Effective contracting for high operational performance in projects

Talent outsourcing in Ghana: A qualitative study of managed service personnel and technology leadership

Managed Service Personnel (MSPs) have become critical sources of innovation, expertise and superior technology-enhanced performance. This understanding has, however, generated conflicting outcomes, as some hold a contrary view. This study examined the contribution of MSPs to achieving organizational targets in the northern cluster of a reputable bank in Ghana in order to determine the bank's outsourcing decisions, MSP responsibilities, and how such roles compare with those of permanent staff of the bank. The study employed qualitative approaches involving group and individual interviews with 66 participants. The investigation revealed that, among others, the bank outsourced MSPs for expertise, technology, innovation, and cost efficiency. It was also determined that MSPs outperformed regular staff in the areas of technology-enabled productivity, profitability, quality services, and organizational efficiency using unmatched skills, experience, and expertise. A novelty of the study is the culmination of new insight into a performance outlook developed to help organizational leaders make informed decisions. The performance outlook also present critical implications for theory, policy, and practice.

An empirical investigation of governance mechanism choices in service outsourcing

Purpose

Drawing on transaction cost economics (TCE) theory and organizational information processing theory (OIPT), this study investigates how the alignments between the characteristics of service (i.e. task complexity and measurement ambiguity) and governance mechanisms (i.e. contract specificity and monitoring) can affect service performance.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper uses a rigorously designed survey to collect data from professionals who manage service outsourcing contracts in various industries. The respondent pool consists of randomly selected members of the Institute of Supply Management (ISM). The authors’ research question is analyzed using 261 completed and useable responses. Structural equation modeling is adopted to examine the data and test the proposed hypotheses.

Findings

The authors find that both contract specificity and monitoring have a positive impact on supplier performance. Further, for high task complexity services, contract specificity is more effective than monitoring, and for high measurement ambiguity services, the opposite is true. Moreover, the effect of contract specificity is mediated by monitoring.

Practical implications

Service outsourcers should use both contract specificity and monitoring in governing outsourced services and know that the former depends on the latter during execution. Facing resource constraints, they can prioritize crafting detailed contract provisions over implementing monitoring for highly complex services but consider monitoring as the primary governance tool in services whose outcomes are difficult to measure.

Originality/value

This study is the first to couple TCE with OPIT and consider the nature of outsourced services in the choice of governance mechanisms and empirically test the simultaneous effects of contract specificity and monitoring in the context of service outsourcing.

Public procurement capabilities as engines for collaboration and enhanced performance in complex projects

Purpose

This paper explores how public buyers' capabilities promote collaboration with private suppliers to obtain enhanced performance in complex projects.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors conducted two case studies on the procurement of complex military projects by the Brazilian armed forces involving public buyers and private suppliers. The authors followed the Gioia methodology to inductively analyze data from interviews, official documents, media articles and project meeting notes.

Findings

The authors identified public procurement capabilities that are antecedents of collaborative trust-based relationships with suppliers in complex public-private projects. The authors unpack these capabilities in three subsets: abilities to manage the bidding and contracting process, to handle relationships with prominent stakeholders, such as audit control bodies and to manage knowledge acquired within and across current and past projects. By developing these capabilities, public buyers can build collaborative trust-based relationships with suppliers, which enable the conciliation of operational performance (i.e. on-time delivery, budget and scope compliance) and policy goals (i.e. inclusion of local suppliers in supply chains).

Originality/value

The authors extend the literature on the enablers of trust and collaboration in buyer-supplier relationships by providing a detailed account of which capabilities are necessary on the buyer side in complex projects, especially when accountability standards create barriers for collaborative practices. The authors also reinforce the importance of the operations and supply chain management scholarship in policy debates by showing how buyer-supplier interactions can create value in complex projects with public and private sectors.

Managing information asymmetry in public–private relationships undergoing a digital transformation: the role of contractual and relational governance

Purpose

Inter-organisational governance is an important enabler for information processing, particularly in relationships undergoing digital transformation (DT) where partners depend on each other for information in decision-making. Based on information processing theory (IPT), the authors theoretically and empirically investigate how governance mechanisms address information asymmetry (uncertainty and equivocality) arising in capturing, sharing and interpreting information generated by digital technologies.

Design/methodology/approach

IPT is applied to four cases of public–private relationships in the Dutch infrastructure sector that aim to enhance the quantity and quality of information-based decision-making by implementing digital technologies. The investigated relationships are characterised by differing degrees and types of information uncertainty and equivocality. The authors build on rich data sets including archival data, observations, contract documents and interviews.

Findings

Addressing information uncertainty requires invoking contractual control and coordination. Contract clauses should be precise and incentive schemes functional in terms of information requirements. Information equivocality is best addressed by using relational governance. Identifying information requirements and reducing information uncertainty are a prerequisite for the transformation activities that organisations perform to reduce information equivocality.

Practical implications

The study offers insights into the roles of both governance mechanisms in managing information asymmetry in public–private relationships. The study uncovers key activities for gathering, sharing and transforming information when using digital technologies.

Originality/value

This study draws on IPT to study public–private relationships undergoing DT. The study links contractual control and coordination as well as relational governance mechanisms to information-processing activities that organisations deploy to reduce information uncertainty and equivocality.

Supply chain network and financing performance of small and medium enterprises in China: a survey and quasi-replication using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis

Purpose

This paper examines how weak ties and strong ties in the supply chain network influence the financing performance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) through the mediation of information sharing and innovation capability.

Design/methodology/approach

Questionnaires were administered to 208 financial managers responsible for supply chain finance in SMEs in China. Data analysis techniques used included multiple regression analysis and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis.

Findings

The authors found that weak ties had a more substantial impact on the financing performance of SMEs than strong ties did. Information sharing and innovation capability played a mediating role between weak and strong ties and the financing performance of SMEs. In addition, information sharing and innovation capability complement each other and jointly influence the financing performance of SMEs.

Practical implications

SMEs are suggested to actively embed themselves in the supply chain network to increase financing opportunities and reduce financing costs. The authors also recommend SMEs to enhance the level of their information sharing in the supply chain network and take advantage of their network ties to access and adopt new technology from other organisations and conduct collaborative innovation with partner institutions.

Originality/value

The paper extends the authors’ understanding of supply chain finance by exploring the intrinsic mechanism of how various constructs (weak ties, strong ties, information sharing and innovation capability) in the supply chain network have an impact on the financing performance of SMEs. In particular, the authors explore the under-researched mediating effect of information sharing and innovation capability on the relationship between network ties and the financing performance of SMEs.

Effects of cloud computing assimilation on supply chain financing risks of SMEs

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to examine how cloud computing assimilation reduces supply chain financing (SCF) risks of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). This study also investigated the mediating roles of internal and external supply chain integration between cloud computing assimilation and the SCF risks of SMEs, as well as the moderating role of environmental competitiveness.

Design/methodology/approach

Data was collected from surveys of SMEs located in China. Multiple regression analysis was used to validate the proposed theoretical model and research hypotheses.

Findings

The findings show that cloud computing assimilation could reduce the SCF risks of SMEs directly. The results also indicate that both internal and external supply chain integration mediate the relationship between cloud computing assimilation and SCF risks. Furthermore, environmental competitiveness inhibits the effects of cloud computing assimilation on SCF risks.

Originality/value

To our best knowledge, this is the preliminary study to explore the role of cloud computing assimilation in reducing the SCF risks of SMEs. Also, this study attempted to investigate the process by which cloud computing assimilation affects the SCF risks of SMEs.

Reconciling and reconceptualising servitization research: drawing on modularity, platforms, ecosystems, risk and governance to develop mid-range theory

Purpose

This research bridges disparate research on servitization, namely product–service systems (PSS) and integrated solutions (IS), to provide valuable insights for the progression of the field. It acts as a reconciliation of these research streams and offers a reconceptualised agenda incorporating recent research on platforms, ecosystems, modularity, risk and governance as key conceptual themes to synthesise and build theory.

Design/methodology/approach

This is a conceptual, theory development article focused on advancing thinking on servitization by identifying systematic and theoretically informed research themes. It also proposes future research opportunities to advance theoretical contributions and practical implications for servitization research.

Findings

By reviewing and synthesising extant PSS and IS research, this article identified five core themes – namely modularity, platforms, ecosystems, risks and governance. The importance of these five themes and their linkages to PSS and IS are examined and a theoretical framework with a future research agenda to advance servitization is proposed.

Originality/value

This paper considers the similarities and differences between PSS and IS in order to develop a theory and to reconcile formerly disparate research efforts by establishing linkages between core themes and identifying valuable synergies for scholars. The importance of the core themes and current gaps within and across these themes are shown, and a mid-range theory for servitization is positioned to bridge the servitization-related PSS and IS communities.

Governance Mechanism and Structural Power Fit: Evidence from an Information System Development Project

This study identifies how relational and contractual governance mechanisms differently influence the distinct output of information systems development (ISD) performance at the project level. This study also reveals how the consequence of two modes of inter-organizational relationships (IOR) governance mechanism is affected by the gap of a dyadic partner’s centrality within the network — the client’s structural power (CSP). We collected dyadic samples of clients and vendors for 107 ISD projects and explored their governance mechanisms and project performances, all of which were evaluated by both parties. Our results first reveal a positive relationship between relational (or contractual) governance and qualitative (or quantitative) performance, respectively, but not vice versa. Second, the results incorporating a structural position within the network reveal that CSP facilitates the efficacy of relational governance to lead the quantitative performance, but surprisingly, CSP also mitigates the efficacy of contractual governance.