Browsing by Title
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Møller Larsen, Marcus (Frederiksberg, 2013)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Offshoring can be defined as the relocation of organizational tasks and services to foreign locations. Increasingly, firms experience that unforeseen costs and difficulties of managing offshoring undercut anticipated benefits; that unexpected challenges of offshoring jeopardize and eventually undermine initial objectives. Guided by the research question—what are the organizational consequences of offshoring?—the purpose of this thesis is to investigate why some firms fail when offshoring and other do not. The thesis consists of four research papers using various datasets and methodologies that investigate offshoring in an organizational context. The first paper investigates how the complexity of offshoring leads to ‘hidden costs’ of implementing offshoring activities. The second paper looks at how these hidden reconfiguration costs influence the process performance of the offshored activity and how this relationship is moderated by the modularity of that activity. The third paper investigates the effect of the organizational reconfiguration of offshoring on firms’ strategies. The final paper studies different strategies of adaptation in offshoring. Taken together, this thesis argues that whether firms relocate activities with the purpose of accessing resources or as a response to political pressures, the process of offshoring presents firms with the challenge of coordinating and integrating offshoring activities in a global organization. The complexities and uncertainties of an organization consisting of a number of offshored activities (in contrast to an organization with only co-located activities) require firms to invest additional resources in coordination mechanisms so that an efficient reintegration can be achieved. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8669 Files in this item: 1
Marcus_M _Larsen.pdf (1.714Mb) -
A Research AgendaFoss, Nicolai J.; Argyres, Nicholas; Felin, Teppo; Zenger, Todd (Frederiksberg, 2012)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: For decades, the literatures on firm capabilities and organizational economics have been at odds with each other, specifically relative to explaining organizational boundaries and heterogeneity. We briefly trace the history of the relationship between the capabilities literature and organizational economics and point to the dominance of a “capabilities first” logic in this relationship. We argue that capabilities considerations are inherently intertwined with questions about organizational boundaries and internal organization, and use this point to respond to the prevalent “capabilities first” logic. We offer an integrative research agenda that focuses, first, on the governance of capabilities and, second, on the capability of governance. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8426 Files in this item: 1
Foss_SMGWP2012_1.pdf (780.0Kb) -
Foss, Nicolai J.; Klein, Peter G. (København, 2007)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This chapter reviews and discusses rational-choice approaches to organizational governance. These approaches are found primarily in organizational economics (virtually no rational-choice organizational sociology exists), particularly in transaction cost economics, principal-agent theory, and the incomplete-contracts or property-rights approach. We distill the main unifying characteristics of these streams, survey each stream, and offer some critical commentary and suggestions for moving forward. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7438 Files in this item: 1
smg_wp_11.pdf (832.2Kb) -
Feeling Its Way in an Unfamiliar EnvironmentPedersen, Torben; Petersen, Bent (København, 2002)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This empirical study addresses the question of how foreign market unfamiliarity of entrant firms develops post-entry. Three different predictions of post-entry change of foreign market unfamiliarity are derived from the literature on firms’ internationalization process. The predictions are made subject to empirical examination using a set of primary data of current (i.e. at the point in time of mail interviews) foreign operation business operations reported by managers of Danish international firms. The empirical study gives insight to the incidence and character of the so-called ‘shock effect’ in relation to foreign market entry: the phenomenon of entrant firms’ inclination to underestimate differences between the home and host country in terms of the business environment. The data support the supposition that entrant firms in general are exposed to a ‘shock effect’. On average, the foreign market unfamiliarity as perceived by the entrant firms peaks seven years after entry. The company data indicate that entrant firms in general experience the shock effect in relation to entry of adjacent, rather than distant, countries. Hence, the ‘psychic distance paradox’ hypothesis is supported. Also, the data suggest that the shock effect befalls producers of customized products, but not producers of standardized products, and furthermore, entrant firms in general experience the shock effect in relation to acquisition of tacit rather than explicit knowledge. Key words: Internationalization process of firms, liability of foreignness, learning, shock effect. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/6904 Files in this item: 1
linkwp02-17.pdf (237.2Kb) -
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Abstract: Organizational routines and capabilities have become key constructs not only in evolutionary economics, but more recently also in business administration, specifically strategic management. In this chapter we explicate some of the underlying theoretical problems of these concepts, and discuss the need for micro-foundations. Specifically, we focus on some of the explanatory problems of collective-level theorizing, and what we think are tenuous assumptions about human beings. We argue that individual-level considerations deserve significantly more consideration, and that evolutionary economics and strategic management would be well served by building on methodological individualism. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7891 Files in this item: 1
DRUID_04_13.pdf (346.0Kb) -
ressource-based and organizational learning perspectivesUhlenbruck, Klaus; Meyer, Klaus E.; Hitt, Michael A. (København, 2000)[More information][Less information]
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Governance and control in research evaluationHansson, Finn (København, 2004)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Organizations perform evaluations in order to demonstrate their trustworthiness to the outside world and to produce knowledge for use by the management of the organization. In the planning and application of specific evaluations in the organization, different participants or stakeholders very often disclose different, hidden or conflicting agendas. In recent years, the use of evaluations in organizations has grown rapidly and we have witnessed the rise of a new bureaucratic instrument in the realm of knowledge production in organizations, viz., internal evaluations. Such evaluations produce a set of data as part of the evaluation process and the long-term impact of this new systematically organised set of data on organizational activities are normally not taken seriously into consideration when the use of evaluations in organizations are discussed. Said differently, evaluations have become a major factor in the management of organizations, but the academic literature on internal evaluation very rarely discusses the impact of this instrument on the long term behaviour and activity of members of the organization. This lacuna in the literature persists despite the well known fact, established by numerous studies of organizational sociology, that people tend to adapt to external behavioural demands especially when related to power relations in the organization. keywords: research evaluation, governance, social control, publication counts. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/6309 Files in this item: 1
wp14-2004.pdf (142.9Kb) -
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an Austrian viewSautes, Frédéric E.; Foss, Nicolai Juul (København, 1999)[More information][Less information]
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The Case of 'Making-or-Buying' ArticlesVang, Jan (København, 2003)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: In this paper the two canonical theories of the firm - transaction costs economics and the knowledge-based view of the firm – predictions on ‘make-or-buy’ are tested on the news industry. The news industry provides an interesting case on which to test the two theories since it is characterized by a high degree of urgency. Urgency refers to the need to catch and process inputs fast. A tendency that is becoming more widespread in other industries where the production cycle tends to be reduced. The test is don on original data on the newspaper industry collected by the author. The conclusions drawn are that that newspapers are organized differently than is predicted from the knowledge-based view of the firm and transaction cost economics. The newspapers do no specialize in core competencies measured in terms of topics covered. On the contrary, a precondition for outsourcing is well-developed competencies in house. The widespread use of integration cannot either be explained as a solution to hold up either, such as transaction cost economics predicts. The reason behind has to be sought in urgency. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7259 Files in this item: 1
03-13.pdf (345.4Kb) -
Foss, Nicilai J.; Klein, Peter G.; Linder, Stefan (Frederiksberg, 2013)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Austrian economics focuses on markets, but has much to say about organizations. In particular, Austrian insights on the structure of production, the heterogeneity and subjectivity of resources, the nature of uncertainty, the role of monetary calculation, and the function of the entrepreneur provide solid foundations for a distinctly Austrian theory of organizations. We review these insights, discuss recent literature on Austrian economics and the theory of the firm, and suggest new directions for developing and extending an Austrian approach to organizations. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8692 Files in this item: 1
Foss_Klein_Linder_SMGWP2013.pdf (544.3Kb) -
(Re)assembling work in the Danish PostMogensen, Mette (Frederiksberg, 2012)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: The well-being of employees is currently a central matter of concern both in public and private companies. If employees do not feel well, in the last instance they might experience a burn out or fall ill from stress and thus add to the highly costly yet ever growing number filling up the statistics of this modern epidemic. In short, well-being is key to productivity. For sure this is not a new story, but at the core of organization and management theory: how to best organize the human resources of production balancing off the need for increased productivity and the preservation of physical and mental resources of the worker? In contrast to classic principles such as Taylor’s scientific management, it seems today generally agreed that well-being thrives when work is organized by principles of ‘flexibility’, ‘learning’, ‘empowerment’ and ‘creativity’. However, at the same time workplaces and organizations are under an enormous pressure towards standardization and optimization. This dissertation investigates empirically competing or intersecting ways of organizing well-being and productivity, with an analytic outset in the work task, departing from historically generated, however still prevalent, dichotomies and normativities of standardization and flexibility respectively. The empirical case of the dissertation is the organization of postal work in a big and formerly publicly run distribution company in Denmark. Based on an ethnographic field work and the employment of an auto-photographic method, the dissertation investigates how the current and simultaneous efforts of standardization and flexibility configure the well-being(s) and productivities of postal work. The theoretical framework is primarily informed by Actor Network Theory and the dissertation attend to a detailed investigation of how well-being and productivity are enacted in the daily work practices and the constant shifting/delegation going on between the inscribed postal worker of work tools, standard procedures and management programs on the one side and the routinized bodies of the postal workers on the other. Most of the time this results in ‘working compatibilities’ silently enacting bodies-with-standards that are both productive and well. At other times, however, controversy and conflicts arise, pointing to the fact that the presence of multiple modes of organizing are not always productive. The empirical chapters departs from selected auto-photographs that prompt different unfoldings of the way postal work is organized – or sought organized – and the way well-being and productivity arise as effects of these organizations. In this unfolding the analysis proceed on a tension between phenomenological and actor-network theoretical readings of empirical material creating a patchwork-like assemblage of postal work. This involves a stitching together of highly mundane, corporeal practices and material such as bicycles and kickstands, personal experiences, the researcher’s interpretations, the technical scripts of electric bikes, the norms of postal workers, the discourse of management and the political-economic developments of European postal markets. Through the empirical chapters, the dissertation depicts postal work not as a story of standardization versus flexibility, but as a constant ‘juggling’ and balancing act between them. This is not a story of humanization or the opposite, it is both at once. It is not a story of stabilization or perpetual change, it is both at once. It is a story of the hanging-togetherness of an organization that displays multiple versions of well-being and productivity as well as multiple controversies as a result of this. Depending on the stakes one has in this complex organizational set-up, whether one is the postal worker, the local manager, the HR consultant or perhaps the customer, preferences will differ, and indeed this is an important discussion. What is the better way to organize postal work? The analysis presented in the dissertation will not deliver the answer to this, but hopefully make the discussion a more qualified one, by displacing old truths. Having as point of departure and final emphasis a heuristics of the work task, the thesis aims to contribute to a specification of organization theory, HRM and work environment theorizing, which otherwise tend to have lost its primary object: work. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8589 Files in this item: 1
Mette_Mogensen.pdf (9.923Mb) -
The Role of FirmsFoss, Nicolai J.; Foss, Kirsten (Frederiksberg, 1999)[More information][Less information]
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An Exploratory Discussion of Austrian Economics, Property Rights, and the FirmFoss, Kirsten; Foss, Nicolai J. (København, 2001)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Many economists, notably Austrian economists, have argued that the market process is essentially an experimental process. We briefly try to clarify this conceptualization, and then argue that we may understand the firm in much the same light. A basic view of the firm as an experimental entity is derived, drawing on property rights insights. JEL Code: D21, D23, D83 URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/6929 Files in this item: 1
linkwp01-10.pdf (231.2Kb) -
The Role of FirmsFoss, Kirsten , Nicolai J. Foss (København, 1999)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Many economists, including Austrian economists, have argued that the market process is essentially an experimental process. We briefly try to clarify this conceptualization, and then argue that we may understand the firm in much the same light. A basic view of the firm as an experimental entity is derived, drawing on property rights insights. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8089 Files in this item: 1
8778730759.pdf (82.95Kb) -
Houman Andersen, Poul (København, 1998)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Technological knowledge is often claimed to be context-bound and sticking to local surroundings. This paper investigates how technological knowledge can be exchanged in international subcontractor relationships, using relationship-oriented organizational practices. Five hypotheses concerning such practices are tested. It is shown that the use of relationshiporiented practices varies with exports and the active development of subcontractors in product and process development activities. Moreover, international development-oriented subcontractors are more likely to use interpersonal exchange, electronic data interchange and formalized contracts than other types of subcontractors. Research implications as well as managerial implications are derived. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8104 Files in this item: 1
x645030413.pdf (188.9Kb) -
past and future directionsFüssel, Lanni (København, 2003)[More information][Less information]
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Competency and Change in Public Sector Work PracticesHull Kristensen, Peer; Bojesen, Anders (København, 2005)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This paper invites to discuss the processes of individualization and organizing being carried out under what we might see as an emerging regime of change. The underlying argumentation is that in certain processes of change, competence becomes questionable at all times. The hazy characteristics of this regime of change are pursued through a discussion of competencies as opposed to qualifications illustrated by distinct cases from the Danish public sector in the search for repetitive mechanisms. The cases are put into a general perspective by drawing upon experiences from similar change processes in MNCs. The paper concludes by asking whether we can escape from a regime of competence in a world defined by a rhetoric of change and create a more promising world in which doubt and search serve as a strategy for gaining knowledge and professionalism that improve on our capability for mutualism. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7376 Files in this item: 1
organizing process.pdf (581.6Kb) -
The Case of Copenhagen Business SchoolStenvinkel Nilsson, Ole (Frederiksberg, 2012)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Program QA at Copenhagen Business School (CBS) faces two major challenges; (1) large number of different programs, and (2) decentralized organisation of the program area. CBS has more than 60 programs in the portfolio, each managed by an autonomous Study Board. The paper demonstrates how CBS has addressed these challenges in a quality policy based on two main elements. Standards and Guidelines for day to day quality operations are combined with recurrent 5 year cycle peer reviews of every program. It is demonstrated how optimal use of existing information from various sources can be combined to provide a parsimonious picture of program performance, without putting too much burden on program managers. Both external and internal peer reviewers are used in order to create dialogue, mutual inspiration, increased alignment across programs, and balance between formative development and summative assessment. Early experiences with implementation of the QA system are discussed. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8517 Files in this item: 1
Stenvinkel_Nielsson_2012_1.pdf (142.2Kb) -
A Coordination Perspective on the FirmFoss, Kirsten (København, 2000)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This paper develops a coordination perspective on the firm. The basic idea is to combine insights in the division of labor with insights into the allocation of property rights. Thus, a basic argument is that use rights over productive assets are necessary in order to accumulate the experience needed to perform improvements in production. Specialization in production accelerates the accumulation of skills from learning by doing in production. However, specialization introduces greater complexity and new kinds of tools and equipment and this in turn create uncertainty about the best way of coordinating the specialized and interdependent activities. The result may be bottlenecks in production and uneven development of components. Experimenting with the coordination of tasks is necessary in order to eliminate these problems. However, such experimentation is best facilitated by a certain structure of property rights. Coordination by direction provides a cheap way of conducting the experiments needed to collect information on how best to coordinate interdependent activities. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/6919 Files in this item: 1
linkwp12.pdf (237.1Kb)