{"title":"Does Outsourcing Result in the Outsourcing of Technological Competencies? An Empirical Analysis of the Effect of Vertical Specialization on the Technological Competence Base of Firms","authors":"Michael Stephan","doi":"10.1688/1861-9908_MREV_2010_03_STEPHAN","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1688/1861-9908_MREV_2010_03_STEPHAN","url":null,"abstract":"Over the past two decades multinational firms from high-technology industries have increasingly relied on outsourcing of production to external suppliers. We present a theoretical framework that stems from the resource-based view of the firm (RBV) and develop hypotheses claiming that outsourcing of production will not result in the outsourcing of technological competencies. In other words, vertical specialization will not result in the reduction of the breadth and depth of the technological competence level of firms, especially in high-technology industries. We test our hypothesis with a sample of 50 firms which we selected from the population of the world’s top R&D-performing firms, measured by R&D spending. The period of investigation covers 20 years from 1983-2002. Our results indicate that over this 20 years period the technological knowledge base of the sample firms has not been affected by the ongoing outsourcing activities. The empirical observation gives rise to the ‘a priori statement’ that the knowledge-boundaries of the firms have been decoupled from production activities: In our sample of firms from high-technology industries outsourcing has not coincided with the outsourcing of technological competencies.","PeriodicalId":422075,"journal":{"name":"management revue. Socio-economic Studies","volume":"13 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2010-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117226616","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Strongest Link: Legitimacy of Top Management Diversity, Sex Stereotypes and the Rise of Women in Human Resource Management 1995 - 2004 **","authors":"A. Reichel, J. Brandl, W. Mayrhofer","doi":"10.1688/1861-9908_MREV_2010_03_REICHEL","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1688/1861-9908_MREV_2010_03_REICHEL","url":null,"abstract":"Over the last decades, HRM scholars associated the inclusion of women into HRM with the occupation’s loss of status. Such views have difficulties to explain more recent developments in Europe that show a co-evolution of feminization and status increase of HRM. In this article, we review these developments and offer an explanation that accounts for them. Linking neo-institutional arguments with literature on sex stereotypes, we suggest that allocating women to HRM offers a solution for organizations to deal with growing demands for enhancing diversity within top management without giving up the traditional division of female and male work. We show how the patterns of the inclusion of women into HRM in 11 European countries between 1995 and 2004 support this explanation.","PeriodicalId":422075,"journal":{"name":"management revue. Socio-economic Studies","volume":"34 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2010-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121383804","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Social Capital and Innovation: An Intra-departmental Perspective","authors":"C. Casanueva, Á. Gallego","doi":"10.5771/0935-9915-2010-2-135","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5771/0935-9915-2010-2-135","url":null,"abstract":"This study examines the relationship between social capital that arises from individual relations and individual innovativeness. Social capital is considered a multidimensional construct and individual innovativeness is measured through six different indicators of scientific production. Individual social capital is compared with the innovative performance of each individual in a whole department. Our work shows that the capacity to access and to mobilize resources through these relations is a key factor in increasing individual innovativeness in a context in which it may be measured. This questions the importance of an individual’s position in a network as well as the structure of the network with respect to innovativeness.","PeriodicalId":422075,"journal":{"name":"management revue. Socio-economic Studies","volume":"207 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2010-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123106232","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Emergence of Collective Competence in a Brazilian Petrochemical Company","authors":"C. Bitencourt, Fernanda Bonotto","doi":"10.1688/1861-9908_MREV_2010_02_BITENCOURT","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1688/1861-9908_MREV_2010_02_BITENCOURT","url":null,"abstract":"Organizations seek new ways to stimulate collective competences. One possible way this can be done is though self-managing teams. This paper aims to understand the collective competences based on their constitutive elements: interaction, sensemaking and identity. For this study we investigated a Brazilian world-class petrochemical company, recognized by their excellence in working with self-managed teams. Two semi-autonomous teams were studied, distinct in its pattern and performance. The main results point out that the understanding of collective competences is more related to the dynamics and the interaction process itself rather than to the content of this approach and its constitutive elements separately.","PeriodicalId":422075,"journal":{"name":"management revue. Socio-economic Studies","volume":"114 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2010-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132869094","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Understanding Radical Change: An Examination of Management Departments in German-Speaking Universities**","authors":"Marina Fiedler, I. Welpe, A. Picot","doi":"10.5771/0935-9915-2010-2-111","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5771/0935-9915-2010-2-111","url":null,"abstract":"Can radical organizational change be better achieved through planned change measures or through change measures developed as part of an evolutionary process? Based on 20 open interviews as well as recent survey data from 236 junior faculty members and 382 senior faculty members from departments of management at German universities and other academic institutions, this study suggests that the value commitment of the relevant stakeholders is greater to evolutionarily-developed rather than planned change measures, which consequently results in the dominant influence of the evolutionary change measures. Our results support the notion that in contexts that resemble the situation of universities in Germany – namely multi-polar power distribution and demanding preference structures within the affected group – successful radical organizational change management necessitates that the organization develops suitable change measures in an evolutionary way in order to achieve its goals.","PeriodicalId":422075,"journal":{"name":"management revue. Socio-economic Studies","volume":"222 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2010-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122115555","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Cooperation in Innovation Networks: The Case of Danish and German SMEs","authors":"S. Gretzinger, H. Hinz, W. Matiaske","doi":"10.5771/0935-9915-2010-2-193","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5771/0935-9915-2010-2-193","url":null,"abstract":"Information is a critical resource in innovation processes. External information can be helpful in innovation processes to complete them successfully. SMEs in particular are therefore advised to draw on consulting in innovation processes, as they cannot ensure the necessary information flow internally due to the lesser resources they have compared to larger companies. To promote economically relevant information of SMEs, the public sector provides specific advisory services. These services, however, are rarely utilized compared to direct customer and supplier contacts. From strategic management’s point of view, the involvement of intermediaries in the innovation process is accompanied by the risk of losing specific knowledge to the business environment. Based on an empirical comparative study of Danish and German SMEs – Danish companies utilize public as well as private consulting services more often – determinants of the usage of business consultancies in innovation processes are elicited.","PeriodicalId":422075,"journal":{"name":"management revue. Socio-economic Studies","volume":"21 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2010-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129045616","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Implications of flexpatriates' lifestyles on HRM practices","authors":"Helene Mayerhofer, Barbara Müller, A. Schmidt","doi":"10.1688/1861-9908_MREV_2010_02_MAYERHOFER","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1688/1861-9908_MREV_2010_02_MAYERHOFER","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper we argue that flexpatriates’ needs and goals are not homogeneous and cannot be met simply by providing standard measures to facilitate working in different cultural locations. We review the nature of flexpatriate lifestyle to examine how employees of multinational enterprises located in Austria face a range of issues in their work, personal and family lives. We present four empirically grounded types, Tough Travelers, Enjoyers, Cosmopolitans and Contactors. The types show various facets of flexpatriates’ lifestyles that are essential to understand their significant implications for HR architecture, commitment strategies and HRM practices in order to meet the employees’ needs.","PeriodicalId":422075,"journal":{"name":"management revue. Socio-economic Studies","volume":"23 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2010-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131304551","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Personnel Departmental Power: Realities from the UK Higher Education Sector **","authors":"Elaine Farndale, V. Hope-Hailey","doi":"10.1688/1861-9908_MREV_2009_04_FARNDALE","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1688/1861-9908_MREV_2009_04_FARNDALE","url":null,"abstract":"The status of the Personnel function is subject to an ongoing debate in which attention has largely shifted from department to individual practitioner level. There remains, however, significant functional power in organisational structures, particularly in more institutionalised contexts. Aimed at the departmental level, the higher education state funding council for England (HEFCE) introduced an initiative to improve Personnel departments in Higher Education. However, survey evidence confirms the continuation of the low power position of the department. An exploration of the empirical data highlights why: the routine rigidity of power in organisational structures, the fragmentation of departmental power, and Personnel role ambiguity.","PeriodicalId":422075,"journal":{"name":"management revue. Socio-economic Studies","volume":"7 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2009-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123872003","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Micro-Political Games in the Multinational Corporation: The Case of Mandate Change**","authors":"C. Dörrenbächer, M. Geppert","doi":"10.5771/0935-9915-2009-4-373","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5771/0935-9915-2009-4-373","url":null,"abstract":"Micro-political conflicts associated with corporate internationalization have been neglected by and large in the literature so far. Despite early consideration by the behavioral theory of internationalization, the specific strength of a micro-political approach, i.e. combining actors’ idiosyncratic action with structural and institutional constraints, remained more or less unused in studies on corporate internationalization. Screening the relevant literature, discussing the strengths of micro-political approaches and proposing mandate changes in multinational corporations as an particularly interesting empirical field, the paper also outlines for some directions for further research into the micro-politics of multinational corporations.","PeriodicalId":422075,"journal":{"name":"management revue. Socio-economic Studies","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2009-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125407474","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on 'Enterprise': Control and Autonomy in a Direct Selling Organisation **","authors":"C. Gross, Nicole Jung","doi":"10.1688/1861-9908_MREV_2009_04_GROSS","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1688/1861-9908_MREV_2009_04_GROSS","url":null,"abstract":"Entrepreneurialism within organisations has been praised for serving employees and employers alike, but it has also been criticised as exercising power over employees in an unobtrusive, yet effective way. Within the literature from both advocates and critics, two dichotomies prevail. First, ‘enterprise’ is considered as a monolithic concept that is either ‘liberating’ or governing employees; second, it tends to be viewed as strongly opposed to ‘bureaucracy’. Recent studies have started to challenge these hitherto often one-sided characterisations by showing that individuals react and respond differently to entrepreneurialism and that bureaucratic elements can co-exist within entrepreneurial companies. However, by drawing on empirical evidence from an entrepreneurial company, we demonstrate that enterprise within an organisation itself is a complex and paradoxical instrument of power and governance in organisations. We suppose that enterprise cannot stand on its own but is instead based upon organisational practices that are at the same time liberating and controlling, entrepreneurial and bureaucratic. Such a view not only allows one to pay attention to the fractions that are caused when the ideal of the individual self-made man is transferred to organisations, but also to question the enterprise discourse itself.","PeriodicalId":422075,"journal":{"name":"management revue. Socio-economic Studies","volume":"74 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2009-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125940857","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}