Value-Oriented Design of Service Coordination Processes: Correctness and Trust

The rapid growth of service coordination languages creates a need for methodological support for coordination design. Coordination design differs from workflow design because a coordination process connects different businesses that can each make design decisions independently from the others, and no business is interested in supporting the business processes of others. In multi-business cooperative design, design decisions are only supported by all businesses if they contribute to the profitability of each participating business. So in order to make coordination design decisions supported by all participating businesses, requirements for a coordination process should be derived from the business model that makes the coordination profitable for each participating business. We claim that this business model is essentially a model of intended value exchanges. We model the intended value exchanges of a business model as e3 -value value models and coordination processes as UML activity diagrams. The contribution of the paper is then to propose and discuss a criterion according to which a service coordination process must be correct with respect to a value exchange model. This correctness is necessary to gain business support for the process. Finally, we discuss methodological consequences of this approach for service coordination process design

Make or Buy in a mature industry? Models of client-supplier relationships under TCT and RBV perspectives

In this paper, we use the transaction cost theory (TCT) and the resource-based view (RBV) to discuss three propositions on the models of client-supplier relationships in mature industries. The two theories seem to advance different organizational forms of the client-supplier relationships, and in some instances contradictory. How should firms organize to prosper and grow, namely in the international markets? Through the case study of three Portuguese packaging firms, with primary (interviews) and secondary data, we discuss how the three firms deploy three distinct strategic organization models in a mature industry. One firm utilizes market-based governance mechanisms, and concentrates its production in a few selected locations. Another firm vertically integrates almost the entire value chain of the product to provide full service to its clients. The third firm operates in a model of integrated outsourcing, with the installation "wall to wall" to its clients. The models client-supplier assumed by these firms are based on efficient, stable, and trustworthy relationships, that permit the focus on their core competences and the reduction of the transaction costs. Firms? superior performance requires a proper alignment of hierarchical and relational governance taking in consideration the dimensions of the transactions.Client-supplier relationship models; Outsourcing; TCT; RBV; Strategic Governance

Production Networks Linkages, Innovation Processes and Social Management Technologies. A Methodological Approach Applied to the Volkswagen case in Argentina

The purpose of this paper -as a part of a wider research project - is to analyze the concept of production network from a methodological and theoretical viewpoint based on a three-plane perspective. These dimensions are the linkages among agents, the innovation activities, and the social management technology, including work process organization and the social agreement generation model in force. It is an experimentally methodological approach that tries to go from a theoretical conceptualization of the phenomenon to its empirical evaluation. The questions guiding this research are as follows: What are the variables and dimensions to be observed in the analysis of a group of interconnected firms in order to define a production network? Is it a unique definition or, on the contrary, does it involve a range of alternatives? What are the externalities generated by the agents who belong to one network? What is the relationship between the network’s firms’ technological behavior and their organizational counterpart? How are learning processes in the business firms linked to their own training systems? Has the social management technology some differential role in the learning process and in the development of skills? How do knowledge transmission processes manifest themselves within the “network”? What indicators are useful for the empirical identification of the different means of manifestation of the network according to the theoretical viewpoint adopted? How can those indicators be articulated in order to elaborate typologies intended for the identification of “hybrid” models? How can a complex indicator be built in order to show the different levels of circulation of intangible assets, development of learning processes and work process organization? In the first section, the conceptualization of the production “network” used in this paper is discussed. In the second section, most relevant variables and indicators are presented in order to feature the business firms and the network in terms of: a) type, quantity and quality of tangible and intangible exchanges among the agents; b) innovative capacity and learning; c) social management technology. Then we elaborate a typology of networks based on the consideration of the previous parameters. Lastly, in the fourth section, we discuss how the three dimensions interact in the case of Volkswagen and his forty main local suppliers.Innovation, production process, case study

The industrial symbiosis approach: A classification of business models

Industrial symbiosis is a collaborative approach concerning physical exchange of materials, energy, and services among different firms: accordingly, wastes produced by a given firm are exploited as inputs by other firms. This approach is able to generate remarkable environmental benefits, since it allows to reduce the amount of wastes disposed of in the landfill and the amount of primary inputs used by the industrial sector. It has been proved that the economic logic is the basis of symbiotic exchanges. Through industrial symbiosis, firms are interested to achieve competitive advantage coming from lower production costs and revenue increase. Therefore, the first requirement for the establishment of a symbiotic relationship is its economic sustainability for all the firms involved. In this paper, from the analysis of actual cases of industrial symbiosis, we develop a classification of business models oriented to the symbiotic approach. The classification is based on the different ways in which industrial symbiosis is able to generate economic benefits for the firm that implements it. Six different business models oriented to industrial symbiosis have been identified. The proposed classification could be useful at the company level, in order to promote the implementation of the symbiotic approach, providing a guide about how to integrate it within its current business models

The interface between transactional and relational orientation in small service firm's marketing behaviour

This paper presents and discusses findings of a cross-country study of small service firm marketing behavior. These findings demonstrate that small service firms are flexible in the marketing approaches that they adopt. They reveal that such firms are transactional and relational orientated in their marketing activities and that for growing firms, marketing activities are used to create short-term transactions and form relations with key stakeholders. This finding implies that transactional and relationship marketing should be regarded as complementary. The findings presented also demonstrate that the marketing approach selected by participating small firms is determined by a range of customer characteristics of which repeat business is only one. An integrated framework containing elements of transactional and relational approaches is proposed as an appropriate way of describing the marketing behaviours of investigated firms