Information Technology, Production Process Outsourcing, and Manufacturing Plant Performance

Abstract

spans a number of areas, including the productivity effect of information technology, the role of technology in product development, and the economics of software development. He has consulted extensively with Fortune 1000 companies as a Principal with PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting. His research on information work productivity has been featured in business publications such as Optimize.JONATHAN WHITAKER is a Ph.D. candidate in the Business Information Technology department at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business. Prior to pursuing the Ph.D., he worked ten years in technology strategy consulting and professional services with A.T. Kearney and Price Waterhouse, and earned his MBA at the University of Chicago. Jonathan's primary research focus is the use of information technology to reshape the operating characteristics of firms, with resulting implications for firm performance, vendors, and consumers. He is currently working on several research projects related to onshore and offshore business process outsourcing. His

Is the World Flat or Spiky? Information Intensity, Skills, and Global Service Disaggregation

“…Recent research has also suggested that products and services with higher information intensity have greater potential to benefit from IT (Andal-Ancion et al 2003, Dehning et al 2003. Studies at the industry (Han et al 2005), firm (Whitaker et al 2005), and plant (Bardhan et al , 2006) levels show that higher IT intensity results in greater use of outsourcing or disaggregation, perhaps because higher IT intensity allows for the separation in time and space of information-intensive activities from physical manipulation activities.…”

“…Information systems (IS) researchers have used firms (Rai et al 2006, Whitaker et al 2005) and manufacturing plants (Bardhan et al , 2006 to study the role of IT in enabling the unbundling of information and physical flows and the outsourcing of business processes, but they do not explain why information -intensive occupations are more amenable to service disaggregation, and they do not describe the mechanisms that facilitate or inhibit service disaggregation. Because decision making for resource allocation takes place at the occupation level (i.e., firms hire or retrench employees who belong to certain occupations; see Thurm 2007) and because individual employees invest in their human capital to prepare for certain occupations , it is important to understand the role of occupational attributessuch as information intensity, skill level, and the need for physical presence-in service disaggregation to advance theory and inform managerial and individual decision making.…”

Performance Impacts of Strategy, Information Technology Applications, and Business Process Outsourcing in U.S. Manufacturing Plants

“…Firms are realizing the importance of developing their outsourcing capabilities and enter into arrangements with vendors to handle both production processes (e.g., fabrication, assembly) and support processes (e.g., logistics, distribution, warehousing, information technology [IT], and product design). Similar to Cisco and Microsoft, many manufacturing plants outsource both production and support processes to achieve the efficiencies derived from the expertise of third-party companies that specialize in these business processes (Bardhan, Whitaker, and Mithas 2006).…”

Buyer Intention to Use Internet-Enabled Reverse Auctions: The Role of Asset Specificity, Product Specialization, and Non-Contractibility

“…We received 152 responses from senior executives (typical designations were President, Senior Vice President, Vice President, Director, and Manager) responsible for purchasing, materials, or procurement. The response rate of 22 percent is similar to or exceeds that of previous empirical studies using survey questionnaires (e.g., Bardhan et al 2007;Bardhan et al 2006;Grover et al 2002). Table 3 shows the characteristics of the respondent firms in terms of firm type (OEM versus component manufacturer), annual sales, and number of employees.…”