131 research outputs found
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Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Implementation Efforts at Four Firms: Integrating Lessons Learned and RFID-Specific Survey
Get PDFRFID has been touted by it proponents as an exciting technology application that will transform supply chains into more
effective systems, by reducing costs and enhancing supply chain capabilities. Skeptics view RFID as little more than
upgraded bar codes that are unreliable and costly, lack common industry standards, and raise serious issues regarding
consumer privacy. Given the views of these two camps, to what extent is RFID actually being embraced and adopted?
Guided by a review of RFID-specific literature, field studies with firms at different stages of RFID implementation and
structured interviews with senior-level supply chain practitioners were used to develop a survey instrument. This study
compares actual RFID implementation efforts at four firms followed by a survey investigation of current and planned uses
of RFID, and reasons that motivate the adoption of RFID. This research provides useful insights that will lead to better
decisions about RFID adoption
Offshoring Radiology Services to India
Get PDFThe interpretation of medical images by Indian radiologists is often used to show how offshoring can threaten a high skilled
U.S. occupation as easily as a call center operator. In reality, the example is false. Using interviews and field observation, we
describe the Indian teleradiology industry and its client countries and we explain the institutional factors that currently
preclude threats to U.S. radiologists. Radiology is an “extreme” professional service with extensive reliance of tacit rather
than codified knowledge. The importance of tacit knowledge leads to long training periods, a limited global supply of
radiologists and heavy government regulation, all of which are obstacles to a “flat world”. Computerization of low-end
diagnostic radiology ultimately poses a bigger threat to the profession than offshoring. We argue that the obstacles to
extensive trade in radiology services apply in various degrees to other professional services as well
The Impact of Globalization on the Forest Products Industry
Get PDFIn this paper we examine the hypothesis that changes occurring in the forest industry allow its full participation in
globalization. The forest industry has undergone profound changes in recent years, largely because of new technologies.
These changes have been directly observed by the researchers in the field in the form of intensively managed plantation
forests; in laboratories where new techniques are being used to improve tree seeds; and in tree nurseries where the improved
seeds are prepared for mass plantings. Traditionally, forestry was primarily an extractive industry that relied on local sources
for its basic resource: raw, industrial wood. Today, however, intensively managed planted forests are replacing natural forests
as the basic source of the wood resource and modern biotechnology is being applied to create trees that grow rapidly and
have traits desired in industrial wood. These changes eliminate the traditional ties between forest product processing and
locations with abundant natural forests
Learning: What and How? An Empirical Study of Adjustments in Human Resource Systems
Get PDFWhat information do firms use when they design their organizational structure? How do they learn what direction they
should take? Generally, firms may learn from their own experiences and outcomes, as well as those of other firms. In the
economics literature, learning from these sources has been investigated in conjunction with three theoretical strands:
learning-by-doing, matching theory, and social learning. We construct a conceptual framework that incorporates these three
strands and develop hypotheses about the effects of various factors on learning about adjusting one important element of
organizational structure, the human resources system. We concentrate on four human resource systems: traditional (the
simplest system), decision-making oriented, financial-incentives oriented, and high-performance (the most complex system).
The hypotheses regard (1) the effects of learning-by-doing on adoption of more or less complex systems, (2) the shape of the
performance-experience learning curves associated with different systems, (3) the match between perceived organizational
capabilities and the degree of complexity of human resource systems, (4) the influence of other firms’ systems and the
performance associated with them on a firm’s adjustment of its system, (5) the effect of a firm’s location on its adjustment
decisions, and (6) the effects of various factors on the speed with which firms adjust their systems. We use a unique panel
dataset of firms in Minnesota concerning decisions about adjustments in human resource systems, as well as about firm
characteristics, geographic location and financial results. We obtain a rich set of findings: organizational learning is
multifaceted, learning by doing one system does help with other systems, we replicate the famous learning curve only for the
complex human resources system but not others, firms use changes in their performance as signals of their capabilities, and
firms learn from other firms’ experiences. Larger and higher-wage firms learn faster to cope with complex systems, older
firms learn slower, and firms located near a major metropolitan center adjust faster to more complex systems
Analysis of the Potential for Delay Propagation in Passenger Airline Networks
Get PDFIn this paper, we analyze the potential for delays to propagate in passenger airline networks. The motivation for this research
is the need to better understand the relationship between the scheduling of aircraft and crew members, and the operational
performance of such schedules. In particular, when carriers decide how to schedule these costly resources, the focus is
primarily on achieving high levels of utilization. The resulting plans, however, often have little slack, limiting the schedule's
ability to absorb disruption; instead, initial flight delays may propagate to delay subsequent flights as well. Understanding
the relationship between planned schedules and delay propagation is a requisite precursor to developing tools for building
more robust airline plans. In this paper, we investigate this relationship using flight data provided by two major U.S.
carriers, one traditional hub-and-spoke and one “low-fare” carrier
Innovation Challenges in the Lighting Industry From 1990 to 2006
Get PDFThe lighting industry faces major competitive challenges with the introduction of new solid-state lighting technologies.
Solid-state lighting’s greater energy efficiency, lifetime, and other features have led to widespread adoption in backlights,
traffic lights, signs, and automobile brake lights, and the technology is targeted to replace ordinary white light bulbs
beginning in 2010. The purpose of this study is to assess the state of the emerging solid-state lighting industry and the
traditional lighting industry, probing implications for North American industry competitiveness, the location of R&D, and
government policy. The methods of the study combined discussions with industry experts, review of trade literature and
government policy, and analysis of industry statistics and patent data.
Although the big three traditional lighting firms have invested substantially in solid-state lighting, many new firms in the
United States, Japan and Taiwan are likely to participate in solid-state lighting. R&D in a reshaped lighting industry may
shift somewhat away from the United States and to Asian nations. In Japan, Europe, and the United States, both
government funded basic R&D and technology programs and diffusion spurred by energy costs and government incentives
have helped aid ongoing developments.
This paper reports findings of a study recently carried out for the National Academies, Board on Science, Technology, and
Economic Policy. The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the National Academies, and the RPI Center for Future Energy Systems
provided funding
Balancing Intrapreneurial Innovation Vs. Entrepreneurial Spinoffs During Periods of Technological Ferment
Get PDFThe period immediately after a technological discontinuity allows an innovative startup to exploit a period of ferment and
great uncertainty. Meanwhile, mature innovators must develop intrapreneurial capabilities to compete with these new
entrants.
Using multiple data sources, we examine the innovation capabilities of Linkabit, a firm that exploited the opportunities
related to digital communications, and how those capabilities were transferred to informal spinoffs which formed at twice
the rate of Fairchild Semiconductor. We discuss the contingent value of innovation capabilities for early stages in a
technological regime, as well as the conflicting goals of intrapreneurial development vs. restraining entrepreneurial exodus
The Power of Integrality: Linkages Between Product Architecture, Innovation, and Industry Structure
Get PDFA substantial literature stream suggests that many products are becoming more modular over time, and that this
development is often associated with a change in industry structure toward higher degrees of specialization. These
developments can have strong implications for an industry’s competition as the history of the PC industry illustrates. To add
to our understanding of the linkages between product architecture, innovation, and industry structure we study an unusual
case in which a firm – through decreasing its product modularity – turned its formerly competitive industry into a
near-monopoly. Using this case study we explore how existing theories on modularity explain the observed phenomenon,
and show that most consider in their analysis technological change in rather long-term dimensions, and tend to focus on
efficiency related arguments to explain the resulting forces on competition. Expanding on these theories we add three critical
aspects to the theory construct that connects technological change and industry dynamics. First, we suggest re-integating as
a new design operator to explain product architecture genesis. Second, we argue that a finer-grained analysis of the product
architecture shows the existence of multiple linkages between product architecture and industry structure, and that these
different linkages help explain the observed intra-industry heterogeneity across firms. Third, we propose that the firm
boundary choice can also be a pre-condition of the origin of architectural innovation, not only an outcome of efficiency
considerations
The Evolving Indian Offshore Services Environment: Greater Scale, Scope and Sophistication
Get PDFSince 1995, the offshoring of administrative, technical and software services to India has rapidly evolved from an
insignificant curiosity only studied by a few scholars of international development to a major issue discussed by many in the
United States and Western Europe. India’s position has expanded and evolved in terms of numbers of employees, the types
of service activities, and the sophistication or value-added of the work. This paper argues that two separate but related
ecosystems have recently emerged in India to provide services and, more recently, high technology products for the global
economy. The first ecosystem is for service provision. Here we suggest that today the service provision ecosystem is so
sophisticated that it can endogenously create new service offerings and attract overseas firms to transfer activities in new
industry verticals. The second ecosystem, which is smaller and only recently emergent, is gestating new venture
capital-financed, technology-based startups. We provide a typology of these firms and suggest that some have bi-national
roots linked to the U.S. Silicon Valley. Finally, we explore the possibility that the leading Indian information technology
systems integrators may have created a new business model that is superior to that of the incumbent Western service
providers. We believe that the Indian offshore service provision infrastructure will grow in size, complexity, and importance
to the world economy
Fending Off Commoditization and Softening Competition Through Strategic Boundary Design
Get PDFDesigning a firm’s boundaries can lead to substantial strategic regeneration. But the question is, how? Moving beyond
transaction-level analysis, we consider how the design of the firm’s overall boundaries (rather than individual make-vs-buy
choices) yield strategic advantages in addition to organizational benefits. We do so through in-depth analysis of a European
textile manufacturer that disaggregated its vertical structure without changing its overall scope. We discuss how the change
in value proposition from integrated final good provider, to outsourcee delivering a series of intermediate goods and services,
yielded real benefit in a saturated market. We highlight the major strategic benefits of this vertical disaggregation, and
consider how it changed both strategic prospects and industry dynamics. We show that this new structure allowed the firm
to transform its monolithic structure into a vertically agile layout, enabling it to reconfigure the scope of its offerings to
customers and, ultimately, to use reconfigurability as a strategic tool to fend off commoditization and segregate markets to
soften the effects of competition. We identify the critical role of IT as a factor enabling the new flexible structure. We show
that, in contrast to our expectations and the literature, it is architectural technologies such as ERP systems, rather than the
technologies linking firms (such as EDI systems), that enable reconfigurable modular structures. We examine the conditions
under which such flexible vertical structures may be effective, identifying high maturity and low appropriability in our
setting. We conclude with implications for theory and practice