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Full-Text Articles in Business Administration, Management, and Operations
The Stability Of Offshore Outsourcing Relationships: The Role Of Relation Specificity And Client Control, Stephan Manning, Arie Y. Lewin, Marc Schuerch
The Stability Of Offshore Outsourcing Relationships: The Role Of Relation Specificity And Client Control, Stephan Manning, Arie Y. Lewin, Marc Schuerch
Stephan Manning
Offshore outsourcing of administrative and technical services has become a mainstream business practice. Increasing commoditization of business services and growing client experience with outsourcing have created a range of competitive service delivery options for client firms. Yet, data from the Offshoring Research Network (ORN) suggests that, despite increasing market options and growing client quality and cost efficiency expectations, clients typically renew provider contracts and develop longer-term relationships with providers. Based on ORN data, this paper explores drivers of this phenomenon. The findings suggest that providers promote contract renewal by making client specific investments in software, IT infrastructure and training, and …
Securing Access To Lower-Cost Talent Globally: The Dynamics Of Active Embedding And Field Structuration, Stephan Manning, Joerg Sydow, Arnold Windeler
Securing Access To Lower-Cost Talent Globally: The Dynamics Of Active Embedding And Field Structuration, Stephan Manning, Joerg Sydow, Arnold Windeler
Stephan Manning
This article examines how multinational corporations (MNCs) shape institutional conditions in emerging economies to secure access to high-skilled, yet lower-cost science and engineering talent. Based on two in-depth case studies of engineering offshoring projects of German automotive suppliers in Romania and China we analyze how MNCs engage in ‘active embedding’ by aligning local institutional conditions with global offshoring strategies and operational needs. MNCs thereby contribute to the structuration of field relations and practices of sourcing knowledge-intensive work from globally dispersed locations.Our findings stress the importance of institutional processes across geographic boundaries that regulate and get shaped by MNC activities.
Emerging Capability Or Continuous Challenge? Relocating Knowledge Work And Managing Process Interfaces, Stephan Manning, Thomas Hutzschenreuter, Alexander Strathmann
Emerging Capability Or Continuous Challenge? Relocating Knowledge Work And Managing Process Interfaces, Stephan Manning, Thomas Hutzschenreuter, Alexander Strathmann
Management and Marketing Faculty Publication Series
This study examines interface management as a dynamic organizational capability supporting an increasing global distribution of knowledge work, based on an in-depth case of an automotive supplier. We show how local responses to experiences of task and interface ambiguity following the relocation of R&D processes may lead to a shift of organizational attention from ex-ante process design to continuous process and interface management. Findings suggest that flexible interface manager positions and partnership structures across locations facilitate local experimentation with effective transfer and handling of ambiguous and partially tacit tasks. This enhances the firm’s capacity to distribute an increasing variety of …