’s performance is assessed either comparatively (i.e., in joint mode) or individually (i.e., in separate mode). GET suggests more decision weight on measures containing SEI in separate mode because that evaluation mode contains less context in which to analyze information. On the other hand, more decision weight should result for measures that do not contain SEI in joint mode because that mode already contains more context for analysis (e.g., comparing multiple performances with each other). To test these predictions, experimental participants (n = 53) evaluated environmental measures for factories with similar environmental performances. To operationalize the information available in many environmental AIS, some, but not all, performance measures contained benchmark data (incomplete SEI); factories were evaluated either jointly or separately. Participants evidenced decision intransitivity; i.e., in separate evaluation mode, factories rated higher when a favorable measure contained SEI, while in joint evaluation mode, factories rated higher when a favorable measure lacked SEI. The results extend previous AIS and management accounting research by investigating contextual influences, and potential systems design elements, in judgments using environmental AIS.

This chapter analyses the rise of the ‘global factory’ – the globally integrated network centred on a focal multinational enterprise. This is a response to the increased volatility of the global economy and involves the creation of systems that allow flexibility in both the location and the control of increasingly ‘fine-sliced’ activities, the avoidance of monopoly and the evolution of new management skills. Foreign direct investment is only one strategy amongst several utilised by globally integrated multinationals.

The world has witnessed three major individual revolutions until now. We are in the fourth industrial revolution, and there are technological breakthroughs that have not been seen before. Responding fast to changing consumer expectations in a competitive climate brought on by globalization has become a global reality, requiring enterprises to alter their manufacturing systems. The incorporation of machines that can interact and make decisions into production has altered the manufacturing processes. The application of the Industry 4.0 revolution to manufacturing processes has paved the way for the development of smart factories. Production may be made 24 hours a day in these factories where productivity grows with applications such as the internet of things (IoT), cyber-physical systems, augmented reality and artificial intelligence. All applications utilized in smart factories boost productivity and reduce costs and human error rates. Countries should undergo change in order to adapt to the competitive climate established by Industry 4.0, in which the entire world lives. Many industrialized countries have taken significant strides in this direction, including this process into their national policies. Turkey's ability to adapt to Industry 4.0 technologies in a digitalized competitive environment, as well as swiftly grow smart factory applications in altering production processes, is critical to its global economic standing.

This chapter discusses the global factory paradigm. We show how mainstream international business (IB) thinking, namely, internalization theory, can guide multinational enterprise (MNE) strategic decision-making in the context of a global factory network.

We identify the key assumptions made in the global factory paradigm about the fine slicing of economic activities and the related implications for the ownership status and location of each activity. In order to overcome the global factory paradigm’s relative lack of predictive capacity, as compared to internalization theory, we propose an asset-bundling approach. This approach uses a clear and unambiguous criterion, namely, the tradability of resources (and resource combinations) to determine which sets of activities can best be left to external market contracting or should on the contrary be internalized on the basis of efficiency considerations.

We describe the enhanced role of developing/transition countries in the functioning of the global economy and show that these countries represent an increasing share of worldwide economic activities. Given this macrolevel development, the global factory, as a complex organizational form governing both internal activities and contracts with external parties, is rapidly gaining in importance. We describe, at the conceptual level, the strengths and weaknesses of the global factory and propose a “decision dynamics” matrix to support global factory, senior managers’ strategies in the realm of ownership status and location.

Future research on the MNE should focus on in-depth analysis of firms that embody “global factory”-type characteristics in order to understand better the evolution of this type of company and to capture the close requisite links among the focal firm, external contracting parties, and the broader environment. Such research should also lead to a better understanding of innovative resource combination processes and the transferability of non-location-bound firm-specific advantages (FSAs) across the global factory network.

In the global factory, the MNE head office assumes the role of resource orchestrator and is responsible for key strategic decisions on ownership status and location. Here, the head office must assess critically the operations that are part of the MNE’s value chain and reflect on the firm’s international dispersion of economic activities on an ongoing basis, given a myriad of broad environmental changes and changes in external competitive pressures. Our “decision dynamics” matrix provides a simple but effective managerial tool supporting MNE ownership status and location decisions, but the head office’s capability to make these decisions should not be overestimated.

We explicitly link internalization theory with the global factory paradigm and explore unresolved issues in the relevant literature. Internalization theory prescribes the optimal ownership status and location for each economic activity considered. The theory focuses on the bundling of firm-level resources and complementary ones held by external parties, for each fine-sliced economic activity. It also considers explicitly the nature of the linkages among these activities.

Purpose – This chapter asks what we should make of the gift exchanges that take place between workers and their managers on the floor of a massive offshore manufacturing unit in South India. Such exchanges appear anomalous in the ethnography of global manufacturing yet here they underpinned the organisation of hyper-intensive production processes.

Findings – Following diverse acts of giving, this chapter shows how these transactions constituted the performative and relational grounds on which workers came to know themselves and sought to shape the world around them. In doing so it extends the anthropology of work and labour by showing that acts of giving are integral to global commodity production.

Marketing Management, Consumer Behavior.

This case is suitable to be used in advanced undergraduate and MBA/MSc level.

This case attempts to highlight the issues pertaining to Hirdaramani Mihila CKT apparel factory’s implementation of the “green space” concept. The concept of “green space” has been well accepted by the factory employees, and their participation in the “green process” is quite evident. Hirdaramani Mihila CKT is an apparel manufacturing company located in Agalawatte, Matugama, in the Kalutara District of Sri Lanka. The Mihila CKT factory was established in conformance with green building specifications and as an eco-friendly apparel industry. The administration of Mihila CKT has achieved success in three key areas after implementing this concept: cutting down energy consumption, enhancing water security, and reusing fabric waste. The factory also maintains a garden that manifests biodiversity. This case underlines the challenges and successes faced by Mihila CKT in adopting and implementing green space concept.

This case illustrates the following:

• the importance of having green technology in the apparel industry to embrace green concept;

• the effectiveness of the green space concept in relation to global green standards; and

• the potential benefits to the local residents from the green technology initiatives of an apparel factory like Hirdaramani Mihila CKT.

the importance of having green technology in the apparel industry to embrace green concept;

the effectiveness of the green space concept in relation to global green standards; and

the potential benefits to the local residents from the green technology initiatives of an apparel factory like Hirdaramani Mihila CKT.

We develop a concept of the global factory, first introduced by Buckley and colleagues (2004, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2014), as a stand-alone construct associated with significant predictive capacity, discuss dynamics of success of the global factory, and identify and analyze social mechanisms deployed by the lead firm head office.

We conceptualize the global factory as a form of a flagship network and augment internalization theory with insights from interorganizational networks research to explore the dynamics of the global factory’s origination and functioning.

We clarify under what conditions a global factory-type network is more likely to emerge and describe social mechanisms generated by the lead firm head office to help the global factory sustain itself and thrive. We argue that in order to benefit from potential efficiencies of the global factory, the lead firm head office must deploy combinations of social mechanisms. We further argue that the role of the lead firm head office is that of a joint value orchestrator and a social broker, in addition to the controlling intelligence function.

Future work on the global factory should include further conceptualization of social mechanisms deployed by the lead firm, exploration of operating mode heterogeneity within the global factory, and large-scale empirical research.

Lead firm managers should embrace the role of the joint value orchestrators and implement social mechanisms described in this chapter to facilitate smooth operation of the global factory.

Global factory governance further increases multinationals’ geographic reach and market power; yet, it is not a universal recipe for market success, and therefore global factories’ power to shape the global economy should not be overestimated.

By linking the global factory to networks literature, we have suggested a novel way to view the concept and articulated more fully its underlying assumptions. Further research on the global factory will help advance our understanding of the dynamics of the global economy and the role of multinationals, their head offices, and their managers in shaping the economy.