A Survey and Analysis of Outsourcing in East China

The aim of this study is to investigate whether outsourcing activities in east china are associated with a theoretical framework derived from the literature. By the methodology of Statistics Package for the Social Science (SPSS), the results of survey indicate that outsourcing will more extensively practiced in the future, the principal outsourcing motivation are to reduce costs and focus on core businesses. The purchasing outsourcing has the largest correlation coefficients with short-term contract, the total outsourcing has a significant correlation coefficient with long-term contract at the level of =0.05. The findings indicate that high service quality and mutual trust are the main criteria for selecting outsourcing vendors. However, it is found that outsourcing satisfaction is generally low. The main benefits of outsourcing are to reduce cost, concentrate on core businesses and improve the service quality, while the main problems with outsourcing are legal disputes, disclosure of commercial secrets and conflicts with vendors.Outsourcing; strategy; contract; survey

Conflicting Visions: A Critique of Ian Macneil’s Relational Theory of Contract

Perhaps the leading contemporary critic of placing consent at the center of contract law has been Ian Macneil. In his book The New Social Contract as well as in a series of complex and richly textured articles spanning nearly two decades, Macneil has eloquently presented and defended his now well-known relational theory of contract. It is a tribute to the important core of previously neglected truth in Macneil\u27s theory that, for all its complexity, the theory can be summarized succinctly. Macneil presents nothing less than a holistic social theory of human exchange--with particular emphasis on the human activity of projecting exchange into the future, which he calls contract. Macneil develops an elaborate set of norms that must be adhered to if contractual exchange is to exist and flourish. Macneil sees contract-in-law --that is, contracts enforceable by a legal system--as an infinitesimally small fraction of the total web of contracts in the modem world, including marriage, bureaucracy, and the State. His project is to use what all contractual exchanges have in common to better understand contracts enforceable by a legal system. By so doing he has shown that such legally enforceable contracts themselves exist on a continuum that ranges from fully specified contracts in which all obligations are unambiguously expressed at the time of formation, which he calls discrete and presentiated contracts, to contracts that govern relationships that exist and evolve over long periods of time, which he terms intertwined contracts

Contract, Status and the Bonds of Welfare

This article explores the relationship between contract and status in the context of contemporary social policy. Using examples of contract in the areas of unemployment policy (what is here called the workfare contract) and what has become known as the financialisation of the welfare state (Social Impact Bonds), the article identifies the types of bonds and obligations involved in those contracts and their sources. Drawing critically on Émile Durkheim and Max Weber’s work on the history and pre-history of contract, it is argued that issues of status – the status of the unemployed and capital, amongst others – lie at the core of those contracts. Consequently, unlike analyses that equate aspects of contemporary social policy with a shift from status to contract, it is argued that contract and status are inextricably linked and that a fuller understanding of contract depends on an exploration of the non-contractual dimensions of contract

The Legitimacy of the Contracting State

Globalization challenges our understanding of the state as the main source of legitimate law. This article will take this claim one step further. Today, we may also see the decline of the state, in its modern sense, from within. Evidence for this may be found in the rising importance of contracting by the administrative state fulfilling its duties. For example, in various countries in Europe, the administrative agencies make contracts with people regarding the conditions they must meet to obtain asylum, parole, and social welfare assistance. Furthermore, there are many types of contracts between administrative agencies and private companies securing public services or promoting public policies. For example, the federal administration of Switzerland recently hired a private company to run the electronic cadastral register, a task clearly once thought of as a core responsibility of the state. In the law of continental Europe, the contract between the state and private persons – also generally known as the administrative contract – appears in two manifestations: as a private law contract between the administrative state and private persons on the one hand, and as a public law contract between the administrative state and private persons on the other. With this contract, either in the private law or the public law manifestation, the state is using the tool of legally stabilized cooperation to achieve its political goals. Thus, in the private law administrative agreement, a public element is introduced with the setting of a political goal, and in the administrative-law agreement, a traditional element of the private is introduced with the cooperation form of contract

Legitimacy and Justice in Republican Perspective

Let justice be a feature of the social order imposed by a state and legitimacy a feature of how it is imposed: one that makes the imposition acceptable. This article argues that, so understood, legitimacy is quite a distinct concern from justice; that the core concern is with showing how state coercion is consistent with people’s being free citizens; that this does not require showing that the state exists by consensus or contract; that the best hope of satisfying the concern lies with arguing that state coercion need not be dominating; and that this is possible only within the republican theory that identifies freedom with the absence of domination, not interference

Rawlsian Justice as the Core of a Game

It is suggested that the ethical notion of social contract can be formally modeled using the well-studied concept of the core of a game. This provides a mathematical technique for studying social contracts and theories of justice. The idea is applied to Rawlsian justice here

Purchasing in service triads:the influence of contracting on contract management

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate purchasing practices in service triads by exploring the link between ex ante contracting and ex post contract management and how these practices influence the satisfaction of buyers and suppliers (in concessionary arrangements) with their relationship in terms of meeting the needs of the buyer's customers.Design/methodology/approach An in-depth exploratory multiple case study was carried out in a shop-in-shop context. Multi-method and multi-source data collection included interviews, documents and the contracts between buyer and supplier, providing evidence of the formal and relational structures in both the contracting and contract management stages.Findings The case findings provide evidence that behavioural standards established in a social contract are important prerequisites for the establishment and subsequent management of a formal contract. Second, this study shows that, when outsourcing core services in a service triad, a combination of performance-oriented and behavioural-oriented contract terms, covering a mix of topics related to both the customer-experience and to buyer-supplier-oriented aspects, contribute to aligning the buyer's, suppliers' and customers' interests. The main findings are presented in a causal model and formulated as propositions.Originality/value This paper is one of the first studies to explore how core services are outsourced in a service triad. It provides evidence that the social contract between buyer and supplier influences the establishment of the formal contract as well as contract management, and a mix of contract topics, some related to the customers' experience and others purely buyer-supplier oriented, contribute to the alignment of buyer's, suppliers' and customers' interests

Living Longer on Less

Economic security for seniors was built on the three-legged stool of retirement (Social Security, pensions, and savings) at the core of the social contract that rewards a lifetime of productivity. Economic security of seniors, however, is being challenged by two simultaneously occurring trends: a weakening of the three legs of retirement security income and dramatically increasing expenses, such as for healthcare and housing. This report examines the long-term economic security of seniors, depicts current trends and suggests policies promoting the enduring well-being of seniors. Particular areas of vulnerability include: Housing45% of senior households spend nearly a third of their income on housing. 31% either rent or have no home equity to draw on in tough times; Healthcare40% of senior households spend more than 15% of their income on healthcare;Budgets1 in 3 senior households has no money whatsoever left over after meeting essential expenses;AssetsMore than half of all senior households (54 percent) do not have sufficient financial resources to meet median projected expenses based on their current financial net worth, projected Social Security, and pension incomes

On the Concept of Creal: The Politico-Ethical Horizon of a Creative Absolute

Process philosophies tend to emphasise the value of continuous creation as the core of their discourse. For Bergson, Whitehead, Deleuze, and others the real is ultimately a creative becoming. Critics have argued that there is an irreducible element of (almost religious) belief in this re-evaluation of immanent creation. While I don’t think belief is necessarily a sign of philosophical and existential weakness, in this paper I will examine the possibility for the concept of universal creation to be a political and ethical axiom, the result of a global social contract rather than of a new spirituality. I argue here that a coherent way to fight against potentially totalitarian absolutes is to replace them with a virtual absolute that cannot territorialise without deterritorialising at the same time: the Creal principle

The Ethical Foundations of Social Policy: Martha Nussbaum and Dependency

New societies require social polities based upon renewed ethical values. We are witnessing the regeneration of the ethical models that nourish social policy in a more inclusive manner, being more acquiescent with diversity than are the classical social contract and justice theories. This paper examines the regeneration of these ethical foundations from contemporary paradigms of thought, such as Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen’s, in contrast to the ones proposed by Rawls and contractarianism. Special focus is put on the problem of dependency in our societies. The conclusions drawn advocate for an inclusive social contract that embraces the diversity of human functionings and capabilities. This work also discusses the reasons why a regeneration of ethical models shaping the theories of justice, which are the core of our social order, is essential